Volodymyr Gavrilyuk
Lysychansk
Kremenchug
How did you experience war in 2014? What do you remember from that? How old were you? How did 2014-2015 go for you?
Please tell this story in detail.
The war came 2 months after my sixteenth birthday. I met it full of absolute misunderstanding. Just suddenly - bang - and there's a war. On July 21, we lost electricity and water. We were liberated on July 25. On the 26th, there was either an evacuation or a mass leaving - I never was quite sure. And I went with my mother in the direction of the border - to Milove. The moment when my friend and I said goodbye to neighbors and relatives stuck in mind for a long time: back then, we thought that everything was just the beginning. From that moment, my independent life started. We settled in Gray Voronka, Rostov region. In Millerovo, I entered a technical school as a "Computer Operator", but graduated instead as a network operator and animator. From 2015 to 2017, I came home once a year.
"Where were you these 8 years?".
How has this time passed for you, what changed in your life since the events of 2014?
What has influenced you the most during this time?
Please write in detail.
For 8 years I lived in russia - in the Rostov region, in the city of Millerovo. I was studying at a technical school, and simultaneously learning cyber security. After graduating I went to rostov, and entered the Don State Technical University to study "cyber security" there. I started looking for the meaning of life and understanding who I am and why I am here. Visited the Amanat mosque for half a year. For six months, there was a Buddhist gathering in the "dymny dvoryk", but we just called it "garage". When I returned to Millerov, I visited the Protestant church (for about a year and a half). There I crossed paths with and got to know Pentecostals, Adventists, Lutherans, and Adamites. I moved in together with a girl for the first time. Let's say it this way, my teenage life was spent in a foreign country. In 2018, I returned home permanently, found some sort of a job, and got into a vocational school (since the diploma of the aggressor country is not valid here).
What was February 24, 2022 for you like?
Did you believe that a full-scale offensive would begin?Where are you now? What do you do?
What do you think about your future now?
The 24th for me started with the hit landing around 7:30, I think. I immediately opened telegram and understood what had started. After quickly packing, I went to my second family. We spent an hour thinking about who would go where. We said goodbye with the hope that we will meet in a week or a month. I went to Rubizhne, listening to the explosions at the same time. Doubts began to torment me there: in the news they were saying that Kharkiv had been taken, Kyiv would get captured in 5 hours... I hung around a bit, and then returned home, where I stayed until the end of March.
Now I am in Kremenchuk, in the center for displaced persons. I am engaged in sort of volunteering: I helped where I was, then helped the AFU, now we are preparing shelters in educational institutions. I don't think about my future at all, I lived the day through - that's good enough. I don't see any prospects at all. In a foreign region, alone, practically without a roof over your head. Everything is like 2014, only now I am 24 years old and by myself.
