The Cellar. People. Care. Now, every time I go into the cellar where my parents store food for the winter in our village, I always think of the people who lived here for 3 months and 18 days, starting from the very first days of the full-scale invasion. Twelve adults lived in the 20-square-meter cellar, along with shelves of canned goods and crates of potatoes. My parents, my younger sister and her family of four, and our neighbors. They spent both day and night in that cellar. The men would occasionally go outside to the well to fetch water for cooking and washing. Or to take out the bucket that everyone used as a toilet. The women and teenagers, on the other hand, stayed in the cellar the whole time and didn’t even stick their noses out into the yard, because rockets, drones, and planes were flying overhead. My dad had prepared the cellar in advance for temporary shelter because, a week before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, all media outlets advised people to pack an “emergency bag,” so my dad brought blankets, pillows, water bottles, grains, clothes, and even nailed a rug to one of the cellar walls for comfort. In short, he set up the cellar to make it more comfortable, so it wouldn’t feel so scary. They even had a so-called “kitchen” set up in one corner, in another—a sort of bathroom and toilet, and the rest was a relaxation area: Dad simply laid boards on top of the potato crates, and on top of those, mattresses and a blanket… The cellar was a place of refuge from the war and a symbol of strong unity for all of us. Now, every time I go into the cellar to get some canned food, I remember all those people: Mom, Dad, my sister, my brother-in-law Volodya, my nephews Mykolka and Katrya, and all the neighbors who weathered the war here. With faith and hope, these people encouraged one another; with fear and pain, they read and discussed the news, monitored the air raid alert map, and prayed. My Mom told me that in her 67 years, she had never prayed so sincerely, with tears in her eyes, as she did when she heard the rumble of planes and the whistling of missiles overhead. And my sister shared her thoughts during a phone call with me, saying that she realized just how fleeting life is! Our neighbor, Aunt Lyuda, used to constantly complain about back pain before she took refuge in the cellar, but while living there, she forgot all about her ailment and started thinking about how she could be of help to Ukraine’s defenders. Katerina read and read and read e-books on her power bank—it was a way to distract herself from the horrific news and the anxious conversations all around her. Her son-in-law Vova, along with her son Mykola and other men, joined the territorial defense forces, and every evening they patrolled parts of the village to identify suspicious objects. Everyone was anxiously enduring this difficult period, and their motto was: We will not give up, because our strength lies in unity, and our power in dignity! Care—that’s what kept these people in the cellar, and indeed all across the country. Caring for one another—just because, selflessly and sincerely—is the feeling and action that helps overcome both psychological and physical hardships. That sense of care within the 20-square-meter cellar became a source of confidence that peaceful life would continue, free from war.
