Внутрішня міграція

Alushta — Kharkiv — Horishni Plavni — Kharkiv

I realized that my wife is almost at the epicentre of the explosions. I rushed to her. At that point, the Grad multiple rocket launcher systems started firing. Tree branches were flying over us. Shells exploded some 50-60 meters away. Shell-shocked by the explosions, birds fall to the ground. I knew then that I was running towards my death.

Dmytro Yurchenko, 27 years old

Kyiv — Vita-Poshtova — Kyiv — Ternopil — Novovolynsk — Kyiv

Always, especially when the siren goes off, I imagine a missile hitting my apartment: I see the furniture flying apart and how I get killed. I relive these moments constantly - I accept the fact that I'm going to die, and I feel better.

Sasha Oniy, 35 years old

Donetsk — Mariupol — Kyiv — Bucha — Kyiv

"What is home?" is a question without an answer for me. I don't fully understand if I have one. Little by little I try to solve this mystery, then it gets confusing again. But at that time, in Donetsk, I realized that it was not my home.

Oleksandr Manukians, 29 years old

Kharkiv — Horishni Plavni — Lviv

And now I'm writing a new song, already being put together. It's about Joseph, you know, that person from the Bible. If you read his story without knowing the end, it seems like that's the end of Joseph. Every stage — there are four or five chapters — you think, "That's a total shithole." But when you know what the ending is, you're like, "Oh, that's interesting!"

Illia Budko, 21 years old

Kyiv — Petrushky — Khmelnytskyi — Kyiv

The shelling wouldn't stop: when I went outside, my ears popped. The temperature was -8°C... The military guy called me again to ask where to pick us up, and then the shooting started on the other end of the line. I could hear him swearing, and the connection went off…

Oleksandr Shevchenko, 51 years old

Bakhchysarai — Poltava

We have everything to make our city and our country better. Because we know how to think and how to do things. The difference is that the initiative comes from below, here it's us who's evolving, while in Crimea the initiative comes from above, from the state, making people passive.

Natalia Barannyk, 28 years old

Donetsk — Kharkiv — Kramatorsk — Lviv — Kyiv

At that time, I hoped that I was leaving temporarily, but already in the winter of 2014 it became clear that was not the case. The need to leave everything in Donetsk was also motivated by the fact that I worked in a library for children there. So I knew that I would be required to propagate the pro-Russian ideology to children. And that was unacceptable to me.

Darya Zorina, 33 years old

Kharkiv — Horishni Plavni — Kremenchuk

What struck most painfully was the feeling of being a refugee. You had a home, a hometown, and a life with achievements and accomplishments. And now you are a nobody. You run around social services asking for help because you have nowhere to live. I mean, we ride with our newborn son, and we know there's a chance we'll be spending the night in a field.