Alina’s Story
Morning 5:00 am.
February 24 divided our lives to before and after. Only “before" will never happen again and "after" is fear, pain, and horror of not knowing what’s going on…
My name is Alina, I'm from the beautiful city of Akhtyrka, which was the first to bear the attack of Russian troops. My husband is in the military and defends our native land. On the other hand, I had to flee with my two children, daughter Dasha, 1 year old, and son Egor, 6 years old, to save their lives.
Before the war, I never thought of leaving my hometown and my country. Even once the war started, we lived under shelling for exactly 12 days. We lived in a basement for that time until heating, gas, electricity, water, and all communications disappeared and the city had been destroyed!
Only then I decided it was time to save our children.
On March 8, when the whole world was celebrating International Women's Day, I received a call from my friend. She said, “Alina, we are leaving, you have to make up your mind. You must save your children."
After another night, when our windows were shuttered, part of the house destroyed, and 12 nights of sleeping in the basement to the sound of military aircraft dropping bombs on our city, I quickly put my children's things in a bag and we left.
We drove through all of Ukraine, through hundreds of checkpoints, five days on the road, children crying, and millions of people around who did not understand what to do. There was panic and devastation everywhere.
At night, in the city of Chop, we crossed the border to Hungary – not understanding where to go next. It was dark and cold outside, a sleepless night. But kind people helped me and my kids get to the railway station, where we were given free tickets to Budapest.
Whenever the train picked up speed, my son would fall between the seats and cover his head with his hands. The sound would remind him of military planes flying overhead and he thought we would get bombed again. I’d never cried as much in my life as I did during these days.
My heart was torn between a house where there was nothing left and somewhere out there in the cold and the dark, my beloved Sergei. My husband, the best dad to our children, who is protecting our land. And at the same time, our children need to be saved, and brought to safety.
I don’t know if we would see each other again, but I pray and do not lose hope!
On the train we met a wonderful woman named Aneta who told us where to go next and how to get tickets to Wroclaw, where we were reuniting with my sister.
There seemed to be no tickets left from Budapest to Wroclaw. But then the translator explained that there were, but they were very expensive. There were no free tickets left, we had to pay for them.
At that point, we were grateful to Tanya, a person with a huge heart, who was previously able to collect donations for us. With the donated money, we were able to buy tickets. I could not bear staying overnight with two small children in a foreign country on the floor at a train station, not speaking the language. The prospect of that was very scary.
Victoria helped us a lot in Budapest, she is a volunteer – God bless her.
We met a lot of good people along the way, without whose help I would have probably completely broken down! I will be grateful to every single one of them and will remember their names and faces all my life! I will continue giving thanks to them for helping me save my children!
At this time, my children are still afraid to sleep, afraid of loud noises, and everything that even somehow reminds them of war.
We all really look forward to when the war ends and we can be together again, be an ordinary family, where there is a father, mother, children, and there is no war.
Sergei, we love you very much and believe that we will see each other, because you promised us so…
