STORY
Before the war began, the small town of Borodianka near Kyiv, was home to approximately 12,500 people. On the 27th of February, 2022, a convoy of russian armored vehicles arrived here and turned life in Borodianka into a living hell: tanks and artillery fired away at civilians on the ground, while fighter jets dropped multi-ton bombs upon them from the skies. Ten apartment buildings have been destroyed on Tsentralna Street alone. Some of them can never be restored: the russians have turned them into ruins.
The first days of the full-scale invasion were spent by Serhii and his mother in the basement of a neighboring building, as many others did. At one point, they went back to their apartment to take some things and when they returned, the building was no longer there: russian aviation dropped a bomb directly onto the building. Many people died in the rubble that day. Serhii decided that they had to evacuate.
At first, they left for the village of Kozyntsi, and from there — to Zakarpattia. But already in April, immediately after Kyiv oblast was freed, Serhii and his mother returned. They lived in a garage for a time, later returning to their apartment.
Part of the building was burnt down, all the windows were shattered, doors were ripped off their hinges, electricity and communications were completely gone — all because of enemy shelling. To keep the apartment warm in winter, Serhii had to drill a hole in the wall and install a furnace. All cooking was done using a tank of natural gas, and water was brought over from a well at a nearby chapel.
Serhii hopes that his home will be restored as soon as possible:
“I’ve lived here for 37 years. Kind of attached to this place. I just hope it will be restored.”
