[dogs barking]
-It was scary, it was scary every day,
it was scary in the morning and at night.
During the night because they were fighting one another
with tanks and it was frightening.
It was scary when planes were flying towards Kyiv,
they were flying right over us and we could hear them.
Then, every day --
two and a half days were particularly horrible --
[the Russians] were coming forth like cockroaches.
They would be fought back and keep coming again.
It was too scary to leave.
We had missiles flying over us all the time.
This here is my house.
Thank God it survived.
I'll open it and show you everything,
only I have a dog, it's small but loud.
My baby! Where's my baby, my defender, my little guard.
[dog sneezes]
I have windows here, I'll show you. All shot through.
I couldn't even clean it up
because we were afraid they had thermal imagers.
This is a shell fragment, we'll keep it as a memory.
It's usually just me living in this house,
but I also have my grandkids and my daughter.
They come here on weekends.
This is the little girl's room,
it's the lightest and the warmest one.
[inhales shakily]
[exhales sharply]
Well, it's no longer warm because the windows are broken,
so it is cold and there's plenty of trash.
We'll clean it up and it will be fine.
I haven't spoken with my daughter since March 2.
She said, "Mom, if there's no proper connection,
please text us."
[sniffles]
I would send them, but they wouldn't get through.
I would get messages that my text hadn't been sent.
And then, while my smartphone was still working,
I'd rewatch Viber videos,
as if I was talking to them, reread [their messages],
and then that ended too.
And that's it, I was left alone with my dog.
If you can film in the dark,
I'll show you where we were sitting for a month.
Just be careful on my stairs.
We ran out of everything.
In the beginning, we had light bulbs like this,
but they all burned out.
When there were fights,
the noises were coming from everywhere.
We have vents, but you can see they are closed.
When they are open, it is so unbearably frightening.
It was scary.
I read prayers all the time, standing on these stairs,
because I have no icons.
So I stood on the stairs
and prayed and prayed and prayed all the time.
[sighs]
We lived here from February 27 to this day.
Today I decided to go out and change the blankets,
because it's impossible to sit here like this anymore.
[birds chirping]
I still can't reach [my daughter].
I went out to see if I could find network anywhere,
even for a second, to call and hear her voice.
[sniffles]
Hear all their voices.
To know they are fine.
[birds chirping]
I'd like to look in the eyes of
the people who masterminded it all and who did this.
The only question we had all the time was: What for? Why?
What have we done?
We were living peacefully, not bothering anyone.
Why was this done to us?
[sighs heavily, sniffles]