Yana, Kharkiv/Italy

I dreamed that I was back in Kharkov. Walking down the street with a stroller. I hear explosions and see a black cloud of smoke in the distance. I ask myself
the question: why did I come back? It’s not safe for children here. And I am covered by the same terrible animal fear for the lives of children, loved ones, cowardly fear for my own. I feel ashamed and scared at the same time.

I wake up, and my heart is pounding again, as it was on February 24, in the early morning, when I woke up from the explosions, already realizing what it was, but still not believing. How does it not jump out of the chest when it rushes as if from side to side, this stupid heart?

Now I ‘m safe, with my family in Italy, my children are nearby, I’m hugging the youngest (he is about to turn 10 months old) to myself and I try not to think what would have happened if we had stayed in Kharkov. I try not to remember how I cried in in the corridor, going down the wall to the floor — from fear, impotence, horror that I will not save the children, and how will I have to look them in the eye if everything starts to collapse from the bombing and they realize that this is the end …

I am from a Ukrainian-speaking family, but Kharkiv made me Russian-speaking. And not a single damn Bandera came to protect me… But the Russian world came.
Protect what is not needed. No need! In Ukraine, you can speak any language you want, I, a living and not yet completely crazy from what is happening, am proof of that. Not once in Ukraine, even in Lviv, I did not hear the question, the claim because of my Russian language.

Year a year ago, Russian troops were already standing at the borders of Ukraine, but the idea that a war would begin seemed far from reality. Our neighbors, migrants from Lugansk, packed up and left in two days with the words: “Guys, Russia will bomb you.” We didn’t believe it, we were too careless… their prophecy came true a year late