-I love playing chess.
My father taught me when I was five.
It's peaceful.
It makes you think creatively and make decisions.
I wish our military would sit down and sort things out
with chess and not through a scope.
Or with howitzers and missiles.
The missiles are especially scary.
They are horrible.
And that's why I'd say anywhere, on camera, on TV, in the press:
This bloody war between brothers has to be stopped by all means.
-I feel sorry for our boys, and I feel bad
for those little fools who were deceived
and sent here, too.
Each one of them has a mother.
We can't afford to leave. You leave, and what's next?
Die from hunger or live off someone?
My wife can't walk. That's one thing.
And, also, I'm almost 76, and I'm still working.
I hope God will help us.
If it's meant to be, we will die here.
♪♪
The truth will win in any case,
under any circumstances, at all costs.
How many lives need to be lost for this mental person
possessed by the devil to leave here?
He's not sane.
Dividing people, killing people...
-Well, we are feeling anxious. Our souls hurt.
We are watching TV and crying.
In Odessa, you know what? I was raised during the war.
I was born in 1936, and I remember the war very well.
I remember the occupation,
remember the Germans and the Romanians here.
I used to go to the Romanian headquarters
at the cloth factory in Slobodka
and ask them for a piece of bread.
They'd give me some bread and two pieces of sugar.
Our Opera Theater had been mined several times,
and partisans demined it, too.
And we still have it, the beauty and pride of our city.
-I was born here. My mother was born here.
My grandmother was born here -- three generations.
But years have passed. Friends have died.
Some have left... I'm alone now.
We lived like a commune before.
Someone would always bring something to their neighbors:
apples or something else.
Odessa attracts people like a magnet.
Where else would I go?
The walls hold us, make us warm.
"Odessa, Mama."
And mama will always protect us.
That's why we will never leave.
I'm 69 years old.
So, I'm not going to die yet.
I want to live at least a couple of years more.
It is a bit scary. Only our soldiers can save us.