Наталія Романова Nataliya Romanova

Another thing — do you know what the most terrifying thing was? The worst thing that happened during the occupation, what I thought to myself, was that, God forbid, they would take you to the basement. Every time I left the apartment, I thought to myself how to dress comfortably, how to put on comfortable shoes in case I had to run somewhere, in case I fell. How to dress so as to be inconspicuous. And I also remember that I... I had a gold watch, and I always wore it here, hiding it under my shirt or under a sweater, under something like that. I thought: if something happened, this could be used to pay me off. If something happened. That was the worst thing, when you didn't know what was going to happen to you when you left the apartment. Because we had moments when girls were delivering aid to our soldiers in the fields, and they were hunted down by these monsters, and the girls went through very difficult moments. Very difficult moments. Thank God they survived, but they went through a lot. And I had this feeling that... not that you will be wounded or killed, but that, God forbid, you will be caught. And I say it again: it was probably guardian angels guiding us, God was leading us, everything turned out well.

This very [crucial] moment happened, perhaps, when the students got beaten, when I was already telling myself, “God, what’s happening, this can’t be.” That is, at first, it’s seemed that it was all just hanging out, and then, “how, this can’t…” How can this be happening in this country, how can this be happening to us? What kind of time we are living in? No, this can’t be happening. Then we already started monitoring the events and how they unfolded. I remember it was very cold in February, very cold. We couldn’t stop watching news [about] what’s happening in Kyiv, how it’s happening. Then [came] all those scary first deaths. At some point, we decided to go to the Maidan with my husband. We didn’t tell anyone, bought some warm clothes. We reached out to some Kyiv residents, I think, it was either the SOS Maidan [Euromaidan SOS] or the Euromaidan [organization], I don’t remember. We asked how we could help, what was needed. They said that they needed helmets, this and that. We went to Donetsk, tried buying something, but there was nothing there, everything had been bought out. In short, we gather, I don’t remember now what exactly did we gather, but we tried gather as many useful things as we could, load the car, and prepare to go. Now, the child, she was what, 12 years old. We’re preparing to go, and we write her a letter of sorts, “Dear Vlada, if anything happens, it’s written here about what, where, how, and what to do, where to go, and where are the money, what’s with the business.” The child is 12 years old. And she says, “Okay, I understand.” “We didn’t tell grandma and grandad anything, we said we were going to the relatives so that they don’t worry, we are only telling everything to you, so that you know that it’s going to be fine.” Now I think — crazy. We’d have better told our parents, because the child… That is, we put such responsibility on a 12-year-old child: you know where we went, you know what to do in case something [happens]. The deal is that my child, I think, was always so reasonable and mature that I could talk to her about anything at any age and trust her, and she trusted us. Even today, we have just a perfect relationship. In short, me and my husband went to the Maidan. We went by car, and I remember how scary it was, how tense. We got there okay, stayed with friends near Kyiv, and they said, "Wait, we need to figure out what to do, where you want to be useful." We spent the night, and then, I remember, we contacted people who told us to drive up there and leave this and that. We brought some things, some money, gave away what we could. This state of mind, you know, when you come to Kyiv after these deaths... The energy of the Maidan was so strong, so unreal as if it was not happening to you. We went through it. I remember we found that Donetsk tent of ours [it was a tent where people from Donetsk lived on the Maidan]. We approached it, talked to people, and it seemed as if everyone knew each other, as if they were close. On the one hand, there was fear, pain, grief, despair. On the other hand, there was the spirit of this struggle, the spirit of unity, they were so together. I remember my husband going on some kind of watch on the Maidan. I tried to do something there. We spent some time on the Maidan, we gave away what we had brought, this humanitarian aid. We came back home to Kramatorsk, and we were like, what to do next?

My grandmother was a captive [during World War II]. First, they were taken to Germany, then to Austria. And my grandmother-there is a photo from those times-my grandmother had black braids, such long hair, she was very beautiful. She told me that she and her friend from Kramatorsk were taken captive, and she said, "We were very lucky that God saved us." That is, they did not have to suffer from what many girls suffered from then, many people. She said, "We worked in Austria, in the city of Linz." They worked on people's farms. She said, "I was always ready to work, I knew what to do and how to do it." And they just worked, helped out on the farm. Even she said, "We sat down at the table with the people we worked with." She said, "They never even separated us, that you were workers and we were the owners, we all sat down at the table together, what they ate, we ate." My grandmother worked with a machine of some sort, I don't remember exactly which one. And it happened that her finger got caught in the machine. And she says that it started to bleed, and the head of the family where they worked quickly came running. She said, "He quickly bandaged my hand and rushed to take me to the hospital." So, let's just say he didn't leave her to her fate, which is what you want to call it. She was left with a missing nail on her thumb, so that's how it... But she says that, in reality, the relationship was equal and normal. "Of course," she says, "we always missed each other — not even just missed each other, but, as they say, longed for our home. But we always believed that everything would change." There is also a story in my family that when my grandmother was leaving, they were taken captive, and my mother, my great-grandmother, gave her a piece of salo. A piece of salted salo wrapped in some kind of parchment or something. And she said, "I was saving that salo." It was kept somewhere in the cold, somewhere I don't know exactly where. She said, "But I didn't touch it because we were well-fed." Thus, this salo remained there. But my grandmother's father, that is, my great-grandfather, and his brother were taken prisoner. And imagine the situation. She somehow got the news through these Austrian masters for whom she worked that her father was in captivity. That he was alive but in captivity. And she said, "I go to this master and say, 'Can I give my father a piece of salo?' And he answered her in German because my grandmother knew some German. I remember this — he said, "Elen, I would, but I don't have any salo, I have no way of doing that." And she said:, "I have some salo." He said, "How come?" And she said, "I brought it from home." And he helped her actually to transfer that salo to the prisoners. And my great-grandfather and his brother, thanks to that salo... He said, "We cut it into small pieces, you know, like it was worth its weight in gold." And they survived.

You know, this will be my subjective opinion. But I didn't feel anything at the time, no such dramatic changes. We were working just as we had been working. We studied just as we had been studying. What was in the stores was what had been there. That is, there were no such drastic universal changes in the city. But at the university where I was studying at the time, we were all abuzz... It seemed to us that something so cool was about to begin, something so interesting was about to begin... I remember we had a history teacher who said, "Now we're going to get separated, now we're going to live a great life, we're going to have more and better things, they'll give us Polubotok's gold back [a legend about a large amount of gold which Ukrainian Hetman Pavlo Polubotok supposedly deposited into an English bank in 1723, and which would have been returned upon the independence of Ukraine with an astronomical amount of interest], we're going to be so happy!" And I would return with such thoughts. We go home, I tell my grandmother, I say, "Grandma, it is going to be big." And she said, "When it happens, you'll tell me. Whatever happens, happens." And I thought, "Heck, they don't support us, they don't understand what's about to happen here?" In short, we perceived that something was about to start, we had some ideas that we were all about to go running somewhere... But the everyday life of ordinary citizens, of the city, I don't think it changed much then. Perhaps it just didn't apply to my family because I said that I don't remember my parents suffering from not getting paid or not having anything when I was a kid. Because there were always grandparents, there were gardens where they worked, where there was food. That is, where they could spend... Salaries were more or less paid... Or maybe I was sheltered from all this as a child, I don't know. But it seems to me that for my family, this period was so smooth and beautiful.