“I Want to Hide When the Rockets Fly”: The Real Story of 13-Year-Old Nastia from Donetsk Oblast
Nastia has known the war since 2014, when it first reached her hometown of Kramatorsk in Donetsk region. Currently, the 13-year-old girl lives in a relatively safe Lviv. But the fear of shelling has not left her, as she worries during mass shelling and always tries to be prepared.
I want to hide when the rockets fly, because at times, they even reach Lviv,
The evacuation to Lviv was not easy. Train service was disrupted by shelling, forcing the family to wait over 10 hours. With so many people crammed together, they could only sit on their backpacks. Finally, the train arrived, and the journey itself took more than a day.
In Lviv, Nastia’s family was taken in by relatives, but then they had to look for housing on their own. Life is slowly getting back to normal: the girl went to a local school and found new friends. This was facilitated by the specialists of the “Voices of Children” Lviv Center.
By the way, Nastia created one of the illustrations for the book “War through the Voices of Children”. The drawing depicts a lake with a boat, evoking memories of home for the girl. Before the invasion, she with her relatives or friends, often swam in one of the such lakes near Kramatorsk.
