Russian war against Ukraine. My experience
It’s been 52 days since the war started and I am finally ready to sum up everything I’ve been going through.
On the 24th of February, I woke up at 4am to the sound of explosions. Since there has already been a lot of tension prior to war, I would regularly wake up early to the sound of fireworks, thinking Russia has invaded. My initial thought on the 24th was the same, so I went back to sleep. For some reason, I couldn’t. 30 minutes later decided to check my phone - that’s how I found out. Immediately called my mom, she was still sleeping and she first stated I was just panicking. 10 minutes later she called me again and told me to pack my things as she’s going to pick me up. 7 am, the traffic was already insane, endless queues to petrol stations and ATM’s. We just sat in silence with my mom in the car, none of us could really process what’s going on. All of a sudden the world just felt completely different. It has never felt the same ever since...
Shortly after we came home the air sirens begun and Russia started bombing Kyiv heavily.
Bombardments are definitely the scariest thing to happen at war, since you never know which building is going to be hit. So the only thing you can do is to either hide in a bomb shelter, which we didn't have near our home, or find a corridor away from the windows at home and just pray for the best.
The first 3 days were completely horror. None of us could sleep, eat or even talk properly. During this period my worst fear was to die, the thought of death caused me to have the worst panic attacks I've ever had in my life. But after a few days, the whole perception of death completely changed. I am not afraid to die anymore. The only thing you can do in such situation is just accept the reality the way it is, otherwise you’ll go insane. That's how I slowly started to do small regular things, like cooking and cleaning up. It helped me a lot.
After about a week my mom asked me to take my little brother outside of Ukraine. She wanted us to leave the country to be safe, but wouldn’t go with us because she didn't want to leave her husband (men from 18yo cannot leave the country). This was the hardest decision of my life. I knew I had to take care of my brother first, but that would mean Im leaving my mom behind. She took us to the railway station, we took the first train we could fit into to Chop (a very small town right at the boarder with Hungary). Mom had to spend the night at the railway station because of the curfew and I cried the whole night in train. The pain and despair Ive felt at the moment is unexplainable. The worst thing is that this mental pain turned physical, my chest was literally ripping apart and I couldn't do anything about it. I wanted to be taken care of, but from that point on, I was the adult in the situation and had to take care of my brother first.
When we came to Chop, we took a train to some town in Hungary. It was a complete disaster. People were screaming, pushing each other, stepping on feet just to get on the train. I felt like the chance of getting killed in the crowding was way higher that getting killed by Russians. Besides, there were journalists who took endless photos and videos of us, which only added to the disaster. This world is fucking ugly.
Part 2 in the next post.