book (1)

“Separatists’”

Diaries

Lugansk

2015

Instead of introduction

RIPPED NOTES ABOUT WAR ...

Tatiana

I'm not going to write about military operations, about the National Guard and the militiamen, about who is right and who is guilty, who is the hero and who is a scoundrel. There is no policy in my notes. It is simply observations of a person, who lives under stress of hostilities. I write them for myself, for my friends and for those who lived through it all and those who were far away, but mentally remained with me, worried about me.

Forgive me for the abruptness of thoughts, style, and lack of clear plot. It is not a literary work; it's a piece of my life, the most terrible and the most memorable piece...

We have been living in a war ... For more than two months ... It sounds crazy: In the twenty-first century, in the center of Europe, citizens of civilized country kill each other. The army, which we have called to donate by phone messages five hryvnias, destroys the region that gave the lion share of national income. I don‟t know how this war will be called in a couple of years, how it will be described in textbooks and monographs (and I'm sure, people interested will appear and will even write dissertations) ... I have decided to write down my thoughts about this war. They turn into a book, or will remain patchy fragments, it does not matter. It should be remembered. At least, in the memory of my friends.

JULIA

Unfortunately, I start writing diary this late. I was hoping for the best, I guess: it`s going to be over quickly and I will remember everything, without chronological handwriting. But unfortunately ...

But that wasn`t the beginning I ought to start with. THANK GOD - I AM ALIVE! I am in my home in my apartment.

My parents left when I was on vacation. It sounds strange even, sharply resonant word of peace. We left on June 18 in the early morning, we`ve had taxi on Izvarino. Before leaving, everybody, of course, was quite nervous, tense, and the parting was fast. I do not want them to leave. Having gone through these already 6 weeks without them, I understand that it`s great. that they are absent ... Everything that's going on here - it's very scary. WAR !!! This is a terrible word, and even more terrible reality of being in here. I noticed that the days were considered in another way: you haven`t died from one night to another - means, you`ve survived. This went on "in active fase" to 2 am, then the "passive fase" to 4 am.

And at 5am - bombardments, seemed very close - and up to 10 in the morning. Every day ... Hours also began to be considered in another way: a special sense of time has developed, when you feel the beginning of each hour, you do not want but look at the clock. Triggering of biological clock of survival. And all this in a new sound space, scary, unreal - as flying intergalactic space rockets ...

Natalia

Now, six months later, I'm trying to comprehend the happenings of this summer, to find out the reasons of the catastrophe that has befallen us, to lay out a mosaic of separate events of my own story, but I can't reproduce more or less coherent picture of what happened. It is rather scattered memories, images, associations, emotions and feelings, reflections…

…The bewilderment, unwillingness to believe even the obvious. Amid the nascent political chaos, the first paramilitary clashes in Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, the Odessa tragedy, naive hope is familiar to every inhabitant of Lugansk: "It can't happen to us. This can never be. Not in the heart of Europe, not in a civilized country, not at the beginning of the 21st century..." A new page in the modern history of Ukraine began, however, with the latest barbarity. The war destroyed hearts, fates, families, forever divided our life into "before" and "after", deprived people of work and shelter, friends and family, blasted usual way and measured life by the fragments of the projectiles.

Tatiana

Everything is terrible at war. No matter if you voted at referendum on May 11 or not, who do you think is your president Putin or Poroshenko, which side you chose side of militiamen or of National Guard ... The war did spare neither one nor the other.

Every war is death. Our war is also accompanied by death. But the worst is not death itself, but its ordinariness. When on June 2 Regional State Administration was bombed and 11 people died, this fact horrified all of us. But today people die every day: in the queue for water, for humanitarian aid, in the yard, in their apartment - we are not horrified any more, we are used to death close to us - and this is the worst.

I do not want to blame those who have left the city. The majority of people had the reasons: little children, sick parents, broken windows. Some people simply could not cope with emotions and left, believing that they would return in a couple weeks when "all will be settled." These people are not cowards, and not all, who remained in Lugansk are heroes.

My neighbor recently said: "It is good that there is no communication, otherwise, we would have to answer stupid questions like "Well, how are you?"” I understand her. How to tell someone on the phone, even people sitting in Kiev, Kharkov and Crimea that every night you prepare two beds for sleeping: on the couch and in the hallway, where the load bearing wall?

Julia

At night, it was artillery shooting again near and far. Something is burning. The smell of smoke in the apartment is intolerable, eatened into the throat and hair. And the mosquitoes are buzzing))) But I prefer mosquitoes rather than mine. Wacky humor (((Here is a quiet night as Tsoi sang ...

It is morning. Thank God I'm alive and in my apartment. And again mines are flying: the whistle - the gap ...

Brought up in a patriotic spirit, I always respected the military officers, the defenders of the motherland. The words "duty" and "honor", has never been just some ordinary words for me. I`m the officers` Granddaughter, daughter and wife (though the ex-wife already).

Now I hate all weapons invented by mankind. You can save a person from an incurable disease, but can instead, you can improve "Katyusha" to "Grad", "Smerch" to "Uragana." All these Nonnas, Vasilkis, Gvozdiki, Tyulpany, Topolki, BMP, Armored personnel carriers, self-propelled guns, tanks - caused an indescribable fear.

Fear - a very strong sense that captures and paralyzes the will of man. Develops fatalism. But the strongest instinct of a man is self-preservation. Therefore, as an animal human can quickly reach the hallway (where the safest place). Do not sleep for several nights, and pray to God to preserve his life and home.