Like the editorial team and film critics of Screen International, the Ukrainian film critic Natalia Serebryakova was attending the Berlin Film Festival in February.
We came back to our homes; Serebryakova has lost both her home in Suny and the life she loved in her home country. Within a month, she had fled her house and was hiding in a cellar with her husband and son (‘we keep a crowbar close, in case we have to dig our way out of the rubble’), trying to find food in empty supermarkets during quiet times in the shelling.
She has written about her experiences in a diary, the first part of which Screen International published last month. Now we publish the final excerpt below and encourage readers to share it, and all the other stories like hers.
Natalia’s last entry is dated March 7, when a fleeting evacuation corridor from Sumy opened after 21 deaths the night before, including that of two children. Natalia left Ukraine on March 8, travelling with great difficulty. “If our car’s overloaded, it won’t get far on a road covered in snow. In the end, I only pack one jumper and a pair of jeans. The rest – my spring coat, shoes, underwear, socks – takes up too much space.”
Natalia is now in Poland, trying to rebuild her life. The link to her blog is below.
Monday, March 7
“I get up at 7 am. I haven’t had much sleep. There’s even more snow on the ground. We receive a message that there is street fighting going on somewhere near Khimgorod. I put chicken broth on to boil. I want to make a big pan of bortsch. An acquaintance from Russia messages us saying that Emmanuel Macron has made a deal with Putin allowing for evacuation corridors from several Ukrainian cities to Russia. Sumy is on that list of cities. Our friends call us to say that they have decided to evacuate via Younanovka to Russia. Their plan seems rather crazy. Telegram channels are warning that Russia is preparing provocations in these so-called “green corridors”. A few hours later, in the afternoon, during an air raid, our friends call us again. Their evacuation plan failed, the Russians did not let them through the border. These “green corridors” are a fake.
A relatively quiet day, with only one air raid, ends in tragedy.
At 11 pm, I’m exchanging messages with a friend on Facebook. I write that I’m not scared of anything anymore, I just want to go back to my apartment. Suddenly, I hear a terrible roar of a plane just above our roof and then a loud explosion somewhere nearby. I wake everybody up and we run to the cellar. Once we’re down there, we try to find out what happened. We read that a huge pillar of smoke can be seen in the centre of the city. Later we learn that a bomb hit a house in Romenskaya Street, right next to where we live. A family with children was killed, the house completely destroyed. In total, 21 people were killed in Sumy in tonight’s air raid.
For us, this was the last straw. Next day, together with our friends, we decide it’s time to evacuate. My heart aches as I leave Marsik with my mother; he is a very delicate cat, a long car journey would be too much for him.
I hope I will see him and my mother again.”
Read Natalia’s blog HERE.
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