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We were sitting in the kitchen, having lunch. We were planning to go for a walk. An air raid alert started.
We quickly went to our shelter — our hallway. Since February 24, we always go to the hallway.
The missile that flew in — you couldn’t hear it at all. The explosion wasn’t that loud; it felt like the missile got stuck inside the building.
Slabs started collapsing. The sound — like dominoes falling.
I immediately pulled my niece close. I wasn’t crying; I tried to calm her. She kept repeating: “I’m scared.”
We heard people screaming. Terrible, horrifying screams. I still hear them to this day.
The two-wall rule saved us. We got away with minor scratches. Our whole family survived by a miracle.
My parents ran into the kitchen and said the neighboring stairwell was gone.
There was heavy smoke. The cars next door were on fire, and all the fumes were pouring into the apartments. Breathing was practically impossible.
My niece was the first to think clearly. She said: “We need to wet some cloths.” We soaked them, held them to our mouths.
We started gathering things. We tried to find Alisa, the cat, but couldn’t. We packed bags: some food, water, documents, and started going downstairs.
Emergency responders were banging on doors. They said: “Are you alive? Come out.”
We knocked on the neighboring apartments too — nobody answered; the neighbors must not have been home. We went outside.
My sister and her husband met us. They live 15 minutes away by car. We stood in the courtyard for a while, looking at the horror.
The scenes were terrible — everything in smoke, visibility about three meters. The cars that had been opposite my window were charred, like something out of an apocalypse.
We drove to my sister’s husband’s apartment. Drank sedatives, chamomile tea. Ate and tried to sleep.
Before bed, my niece was telling her mom about the moment we sat in the hallway: “There were such terrifying sounds — peacocks screaming loudly.” Her child’s psyche heard peacocks screaming, not people.
I was very worried about our neighbor from the first floor. It was her stairwell that the missile hit. She was standing in the kitchen, and a piece of shrapnel hit her in the back.
The shrapnel was removed while she was conscious, and she was stitched up while conscious. They survived by a miracle — they even found their guinea pig.
Today in the car, I cried for the first time (the interview was recorded on January 15 — SP). It was terrifying to enter the apartment again. I paused for a second, exhaled, pulled myself together, and went in: I needed to collect things, my mosaics, documents.
We searched every nook the cat could have crawled into, opened the wardrobe. She was sitting there terrified, trembling. We put some calming drops on the back of her neck; she relaxed a little.
Our apartment is in a state of emergency. All the windows were blown out, the TV and cabinets, all the glass objects were shattered. The Christmas tree fell over; all the ornaments broke.
The building is quite long, but windows were blown out everywhere. Even five stairwells away. They said they’d first clear the rubble, then assess the condition.
They may demolish it. It’s very sad — I can’t wrap my head around it. I grew up in that apartment, lived there 27 years. I have my own little room; I started my mosaic journey in that room, made my first works there.
We have a close-knit neighborhood. On February 24, everyone was making Molotov cocktails. Everything still feels like a fog: it’s hard to believe that people you knew are gone.
