The Siege of Chernihiv: The Story of One Family

The morning news reported that a war had begun in Ukraine. Martial law was enforced throughout the country. When I heard that Russian troops had crossed the border and were advancing, I didn’t perceive it as a serious threat. I called the office and found out that all the employees were told to temporarily switch to working remotely.

I come from the city of Chernihiv. It is one of the most ancient cities in Ukraine, with its history dating back to the times of Kyivan Rus. Chernihiv has experienced many upheavals throughout its history. My relatives, my dad and my old grandma, as well as a tomcat and a molly cat, live in Chernihiv. On the day of the Russian invasion, I was in Kyiv. The sun was shining and it was warm outside. My father called me and said that the approaching artillery fire could be heard through the windows. Chernihiv was shelled from Grad artillery systems. Residents were asked to stay inside.

Despite the bad news, I decided to go to Chernihiv. The entrance to the Red Line of the Kyiv metro was closed. Traffic was paralyzed in Kyiv. I got to the Lisova metro station and didn't see a single bus there. I felt lost for a moment. But then I remembered about the commuter train. I took my passport and went to the Darnytska station. The dark-skinned, slim woman at the ticket counter informed me in a low voice: "The connection with Chernihiv is closed."

I called my grandma. My grandma’s name is Tamara, she is a long-lifer. There are very few people of her age among the city residents. Grandma is 92. She survived the Second World War and has lived in Chernihiv for as long as she can remember, for over 50 years. My grandma asked me several times whether Russian tanks were really near Chernihiv and whether Russians were really shelling our city from artillery systems.

“Yes, grandma”, I answered. “No one believes in war, but it is real. Chernihiv is surrounded by Russian troops.”

And then the bombing of Chernihiv began: unbearable hours and days of non-stop explosions, when it was impossible to tell where the terrible roar and gunfire were coming from. Street fighting broke out, and one by one, the city apartment buildings started to lose electricity and heating. It became very cold in the apartments, so I slept fully clothed.

The United News TV and radio channel transmitted information about the course of actions during the siege of the city. They said: “You need to survive and hold out as long as possible.” As soon as the internet was back on, I entered the phrase "city siege" in the search. The search rendered a government website page, with tips on how to survive and what one needs to have in the event the Russian offensive intensified. They explained: “The main thing is to maximize the chances of survival. At home you should have a large supply of water, food that doesn’t spoil for a long time and doesn’t need to be cooked, flashlights, matches and candles, warm clothes, charged power banks, personal protective equipment, a piece of white sheet (during evacuation, it can be worn over clothes to identify you as a civilian). You need to know the address of a shelter, have a first-aid kit with the most important medical drugs, mobile communications and identification documents.” I checked what things I had from the list and packed an emergency bag, in order to quickly evacuate in case the situation got worse.

My grandma and I live separately, so I asked her to pack the essentials and identification documents too, in case of an evacuation. In her youth, my grandma listened to the radio so as not to miss any news about the war. She was waiting for victory. My father tried to buy food and stood in long lines for hours to feed the whole family. Whenever we had electricity and the internet, I searched for ways to leave the city and for refugee asylums abroad. I constantly googled, hoping to find the locations of aid centres for Ukrainians, so I could find an asylum for us.

Beside us, there were also cats in the house. Red Marquis and grey Martha. They were having a hard time. Frightened by the terrible stories about abandoned dogs and cats in Kyiv during the evacuation, I knew that I would do anything to make it less traumatic for them. Just like for humans, the most important things for cats are water, food and peace. I remembered my favourite TV show "My Cat From Hell" starring Jackson Galaxy, a famous American expert in cat psychology, who has saved the lives of thousands of animals. I still remember his words: “Don’t disturb the animal, don’t frighten it, let it be in a safe place, don’t take it out of its hiding place.” So I didn't disturb them.

"My Cat From Hell". I remembered the series with a smile. The real hell was in Chernihiv. If someone thinks cats are animals from hell, well, so be it. But the real hell is war, shelling and people’s deaths. Hell is the normal world collapsing before your eyes. All living things around felt horror, anxiety and restlessness. The animals were terrified. I looked at them, in their frightened, round eyes that asked: “What’s going to happen to us?”

My grandma called me. I heard her crying on the phone. This scared me.

“What happened?” My hand gripped the phone, my heart pounded somewhere in my throat.

“Aunt Nadia, my neighbour, came by...oh my God, oh my God... what a disaster...it’s worse than the worst nightmare. I can't believe it...disaster, terrible disaster, such a loss...”

“What happened?”

“Our neighbours...children died...The shelling hit their house, it caught fire. The children couldn't get out...The horror of this! She came by to commemorate her family...we’re sitting at the table...she's crying...they don’t bury bodies in Chernihiv these days. The morgue is bursting at the seams...Dead bodies keep pouring in... they no longer know where to put the dead...Russian soldiers are at the cemetery. Yatsevo...they struck the cemetery, monsters...”

My grandma was born in 1930, prior to the Second World War, in the Russian city of Kursk. She has experienced a lot throughout her life: The Second World War, the Soviet regime, the declaration of independence of Ukraine. She was only 11 years old when the war started in 1941. Since my childhood, she and my grandfather, who had fought at the front, told me a lot about the Kursk arc and the tank battle near Kursk. I have known since childhood that war was very scary.

Grandma was crying.

“Nadia can't cry anymore...and I can't find the words to comfort her. She looks at the pictures time and time again...She chastises herself for not having been in their place with uncle Viktor...oh, what a disaster...She brought me some beets and cabbage. I’m going to make borshch...”

Every day it was more difficult to buy bread and food in Chernihiv. We stood in lines at the other end of the city for six hours to buy a few loaves of bread. Our favourite bakery was destroyed by shelling. I could feel the fear of death spreading through the city. The power was out, refrigerators turned off, the internet didn’t work. We exchanged news with acquaintances when we met, in lines or at the entrances to our apartment buildings. The phone service was bad.

When the siege began, the city residents moved to their country houses. They had stoves and heating, and were farther away from military men, while battles were already raging on several streets of the city. One day, they started dropping bombs on the Stara Podusivka country estate near the pine forest. A shell hit our country house. The slate flew off, a big hole was formed in the roof. When I arrived at the country house, I saw several shell fragments near an apple tree.

I was frightened, both of the explosions and of the state of uncertainty that had been going on for almost a month. I felt terrified as sirens blared throughout the city. The local authorities advised the residents to go into the bomb shelters, in order to protect their own lives. The bomb shelters were not suitable for a long stay. These were basements of local government buildings or semi-dilapidated basements of apartment buildings. We decided to stay at home. Whatever will be, will be.

There were line-ups everywhere. The few shops that were open in Chernihiv attracted crowds of people every day. One day, having travelled half the city, my father wasn’t able to buy any bread. It was on that day that the power went out in my apartment. Having no electricity was totally unbearable. My father removed the battery from the car to charge the phone, as well as to try to turn on a small light bulb. When the water supply got cut, that was the worst. During the siege, one could get water from hydrants, but the line-ups at these locations were huge. We live near the river, so we filled canisters with water, put them on carts and took them home. One can’t live without water. There were fewer and fewer food products in stores.

I called my grandma again. She could hardly hold back her tears.

“What happened?”, I exhaled into the receiver.

“My acquaintance...you know her, aunt Galia...she lives near the pilot school, her husband was killed by a shell fragment. In the afternoon, shelling began and one of the fragments wounded him right on the street. Sudden death.”

All that felt like some horror story. I couldn’t believe that people were dying from Russian weapons.

“They still don't bury the dead in Chernihiv. Aunt Galia and Yulka are crying...I can neither walk or drive to them. I have known them all my life...They say humanitarian aid is being handed out. They were given a big box of food—should last them a week or two”, sobbed my grandma.

Sirens sounded throughout the city. Endlessly. Again and again.

We tried to find at least something positive. My father got excited when Russian pilots failed to hit military targets. He knew well where the Ukrainian military were located in Chernihiv, and realized that the Russians simply missed their intended targets, the Ukrainian military were the main target. All of us began to get used to explosions and life under siege. But can you actually get used to a disaster?

The roads were blocked with anti-tank hedgehogs and the city looked like a set of a post-apocalyptic movie. Military patrols armed with automatic rifles, gunfire on the streets day and night. It seemed that it was happening to someone else. A dream from which it was impossible to wake.

My uncle Oleg stayed in the city because of his very old mother, my grandmother's age. My uncle is a painter. As a creative person, he’s emotional, sees inspiration in everything and never stops halfway. As a consequence, he remembers the times he spent in the trenches, my uncle began to hallucinate. He couldn’t cope with such a big psychological trauma on his own and ended up in a psycho-neurological hospital. My uncle perceived the world around him as unreal and illogical. Fortunately, treatment helped. I learned about that tragedy only when uncle Oleg returned home. His mother cried with happiness. She had been alone for two weeks. A neighbour brought her water and bread.

One day, my father came home from the store, opened the apartment door and heard a terrible explosion. It jolted our apartment building. The walls were shaking. After a series of explosions, there was a sudden silence. My father went outside and saw the neighbours who gathered at the entrance. The bomb hit the nearby hospital compound. A huge bomb crater was visible near the maternity ward. The blast destroyed the main entrance to the medical treatment building and blew out the glass in the surgical department. My mother used to work at that hospital as an anaesthesiologist. During her lifetime, she saved many lives. A bomb hit the district hospital, the polyclinic was destroyed by the blast wave, and several artillery shells destroyed two apartments in residential buildings nearby. There were black holes at the point of impact and gutted furniture on the side. The windows in the doorway of our apartment building were broken. The glass fragments were everywhere. I walked around the city and saw how carefully residents taped the windows crosswise, so that the glass would not fly apart from shelling or the blast injure anyone. The white crosses on the windows added to the sense of horror.

On April 2nd, happy news arrived—Chernihiv Region was liberated. The Ukrainian troops launched a counteroffensive. The Russians began to retreat. But it was clear to me that the end of the war was still a long way off.