MY FIRST WEEK AT WAR IN PHOTOS FROM PAUL

I don’t have much to update on (thankfully?). But I’ve been cleaning out my phone gallery and I found some pictures where I loosely documented how the first week of the war and our journey from Kyiv was like. So I think I’d like to share that, so the others have an idea of what it was like

One of the last few “normal” photos I took, just two days before the invasion. I visited my friend who works in a coffee shop and we accidentally let a cat inside. I was trying to shoo it away after it made it’s way to the milk cartons. I remember the two of us chatted about the usual problems we had like idiot clients, rude professors, relationships, etc. It all seems so insignificant now, doesn’t it? We also talked about the possibility of russia attacking. We had no idea it would be happen so painfully soon.

The “bed” my family and I slept in when the war began. If you remember, we dragged out a few mattresses into the hallway of our apartment block because of the safety provided by the stronger walls. Our neighbours had left the day before we set this up, so with their permission we moved their things and set up our sleep spot.

One of the times I went to volunteer to help chop up some wood from the fallen branches. We loaded up the truck and it went to the nearest checkpoint.

Speaking of checkpoints, that day I also made some cookies to bring over to our territorial defence. I made them smaller so that they would be easier to eat, haha.

Magnus the frog, sleeping in the frogs’ little cave. One of the last ever pictures I took of my boys. I just realised that I will never see them again.

That one time my family and I had to spend our night in the apartment block’s basement. A lot of people predicted that night would be disastrous, with one of the worst and hardest air raids russia has done yet. Everyone was terrified. When we were making our way downstairs, I was shaking. I didn’t say a single word. When we were all sitting on the cold floor with not much chairs or beds around, I was paralysed with fear. My phone couldn’t get any signal, so I couldn’t message anything to the people that I held most dear to me. I thought that it would be my last day on this planet.

Fortunately, we did make it out alive. No damage has been done to our area. However, with the danger of russians moving further from Irpin, we decided to leave Kyiv for safety. This was the last picture I took of my room before we left. It’s still March over there. (as you can see by my belongings i’m very immature for someone who’s turning 18 this year)

We got moving and spent the whole day on the road. By the time nighttime rolled around, we realised that we couldn’t make it to Chernivtsi before the government announced curfew began. So, we decided to stay for the night in a refugee shelter in Vinnytsia. As you can see by the line of cars

in front us, a lot of people were eager to enter the city as well.

The shelter in question. This is the area where everyone sleeps, to be exact. This used to be a dojo and also a swimming pool, but the owners reorganised it to be a shelter for refugees like us. They also offered free food, things like clothes, personal hygiene items, even toys for kids. It was a bit crammed in there and sleeping was next to impossible with the constant chatter or snoring. A few people even brought their pets with themselves, so that’s.. fun -_-.

And this is what dinner was like over there. I wasn’t that hungry, but the varenyky were pretty good.

After our night there, we were back on the road after curfew was over. And we finally got to Chernivtsi around lunchtime.

And that’s just me when we arrived to the refugee shelter. Probably the least interesting thing in this whole story. You know the rest of it by now. I mean, aside from the part when we were kicked out of our apartment after living there for a week. But I’ll probably save that for another time.

Paul