Valentina Titova

Valentina Titova is 86 years old. She loves playing checkers. She drinks coffee, but only when her blood pressure drops. And she is grateful to have a roof over her head, as she is witnessing the war for the second time.

Ms. Valentina is from the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region. She first learned what war was when she was just 5 years old.

“On the first day of the war, my mother and I were injured: I was shot in the leg, and my mother in the arm,” says the woman.

She remembers her childhood with sadness. She says it was a difficult time. Her mother raised her alone, working in construction, and the work was very hard.

When she recalls her young hands, she brightens up a little. She shows an old photograph with her husband.

“But he was a handsome man,” smiles Ms. Valentina. “Look how happy we were here, and how beautiful we looked!”

Her husband was from the town of Khust in the Zakarpattia region. The couple had a beautiful daughter together. However, not long after, her husband passed away. But Ms. Valentina shared an interesting story that happened when she had just gotten married and was pregnant. She received a letter from an acquaintance.

He confessed his love for her. Of course, she turned down the admirer.

But they eventually met again, after her husband’s death. It seemed they were meant to be together. And from that moment on, they lived together for 52 years.

Throughout her life, the woman tried herself in two professions: first, she was a military commissar. But when her daughter had two children, she left her job to help take care of them. Later, she worked as a dispatcher at the railway station.

Now, Ms. Valentina is very happy to be in the shelter, as in Pokrovsk, she was without food for an entire month.

“I only ate bread and drank water,” says the woman. “There were no neighbors nearby anymore, everyone had left.”

Ms. Valentina lived in a small house, and there was no basement. Staying there had become life-threatening. It was the volunteers who helped her leave.