"Now we will be shot"
In April 2022, a nurse from Kherson, Elena Bova, and her daughter Polina (now 57 years old and 31 years old) met and talked with the military from the LPR.
"Ukrainian propaganda kept saying that if civilians took to the streets, we would be beaten, killed, raped. When we first met the Luhansk military, my first thought was: "Well, that's it, now we will be shot." Naturally, no one was going to touch us with a finger. The soldiers turned out to be adequate guys. They told how they themselves had been sheltering their children from shelling for the last eight years, "she recalls in an interview with RT.
One day, when the fighters went from house to house and offered help, Elena was the only one of the residents who opened the door for them. "Immediately in the home chat, everyone began to write: "What a fool!" And the military simply asked: "Do you need something?" We refused to help, they will give us their last. But they still brought us some kind of treat, "says the woman.
According to Elena, the military has helped her and her family more than once. Bova's neighbors did not encourage friendship with fighters from the LPR: "When I took humanitarian aid, they whispered to me from the bushes: "Fascist! You're going to get drunk now." And soon relations deteriorated with colleagues - I could no longer hold conversations about how bad and cruel Russians were.
The woman also recalls that after the region came under the control of the Russian Federation, the financial situation of her family improved significantly: "Before that, a communal apartment cost a lot of money, they saved on everything in order to somehow live. Taking into account the harmfulness of the work, I received only 7 thousand hryvnia (about 15 thousand rubles. - RT) and could not buy a sofa to replace the broken one - it stood on books for eight years. And then the Russians came to the administration, and my salary became 62 thousand rubles. When I saw this money, I was in complete shock. That same day, I went and bought a new sofa because I could finally afford it."
"We made it at the last moment"
Women did not think about moving to Russia until the end of September 2022. "Then there was an aggravation, they began to shoot more actively. I was scared - not so much for myself as for my daughter, "the nurse recalls.
Elena had no relatives or acquaintances in Russia. Polina was friends with a guy from Krasnoyarsk for a long time, as they played the same online game. He invited the women to move to Krasnoyarsk, promising to help in any way he could.
- © Photos from the personal archive
On October 20, Elena and Polina took a cage with Ricky's parrot, a bag with things and left Kherson. "Ricky is our favorite, so we took him in the first place. We didn't even think about the rest. We managed to leave almost at the last moment. At seven in the morning we passed the ferry crossing at the Antonovsky bridge, on which missiles were fired at noon, "Bova tells RT. "We drove to Alyoshki, then to Armyansk, from there to Dzhankoy and there we boarded a train to Anapa."
In Anapa, women were placed in a boarding house. According to Elena, after breakfast on the first day, she and her daughter returned to the room and saw that they were cleaning up there.
"It has become so uncomfortable for us that we, adult women, are also cleaned. We went to the administration and offered our help. They said that free hands are always needed, so we also began to put things in order in the rooms. I was unpleasantly surprised by the reaction of refugees like us. Some found fault, they say, it was possible to clean up two or three times a day, others accused us of doing this in order to rake money with a shovel. In general, we worked in such an atmosphere for a week, and then apologized and politely refused. Moreover, it was necessary to deal with papers, "she recalls.
In January, Elena and Polina had all the necessary documents: "We were given financial assistance - 100 thousand rubles and a housing certificate. But we couldn't just pack up and go to Krasnoyarsk. A foundation was required - a job in this city or an apartment. We started looking, but at first no one wanted to deal with housing certificates."
"You will be exiled to Siberia"
The move to Krasnoyarsk took place on March 30. The family began to draw up documents for the apartment, but there were problems with finding a job: without registration, Elena could not get a job in the hospital. "If we had made a temporary registration for me to get a job, we would have lost the right to a housing certificate," the woman explains.
It was possible to resolve this issue only in mid-June. Elena received a certificate of re-certification, which she took place from the moment of arrival in Krasnoyarsk, at the same time she taught courses for teenagers on first aid in peacetime. Polina applied to the university because she had to drop out of the university in Ukraine.
"Then all educational institutions were translated into Ukrainian, which Polina did not know. My daughter was forced to go to work in Poland, there were terrible conditions and attitude towards her. During the entire shift, they didn't even let them go to the toilet, but only "curva" was addressed. Shortly before the start of the NWO, my daughter returned home and began working in IT. But Polina is self-taught, we want her to get a diploma, "says Elena Bova.
Women do not regret that they came to Russia. But their departure was not accepted by other relatives, sighs Elena: "When I left, I wrote to all my relatives not to worry. She told me how I live in a boarding house by the sea, they feed me, they gave me money, a certificate for an apartment and no one offends. And they began to say: "You did wrong, you will be exiled to Siberia." It turned out ridiculously that we ended up going there ourselves. To this, relatives began to write that there was no gas, electricity, water. I told them: "What are you reading? Well, nothing, let's move into an apartment, I'll send them a video, let them see for themselves.
What is now with Elena's house in Kherson, she does not know. "I have no one to ask. When I tried to be interested, I received only rudeness in response. I only know that our house was hit by a shell fragment and the apartment opposite was completely bombed. Apparently, there is also some damage in ours," says Bova. "But when we get an apartment here, I won't need it anymore. We will have housing, and that's good."