By Georgia Michael
Saturday afternoon. In a settlement that knew firsthand what it meant to be a refugee. It was there that Sveta with her 23-year-old twin daughters and 35-year-old Tania with her two-year-old twin girls were to be accommodated. The door of the house of Irina, who has been married for years in Cyprus, opened. Dog eyes with a numb smile of welcome. Leah and Andrea, while playing on the floor, got up picked up their new toys and began to look around. "They're used to it now. Everyone brings them gifts but they're still scared," Irina said, showing me to my seat on the big couch.
"These are people who had everything. Sveta had her own hair salon in Kanatop. Her twins finished dentistry, worked and did their master's degrees in Kiev at the same time. Tanya had her own dental practice and lived with her husband and she lived in Kanatop with their little girls. They had a hard time getting them and now they moved away from their father. The men were left behind." Irina tried to put me on the path of their lives before they faced the horrors of war.
Kanatop, the last town before Russia, was occupied from Day 1... "My brother lives in Moscow."
Despite the scenario of Russia's imminent invasion of Ukraine, no one thought this would happen. "We live only 100 kilometers away from Russia. We speak Russian. My brother and his family live and work in Russia. We never thought something like this would happen," Sveta said with a look of both despair and reflection.
And yet it did. Their town was occupied from the very first day. "They came in from three sides with tanks. We have many camps, a military airport, a factory producing parts for helicopters. Everything was bombed." Their home was only five minutes away. No one could enter or leave the city. They had their two little angels with them so they decided to take the risk and move to a nearby village. You couldn't even find diapers for the little ones. At Tania's godmother's house we at least knew that we would find food for the little ones as she had a field where she planted various crops and kept them. Her goat's milk was reserved for the girls and because Leah likes bread so much and it was not available in quantity, the adults avoided eating so that there was more left for the little one."
"It's nothing. Uncle hits it with a hammer."
None of them until then knew what war was. The piercing sound of the warning siren of imminent bombing became their daily routine. They heard the explosions and the bombings and they were afraid. Their mom tried to reassure them by telling them it was their uncle and he was hitting them with a hammer. Every time the siren rang Tanya would shout the "hide and seek" to the adults and so the children also learned that when they heard it, one had to run to daddy and the other to mommy so they could dress them very well and go to the basement. It was actually next door to the house. You'd open a door and you'd go downstairs. That's where they kept fruit and potatoes. It's very small, it barely fit us. It was very cold, it was very damp. We were notified by a mobile app when the attack was over and we would go back home until the next time." But no one knew when it would be. In the next five minutes, in the next hour... No one.
Dreams were also shattered in Kiev
At the same time, Kiev was now preparing for attacks. Lisa and her twin sister were awakened at 05:30 by the sound of the explosion. Their apartment was near the airport that was bombed. They didn't understand what had happened. They called friends and acquaintances. The nightmare woke up. "Tania's best man called us and told us to get ready, get what you need and go down to the basement of the apartment building to hide."
But they looked out the window of their apartment and saw people running around in panic and decided to go to the subway, where they stayed for an hour. But I felt insecure. Together with the girl who alerted them and her 5-year-old son, they decided to cross to the left side of the river. There were single-family homes there and they thought they would be safer. They only stayed for one day as in the evening Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian aircraft and its wreckage hit and destroyed nearby houses. Then they realized they were not protected there either. Soldiers they knew helped them back again. Yet wherever they went they were in danger. They wanted but could not be near their parents as Kanatop had been closed off. So they decided to flee to Poland or Romania. They left by train but the journey was not easy as not all areas were accessible. The good thing was that all these days they were in contact with his parents and they knew he was okay.
"The worst thing is to know that your children are in danger and there is nothing you can do."
Before she even opened her mouth she knew that the memories would make her cry. Sveta's shaky voice tried to describe how she felt when her girls were many miles away from her. "They were alone in Kiev. We communicated but I could feel their fear on the phone. Apart from 'I'm scared, I'm scared', they had nothing else to say. The worst thing is that you know your children are in danger and there is nothing you can do to help them. Until they left for Poland and I calmed down a bit but still there was the fear that they might never meet again."
14 days after the war and as the situation became more and more difficult, Sveta and Tania and the twins would leave for the Polish border. A distance of about 17 hours that would take, due to the circumstances, a week. They learned about the humanitarian corridor that would open in Sumy and they would leave from there. They got in the car with their husbands and headed towards roads they knew tanks could not cross.
The heartbreaking time of farewell and the crying of the little ones that broke everyone's heart
They all managed to reach the border safely. But there was no joy. Relief, yes, but the pain of separation tore their hearts out.
"At the border there were also many people who were calmer because they had not experienced the bombing and destruction. For us it was painful because we knew where our men would return. If it wasn't for Tania and the twins and since I knew that my daughters were now safe in Poland I would have stayed with my husband," Sveta testified.
They were going to something new and so they thought they would... somehow fool their little girls. "We didn't expect the little ones to cry so much. We tried to show them that we were going to something new but they were screaming from crying. They wanted their daddy. Then we all broke down. Even when we contacted them again to see if they were okay, our husbands were crying like little kids too."
The reunion, the trip to Cyprus and the language barrier to finding a job
For two weeks the young dentists stayed with an acquaintance in a small town in Poland. "We didn't sleep. We felt safe but our parents, friends and acquaintances were in the throes of war," Lisa said.
Sveta and Tania were hosted by another family of acquaintances in a town 200 kilometers away from Warsaw. Sveta's meeting with her daughters happened by chance. They found each other the next day in Warsaw when they went to get food. With tears in their eyes they reported that when they realised they had met again they ran like never before to get into their mother's arms.
The next stop was Cyprus, where Irina was waiting for them. They feel grateful that they managed to find a safe home but... it's not their country. They don't know the language and this is a big obstacle. The 23-year-old girls are looking for a job, but apart from their mother tongue and Russian, they know only a little English. They say they could employ and entertain children, which they did before they started working as dentists. Although they hope this will all be over soon and they will return home.
"They cry when they see their father... The picture of those left behind is different."
Their soul is in Ukraine with their dads and husbands. No matter how much one offers them there is still this huge void.
"They communicate through the internet. When they can't talk, there is a fear that something bad has happened. When the little girls see their daddy they cry and look for him. The parents cry too. They were very close to their father, too. They encourage each other. Sometimes they have no words. They just sit and look at each other. They don't complain. Things are difficult," says a tearful Irina, who tries in every way and in her own pain to make them forget at least a little.
"The picture of those left behind is different. They have lost a lot of weight, their eyes have dark circles. They have no food. They were trying at every opportunity to go out of town to buy whatever they could find yeast, sugar, onions to take to families to eat. But now there is no gasoline or medicine. They sit and wait themselves out. For now in ours they have water. People are looking for food through social media. They write, for example, if someone can sell me some milk or some flour and they make exchanges. Last week they opened a humanitarian corridor twice, but because in Sumi they bombed it once, now people are afraid."
Even for those who fled the war continues
Sveta confesses that if all this lasts for years she would like to return even so next to her husband. The days pass slowly. What they have experienced cannot be put out of their minds. People they know are dead, people they know are still in danger. "An eight-year-old child who was in the park with the twins had moved with their family near us from Donetsk, where there had been fighting in recent years, and his psychology was already shaken. At some point when the sirens sounded this little child died of fear. He was so scared that he tried to breathe but couldn't. Another child, about five years old, suddenly stopped talking. Probably out of fear. We cannot forget them."
Their own children were spared from the rockets but their little children's souls have been stigmatized. When they come out they say that in Cyprus the "hammer doesn't blow". Before the war they were lively and active, now they are quieter. What do they need now? To reunite their family. To hug their daddy again. To see their mum smiling from her heart. For the "hammer" to stop blowing in Ukraine and never to sound again anywhere.
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
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