Lydia Vyhrova

Lidiya Vykhrova is 68 years old. She has already settled in the shelter but admits that it takes her a long time to get used to a new place. It’s hard for her to adapt because throughout her life, she’s had to start over more than once.

Lidiya is originally from Siberia, from the town of Kiselivsk. Her childhood was spent among the vast cedar trees of the taiga, where a thick forest began just a kilometer and a half from her home. Lidiya’s brother was a hunter, and she often spent time with him in the hunting cabin. In winter, he would take her along, leaving her to stoke the stove while he went hunting.

“I was quite stubborn, and I got along better with boys. I fought like a boy and rode horses. My brother loved me and always took me with him,” recalls Lidiya.

At the age of 11, her family moved to Bashkiria, to her mother’s homeland. Lidiya lived there until she was 17, and then moved to the Donetsk region, to the village of Mykolayivka in the Pokrovsk district, because her father’s brother, who had been found after the war, invited them to live with him.

She used to be passionate about reading: science fiction, detective stories, rural prose. There wasn’t a single book left unread in the local library. She still loves fairy tales, but doesn’t read them anymore.

In the Donetsk region, Lidiya immediately went to work at the collective farm.

“All my youth was spent there,” says the woman. “I worked as a milkmaid, from about the age of 30.”

When the full-scale war began, Lydia stayed in her hometown until the very end, helping the elderly who couldn’t evacuate.

“I used to ride my bike to Novohrodivka for bread, supplies, and medicine. 4 kilometers under shelling. I helped with whatever I could,” the woman shares.

She is grateful now to have a shelter and peace, but still misses her home and the life she had to leave behind.

“I looked around – they’re selling seeds everywhere, and inside, something stirs in me. I just want to dig in the earth again,” Lidiya adds, reminiscing about her old life. She used to have a big garden near her house, out in the field. She would ride there on her bicycle, take care of the household as much as she could, until even that became impossible.

But what surprised me the most was the attitude of the people here, Lidiya says.

“Here, everyone greets you, even though they don’t know me — children, young people, and the elderly. We didn’t have that back home,” Lidiya says.