“It Feels Like I’ll Never Go Back”: How 16-Year-Old Tetiana Lost Her Home Twice Because of War
At 16, moving has become a routine part of Tetiana’s life. Over the past ten years, she has relocated at least five times. The longest she’s stayed in one place is four years.
Photo: Suspilne Media
How Her 2014 Experience Helped Her Survive 2022
For Tetiana, the morning of February 24, 2022, was a painful reliving of what happened in 2014. That year, she and her family fled Horlivka. Eight years later, they were forced to evacuate again—this time from Kramatorsk, the city she had grown to love and call home.
When the first explosions hit around 3 or 4 in the morning, she quickly gathered the essentials. One of the blasts struck just meters from their house. She counted five more. Her family hid in the safest part of the apartment—the hallway between the bathroom and kitchen. Prior experience had taught them where to shelter during shelling.
It was the same story back in 2014, but I was younger then. In 2022, despite my fears, I already knew what to do. I sat in the hallway leading to the living room. My mom sat across from me. I remember they pushed the sofa into the hallway—it was the safest spot, between the bathroom and kitchen,
she recalls that terrifying night.
The family left Kramatorsk just the day before the Russian missile strike on the train station—possibly a twist of fate that saved their lives.
A Life Packed in Suitcases: Six Moves in Ten Years
After the evacuation from Kramatorsk, Tetiana began a new chapter of relocations. In more than ten years, she has moved at least six times. The hardest part for her was getting along with her peers. Each time she began to settle into a new class, it was time to pack up and leave again.
She spent a year and a half in Slovakia and now lives in Drohobych, Lviv region, with her mother, an accountant with the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, while her father serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Horlivka is just a city that is marked on her birth certificate. But Kramatorsk became a true home—not from the first days, but gradually.
Losing Kramatorsk still hurts the depths of her heart. Tetiana frankly admits it’s something that continues to affect her. The hardest part is accepting that she may never return there.
My first move was in 2014, when the war with Russia began. I don’t remember the exact number of moves, but I remember the main ones—five or six. I think four years was the longest I stayed in one place, and then it was a new chapter, a new story all over again. It changed me. Moving taught me independence and how not to panic in emergencies. But I found problems with socializing and interacting with peers: I had to move again just as I was getting used to a new place. Eventually, I stopped looking for friends at school,
Tetiana confesses.
Another place on her map of memories, lost in the storms of war, is Bakhmut—where she used to travel for competitions from Kramatorsk. Now, it has been destroyed by the Russian military.
A New Kind of Stability in Drohobych
Despite everything, living in Drohobych has brought Tetiana something she hadn’t had in years: a sense of stability. Now, she can go to school without fear of explosions and make some plans for the future.
It’s gotten easier. It’s been three years now,
she says.
Tetiana joined the spring camp in the Carpathians, organized with the support of Binance. We created the project specifically for children and teenagers like her—those who especially need recovery, first and foremost, psychological.
When Tetiana arrived at our camp, she had been dreaming of going to the mountains for a whole year. She imagined her perfect room filled with many plants, light, a curtain for privacy, and pictures and photos that would help her reconnect with her memories.
After working with our psychologists and mentors, Tetiana became more relaxed and began to understand her own needs better. For the first time, she could openly talk about her moves and the feeling she had been carrying inside—envy toward those who had a permanent home.
The camp team does everything to make kids like me, who have lived through hardships, feel comfortable. Here, I feel at peace because I had been thinking about the mountains for a whole year. Here I feel at home. The sessions with psychologists and mentors helped me a lot. I talked about my moves and the feeling of envy—when everyone else has a permanent home, and I don’t. It was something I had been carrying inside. And then I opened up for the first time, and it became much easier for me to communicate,
she says about the camp.
Despite all the challenges, Tetiana has kept her desire to help others. She has a strong sense of justice and is ready to protect those who need it.
I want to protect everyone, to hug them, to love them. And I think I’m drawn to professions that carry risks. For example, being a firefighter,
Tetiana says about her plans.
Camp programs combine creativity, sports, psychological support, and intellectual development. This allows children to explore their interests, develop self-expression skills, and gradually regain their inner strength.
Learn more about the stories of Tetiana, Andrii, and Zhenia in a special feature by Suspilne Chernivtsi. The teenagers shared their experiences during the camp program in the region, where they received support from our Foundation.
We work with children who have experienced multiple displacements, and we understand how hard it is to start over every single time. You can support our daily work with a donation.
