When war came to my city it was impossible for me to stay alone in my apartment, so I moved to my friends who lived nearby.
At the beginning, when the bombing was constant, absolutely never ending, no business were working in the city and we were very short on food and couldn’t even get drinking water for ourselves.
Even so it always seemed like situation couldn’t get any worse, somehow it always did.
At some point we decided that it’s too dangerous to stay home and went to the subway which was not working as it supposed to, but played an essential role of the bunker for citizens.
This first article is about life there.
* * *
It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
With this thought we left the shelter...
Life in the bunker is a completely separate world. There is no time.
The sound of it is a symphony of someone's steps, coughing and snoring along with crying children and meowing cats.
My favourite thing to do there was just walking around and watching people. How they arranged their life, what they sleep on, what they eat, how they spend their time and interact with each other.
Most common way to spend their time there is just talking to each other. Many people are doing something on their phones, but since electricity is a very valuable and limited resource, they also playing card games, reading paper books and sleeping from time to time - seems like normal sleeping schedule is extremely rare here.
Maybe we are just lucky to meet such people, maybe that's war that brings us together, or maybe that is real Ukrainian spirit, but I've seen so much kindness, love and compassion around I had never witnessed before.
People there are emotionally exhausted - you can guess by the tiredness on their face how long they have been living here. But despite the exhaustion they really care about each other, even about people they see for the first time ever.
I've seen love - a mother straightened the blanket of her sleeping daughter so carefully and quietly, as if a speck of dust could wake her up, even so the noise around is incessant.
I've seen kindness - little girls who were spending time with us secretly took a little bit more of mandarins from volunteers to share with us.
One girl even invited me to pretend that I'm her parent so I could get some food too, worrying about me even so I told her we have enough of it. Her mother proposed her own blanket to us, so we would be able to lay down on it and sleep at least a little, because we forgot to take our own.
I've seen compassion - so many people were helping each other, supporting psychologically and sharing food and other things with people they barely knew.
I've seen so many people with pets - cats, dogs, even rabbit. Because they would never leave their friends at home alone.
I've seen volunteers working all night to help people around - bringing food, water and medicines.
But in the end... people are the best, the only good you can find in subway bunker.
It's a very very cold and sad world.
I was shaking from cold even so I had three sweaters and a coat on. I couldn't sleep.. not because of noise or light which is always on, or anything else but because of cold, I was waking up every few minutes because of it.
Even so all the people are staying incredibly strong no matter what, even so they are smiling, you can see how much pain they are coming through - some of them are just scared, some of them already lost their homes, some of them lost people they loved. And you can feel that. And you can't help it but to share this pain with them.
There is no privacy - even in toilet there is no doors. There is no hygiene - you are literally spending all the time sitting or, if you are lucky enough, laying on the cold and dirty subway floor. Hundreds of people are using same sink and not many of them have any soap there. And additionally, to all of it.. Maybe we forgot about the COVID because of everything what's happening to us, but it's still there.
At least the ventilation is working really well, you can breathe, you don't hear any smells, but I don't think it will save you from viruses.
* * *
It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
With this thought we left the shelter...
Life in the bunker is a completely separate world. There is no time.
The sound of it is a symphony of someone's steps, coughing and snoring along with crying children and meowing cats.
My favourite thing to do there was just walking around and watching people. How they arranged their life, what they sleep on, what they eat, how they spend their time and interact with each other.
Most common way to spend their time there is just talking to each other. Many people are doing something on their phones, but since electricity is a very valuable and limited resource, they also playing card games, reading paper books and sleeping from time to time - seems like normal sleeping schedule is extremely rare here.
Maybe we are just lucky to meet such people, maybe that's war that brings us together, or maybe that is real Ukrainian spirit, but I've seen so much kindness, love and compassion around I had never witnessed before.
People there are emotionally exhausted - you can guess by the tiredness on their face how long they have been living here. But despite the exhaustion they really care about each other, even about people they see for the first time ever.
I've seen love - a mother straightened the blanket of her sleeping daughter so carefully and quietly, as if a speck of dust could wake her up, even so the noise around is incessant.
I've seen kindness - little girls who were spending time with us secretly took a little bit more of mandarins from volunteers to share with us.
One girl even invited me to pretend that I'm her parent so I could get some food too, worrying about me even so I told her we have enough of it. Her mother proposed her own blanket to us, so we would be able to lay down on it and sleep at least a little, because we forgot to take our own.
I've seen compassion - so many people were helping each other, supporting psychologically and sharing food and other things with people they barely knew.
I've seen so many people with pets - cats, dogs, even rabbit. Because they would never leave their friends at home alone.
I've seen volunteers working all night to help people around - bringing food, water and medicines.
But in the end... people are the best, the only good you can find in subway bunker.
It's a very very cold and sad world.
I was shaking from cold even so I had three sweaters and a coat on. I couldn't sleep.. not because of noise or light which is always on, or anything else but because of cold, I was waking up every few minutes because of it.
Even so all the people are staying incredibly strong no matter what, even so they are smiling, you can see how much pain they are coming through - some of them are just scared, some of them already lost their homes, some of them lost people they loved. And you can feel that. And you can't help it but to share this pain with them.
There is no privacy - even in toilet there is no doors. There is no hygiene - you are literally spending all the time sitting or, if you are lucky enough, laying on the cold and dirty subway floor. Hundreds of people are using same sink and not many of them have any soap there. And additionally, to all of it.. Maybe we forgot about the COVID because of everything what's happening to us, but it's still there.
At least the ventilation is working really well, you can breathe, you don't hear any smells, but I don't think it will save you from viruses.
In the end of the day you feel absolutely emotionally drained, you just know that you need to come out. But you can do it only in the morning, when they open bunker doors. Some people do that, they just come out to breath some fresh air and go back. But once we did it, we understood we can't go back again.
We've seen so many people who really doesn't have a choice, who doesn't have a place to go to anymore, that we realized that at least for now we have it, and we want to use it. We don't know how long this war will continue, we don't know what will happen tomorrow. But for now, our apartment and even street around are fine so we decided to hope for the better and stay at home as long as we can.
The picture - it's me, sleeping on the subway floor. Hope it was the first and the last time ever...
I've seen a dream for the first time since this war started. In this dream we came back home and there was hot water in the tap. And surprise - when we came home, we actually finally had it. I can't express how happy I was taking a hot shower and sleeping in real bed. I literally felt myself as the happiest girl in the world just because of it and I'm grateful for every day I have all these benefits.
Just waiting for a dream about our win and the end of the war. Wish you all a peaceful sky above❤️
We've seen so many people who really doesn't have a choice, who doesn't have a place to go to anymore, that we realized that at least for now we have it, and we want to use it. We don't know how long this war will continue, we don't know what will happen tomorrow. But for now, our apartment and even street around are fine so we decided to hope for the better and stay at home as long as we can.
The picture - it's me, sleeping on the subway floor. Hope it was the first and the last time ever...
I've seen a dream for the first time since this war started. In this dream we came back home and there was hot water in the tap. And surprise - when we came home, we actually finally had it. I can't express how happy I was taking a hot shower and sleeping in real bed. I literally felt myself as the happiest girl in the world just because of it and I'm grateful for every day I have all these benefits.
Just waiting for a dream about our win and the end of the war. Wish you all a peaceful sky above❤️
P.s. - the picture of me sleeping on the floor was attached to the post in my blog but unfortunately, I can't share it here because there are other people on it.
