A Birthday in the Basement: The Story of Yuliia and Olesia from Kharkiv
A twelfth birthday marked with ten candies and two oranges in a basement under the sound of explosions. A nervous tic in a six-year-old child that wasn’t noticed until a year later. This is the story of a family from Kharkiv—from the devastating shelling of Northern Saltivka residential area to a new life in Kyiv and the path of psychological recovery at the Voices of Children Foundation centers.
In the basement during the shelling of the city
A Sense of Danger and the First Explosions
Nataliia lived with her husband and two daughters—11-year-old Yuliia and 6-year-old Olesia—in Northern Saltivka, a residential area of Kharkiv. The family didn’t often talk about the possibility of a full-scale war, yet her older daughter had a strange feeling.
On February 23 [2022], she came home from a walk in tears and started talking about the war. I thought she simply didn’t want to do her homework. But the very next day at five in the morning, we woke up to the sound of shelling,
Nataliia recalls.
The family barely left their neighborhood for six days, hoping the war would end quickly. On February 28, Yuliia’s twelfth birthday came.
We spent it in the basement. In one of the stores that was still operating without power, we bought ten candies and two oranges to give her at least some celebration,
says the mother.
The Strike that Forced Them to Escape
The children slept on an air mattress with their grandmother, while the parents lay on the basement floor. On March 1, the family went upstairs to their apartment to take a shower, have breakfast, and rest a little. At that moment, a Russian missile hit their house, but they were lucky to survive.
A fire broke out. Smoke was everywhere. The building nearly collapsed, but our fourth floor somehow withstood. In those 20 minutes, dozens of missiles hit our neighbourhood. And no ambulance or firefighters came—they said that no one would come to rescue us until the shelling ended,
Nataliia recalls.
That same day, the family decided to flee. First to the western part of Ukraine, and later to Kyiv. There was no place to return to: their building was hit 20 times and is now slated for demolition.
A Trauma Not Noticed Right Away
The war and stress deeply affected both daughters. The younger one developed a nervous tic—she often blinked and became anxious. For a long time, she couldn’t forget the smell of their burned-down house.
Probably, I was under too much stress myself and didn’t notice my child’s condition. I only realized it by the end of 2024. In Kyiv, she couldn’t fall asleep at all. As soon as she heard an air raid siren, she woke up immediately. She couldn’t calm down,
says Nataliia.
The war also affected Yuliia. Because of displacement and the loss of her home, she fell into depression that lasted about a year.
I didn’t want anything. I locked myself in my room. I didn’t want to meet anyone or do anything. I only started to feel better in September 2024—after working with a psychologist,
Yuliia shares.
When Nataliia realized the children needed professional help, the family turned to the Voices of Children Foundation. Today, the girls receive psychological support in Kyiv.
We were advised to seek professional help. That’s when we found the Voices of Children Foundation,
recalls the mother.
Invisible trauma can seriously affect a child’s development, behavior, and overall well-being. These wounds often go unnoticed by others, especially when a child does their best to appear “normal.” Sometimes it takes time to understand the depth of what a child has gone through. What matters most is to offer support in time.
The story of this family was also covered by the Ukrainian-Polish media outlet SESTRY. The full text is available on the outlet’s website.
At our regional centers, teenagers can find a community of peers, access psychological support, and participate in creative activities and games. Anyone who needs it can also reach out to our free psychological support helpline for children and parents: 0 800 210 106.
If you share the mission of Voices of Children, please support the daily work of the Foundation with a donation.
