photo by Roman Kaiman
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In early spring, 34-year-old Tetiana Vahanova and her four children moved from Slovyansk to Lviv. This is not the first time she has had to flee missiles, as well as give birth to a child in a new city, while her husband is defending Ukraine. The story was shared by the press service of the Lviv City Council.
The woman currently lives in a modular town in Stryiskyi Park with her children. She comes from Horlivka, Donetsk region. The last time she was at home was in 2014. With the beginning of the war, the woman left her hometown and has not returned there until this day. During this time, she gave birth to four children and remarried. For four years she lived with her family in a modular town in Kamyanske, after which they moved to Slovyansk, where her husband found a new job. They lived there, rented an apartment, the children went to school. Everything was fine until February 23. And in March, Tetiana and her children fled the war. Now to Lviv.
«My husband was at the front, called and told us to run, pack up and leave. And we arrived in Lviv by evacuation train. We took a minimum of things, because I am already 7 months pregnant, and children are from five to thirteen years old. There’s no man around, only on the phone, so we couldn’t take a lot. We took documents, money and went to a train,» – she recalls.
First, the family was placed in one of Lviv’s universities, volunteers brought clothes and toys – everything they needed. But due to constant descents into the basement during the alarms, the youngest son fell ill.
«I had to go to the hospital with 5-year-old Yelysei. I lay under the drip for 5 days. At that time, my other three children remained in a temporary shelter with volunteers. I called them every day, I was worried, but the volunteer girls were so kind to my children that I still can’t believe in such humanity from seemingly complete strangers,» – the woman said.
For two weeks now, as a woman with her children – Bohdan (13 years old), Snizhana (10 years old) Milana (7 years old) and Yelysei (5 years old), she has been living in the first modular town in Stryiskyi Park. Children attend daily master classes organized by the city and volunteers.
According to her, she would like to stay in Lviv, but the housing is too expensive to buy. She plans to give birth to her fifth child in Lviv. He is joking that he will be a Banderite. Tetiana wants to name her son Viktor in honour of Ukraine’s victory, wait for her husband and return home together. Finally, show the children to a grandmother they know only through a phone camera.
It will be recalled that the second modular town was opened in Lviv on May 6 – on Puliuya Street, not far from the Technological Vocational College of the University of Forestry. 120 houses were installed there. By the end of May, a third location will be opened in the city – in the Sykhiv district of Lviv
You can read Lviv Now’s report from the modular town in Stryiskyi Park about where and how the refugees live: Pain behind the white door. Stories from a modular town for refugees in Lviv
Translated by Vitalii Holich
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Lviv Now is an English-language website for Lviv, Ukraine’s «tech-friendly cultural hub.» It is produced by Tvoe Misto («Your City») media-hub, which also hosts regular problem-solving public forums to benefit the city and its people.
