Olga Tereschenko

The life of everyone in Ukraine changed permanently after the end of February. I live in middle Ukraine, in the beautiful and historic city of Kropyvnytskyi. From 23 to 24 February I couldn't sleep, I heard the sound of helicopters at 4am and felt something had happened. Then I got an SMS from my husband (he is a policeman)--"Call mom and tell her to stay home. You also stay home. There could be problems with the phone connection. Russia is attacking us. We are in the city". I will never forget this message. Since then, we are all living like in a terrible dream. All plans and dreams were crushed. We bought an apartment in a beautiful new  house which we had dreamed of for many years. We were planning to move there next year, but for now, we don't even know if this apartment will be as it is. Since childhood, I've been a creative girl. But my creativity was like a hobby. I was scared nobody would buy my art. But I finally trusted myself and opened a small art businesses this January...and then then war came to my land. It's so hard to realize all this is our reality. When I was little my granny told me about the Second World War, I was so scared when I was listening to her...now it's happened in my country. Now it's reality.