It is very difficult to recover from the occupation, and cynical and powerful shelling, especially for those who have faced it all for months. But despite the experience, people in the liberated territories do not lose faith and continue to live, to live as much as possible in the current conditions. Even those who were left without a home, loving their small homeland to the depths of their hearts, do not want to go anywhere and arrange a new home anywhere, except in their homeland. Our today’s story is about Granny Nina from the Kharkiv region, whom the volunteers of the Maltese Relief Service help with the restoration of housing in the framework of the winter program.
“Grandma Nina, why do you have 4 dogs?” – the photographer of the Maltese Relief Service asks the old woman. The grandmother answered jokingly without thinking for a long time: “I’m a young girl, what if somebody steals me”.
Granny Nina is 82 years old and lives in the village of Korobochkino in the Kharkiv region. When she was sleeping, a rocket attack in the middle of the night destroyed her house, and she miraculously survived. The elderly lady is very religious and is sure that it was God who saved her from death. Once upon a time, the woman had a notebook where she, on the advice of a local priest, wrote down the names of church members: dead and alive, and prayed for them. This notebook burned down, so Grandma Nina started a new one and writes down everyone for whom she prays now. “When I wake up, I immediately start praying and the last thing I do before I fall asleep, I also pray, I pray all day long. Before the war, when there was light, I could pray all night,” she says.
The old woman’s house is completely destroyed, so she moved to the barn. Since winter is coming, volunteers are helping her with insulation by replacing windows, roofing, and arranging a stove. “She has a stove in the outbuilding, kind people found it for her, also gave her a gas cylinder and filled it so that she could cook food. Also, people brought some clothes, necessary things, sealed the broken windows with oilcloth, and now she lives like that” – colleagues who visited the grandmother said.
Before the war started, Nina had a cow, but she had to give it up to other people. There was nothing to feed it because all the hay burned down during the air raids. But the locals, understanding the complexity of the situation, exchanged the cow for a goat. She also has 8 hens on the farm, and a vegetable garden, which she takes care of. A huge crater in the middle of the garden still reminds her of the war. “She takes care of the garden the best she can, she has pumpkins, zucchinis, watermelons there,” – our colleagues shared with us what they saw.
The grandmother is not afraid of work. At one time, she worked at various factories and most of her life at the dairy plant. She said that she could take a full shift now. She says she always had enough enthusiasm and energy.
The old woman has a daughter in Kharkiv. The daughter insisted for the woman to move, but Granny refused. She does not want to leave her native Korobochnyne, where she once lived with her now-deceased husband, where she has so many memories of a happy pre-war life.
