Oleksandra Tyshchenko from Enerhodar
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Hello, we are a family of IDPs from the city of Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhya region. Now I am staying with my relatives in Vinnytsia region, but my husband and I are planning to move somewhere in the city of Zhmerynka when he is transferred to Zhmerynka. Because here in the village there is no work, there is help, but very rarely for IDPs. More often we get calls about help from Zhmerynka, and not always, once every six months.
My husband serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but he was injured on duty, so he is of limited use. Now he is in Kharkiv region, we are trying to transfer him somewhere closer to us, to Vinnytsia region.
When the war broke out, I remember as well as I can now that I was going to work. Before the war, I worked as a sales assistant in a multi-brand store. The children had to go to school, but everyone started writing in the chat room that it was too loud, that they were afraid, and that they would not take their children to school. I left my child at home, but she was left alone because my husband got a call from the military enlistment office. In 2022, his contract expired and he was thinking about whether to continue his service or not, he served at the Zaporizhzhya NPP. He went there before the occupation and joined the Armed Forces. We stayed there, and then the occupiers tried to enter Enerhodar, but people, many people from our city gathered at the checkpoint to prevent them from entering. For this purpose, a bus from Zaporizhzhya NPP was even sent to the checkpoint so that people could comfortably get there and stay there for 2-3 days. And then the invaders did come in, it was March 3, 2022, it was very loud, our guys who stayed to defend the Zaporizhzhya NPP were there. But we thought it would end quickly, we thought someone would help us. But this did not happen, and we remained under occupation.
My daughter and I lived under occupation for 5 months. We studied online as long as the Internet was available. We lived in the occupation in the hope that the moment would come when we could leave safely. I am also a former military officer, I have a lot of military documents, so all these 5 months we were thinking about how to leave. But we managed.
My daughter’s name is Angelina, she was 10 years old when we left Enerhodar, I really didn’t want to do it, I love my city very much… It was scary when we were leaving too, but at our checkpoint they checked only our passports, and we took our cats with us. I have three cats and I hid my military documents in their pillows because I was very scared that if they found them, I would be lost somewhere…
We were traveling for a day, we were very lucky, we found a very good carrier. We were traveling through Vasylivka, where the occupiers held us for a long time at a checkpoint, checked the bus, but did not touch mothers with children. It took us a day to get to Zaporizhzhya.
I really want to return home to my hometown. I have a mother and a brother there, he works at the station, they don’t let them out, so he stayed with his family, he says I have everything there… where will I go… And my mom has a lot of cats and can’t leave the apartment.