A FAMILY HAS RETURNED TO A LIBERATED VILLAGE IN KYIV REGION. IRYNA GOVORUKHA
Original post: https://www.facebook.com/irmagov/posts/4932258563555380. Translated and edited by our team.
A family returned to one of the liberated villages in the Kyiv region. Wary, they entered the yard and saw a brazier, a dozen empty bottles, and dried vomit in the young grass. Farther out, everything in the house was flipped over, from matches to pillowcases. Almost everything was stolen, spoons, forks, and high-heeled shoes. Even the old ones with destroyed padding. Grinders, nutcrackers, and scotch tape are gone. The bathroom can’t be restored. It was so filthy that no amount of cleaner would fix it. It was clear that people lived, ate, and slept in the house. The most interesting was the living room. The house owner counted 14 pairs of underpants, 14 pairs of dirty soldier’s shorts, puttees, trousers, and shirts. Every last bit of her husband’s business wardrobe had been raked out. They dressed up, tied ties, put on leather shoes, and went home in full dress.
In the apartment of my relatives, who lived in Borodyanka, the Russian fascists had taken over the children’s room. It was white, clean, and sunny. There was a double-decker cot, a tiny chair, and a table. On a shelf were teddy bears. In the corner, was a collection of trucks. On the walls were pictures embroidered by their grandmother. After they left, the white room turned black. There were no bears left in it, not a single toy car intact. The soldier left his main gift on the carpet. He sat down and shat a pile.
A man was taken prisoner in Chernigovshchina. The Rashists, apparently languishing with boredom, decided to have a bit of fun and began to arrange for the poor man to be shot five times a day. They took him out blindfolded, put him on his knees, and invited his son and wife to his execution. Then they enjoyed a tender moment of farewell and fired a shot, aimed so that the bullet whizzed a centimeter from the head and into the wall. Then they took the prisoner to the barn, and, an hour later, they repeated the torture once more. And once more after that.
In the Brovary district, the “liberators” broke into the cellars and were astonished by the abundance of canned food. From the sight of tiny, as small as a little finger, cucumbers, hot plum sauce, and strawberry jam with the petals of tea roses. The only thing was that you could not take glass jars into the tank, it was not practical, so they had to break everything.
Between the village of Rozhne and Bogdanovka, frightened cows are running in the fields. It is impossible to catch them. It is unreal to approach them. Czernukhas, Zorkas, and Iriska, with eyes moist with tears and udders swollen, are scurrying on the bare grass, mooing and getting blown up by Russian mines.
A friend of mine, who lives in Bucha, had her stretch ceilings cut off by the fascists. Now they [russians] will place them in their apartment in “Shithole” village. At the place of my other friend, the plasma television was broken. It seems like they tried to remove it, but they didn’t manage to, and, despite that, they smashed it. A beauty salon owner had scissors, hairdryers, and even bowls for painting taken away. In the area with private houses, they took a shit in the children’s sandpit, right into the sand form shaped like an Easter cake. After all, everyone shares what they are rich in. Some with bread, hospitality, and love. The others with bullets, lies, and shit.
There used to be a village here called Yablonka. A little later, bus and railway stations appeared, resembling a knight’s castle. Mass construction of dachas began. The area was surrounded by flowing ponds, pine trees, and the chirping of nightingales and finches. There was no fog. Air was saturated with phytoncides, lilac bushes, and jasmine. Once there was an unhurried talk about fishing and hunting. Now people in Bucha talk about something else entirely:
“On February 24, I started smoking”.
“My son (5 years old) could not poop all the days of the occupation. He would sit on the potty, hear explosions and immediately jump up: “Mummy, I’d better poop tomorrow.”
“As we were driving along the green corridor, we were stopped by a Russian with human facial features. He looked into the car, saw the children, and asked to pick up the baby crying on the side of the road”.
“Instead of a white sheet, they tied a taped diaper to the rear-view mirror. The youngest turned ten days old on the day of the evacuation.”
“Steklozavodskaya street has been renamed ‘The road of death.'”
“A neighbor, in order not to lose her mind, would come out of the cellar, take a rag and wash the windows in her house. We would ask her, ‘Don’t wash. They’ll break them anyway.’ She clenched her teeth even tighter: “The windows have to be clean.”
“We are safe now, but I can’t leave the room even for a minute. My daughter clings to my legs and screams. So we walk everywhere as Siamese twins.”
“My uncle was taken, prisoner. He returned three days later, but hasn’t said a word since.”
“Tanks drove through the playgrounds. They drove into the yards, knocking down fences, wickets, and mailboxes.”
“The most terrible are machine gun shots. We knew straight away that civilians were being shot.”
“I worked at a school my whole life and was used to laughter and noise where there were children. There was a deadly silence in the cellar. Children were sitting with aged faces.”
“On the first day of the war, I went to the market. I wanted to get some pork and a dozen eggs. Suddenly the airplane’s rumble began to grow. One of the vendors joked that the oligarchs were probably trying to flee to the Emirates. At that moment, bombs started to fall on the airport in Gostomel. It got really scary.”
“The greatest happiness was to light a candle and get absorbed by reading. In the basement, we found the novel Angelica and the King.”
“Some people traveled in cars, some on foot. Some women were cradling newborn babies in their ‘baby bags’ and humming something. Probably lullabies.”
“Vitya (name changed) was taken prisoner two weeks later. He was handing over to the Armed Forces of Ukraine the locations of enemy points. His grandfather and I went to the headquarters every day and begged on our knees to release our grandson. They shrugged us off, “Calm down, mother.” After some time, the grandfather was killed. The “fascist” did not like the fact that he came in camouflage trousers. When Bucha was liberated, and the tortured prisoners started to be carried out, I came to identification process. My Vityusha’s genitals and fingers were missing. I cried for two days, and today I cooked borscht. I sat by the window and waited. Grandpa and his grandson should be back any minute.