'We’ve lived in Kyiv since we were born. Before this we just studied. We both do rowing, so we trained for that. And then all of it ended abruptly on the 24th'
The evening before we left home we took this photo. Photo: Mariia and Elina Savchenko For the first five days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Mariia, who is 15, and her sister Elina, who is 10, stayed with their parents in a makeshift bomb shelter beneath their Kyiv apartment building. Russia had begun bombing Kyiv early in the morning on February 24, and the United States predicted the city would fall within days. Each night, there were airstrikes and gunfire.
Mariia: For the first five days [after the invasion] we were in the cellar. For two nights I didn’t sleep at all because of our loudly snoring neighbor. After that, we spent two weeks drinking valerian drops, you could almost say. So when we slept we slept like the dead, and didn’t hear any explosions. We were totally exhausted.
Mariia: It was a little sad to leave, but there was a hope for something better, that all of this would be over soon. And there’s still that hope. Along the way, while I was talking with my mother and my godfather’s wife, I turned around to see what Elia was doing. I saw her sleeping so cutely, so I thought I should take a picture.
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