Animals flew to the rainbow

Eight years ago, Russians Ekaterina Volkova found love in Kyiv. On June 26, a rocket hit her house. Here is the story of Volkova and her family

On June 26, Russia fired at Kyiv for the first time in a long time. One of the missiles fell into a high -rise building - into the same one where the projectile had already got on April 28. The blow fell into a two -story apartment where she lived with her husband, daughter, two cats and dog Ekaterina Volkova - a Russian citizen who moved to Kyiv to work in 2013. Olesya Ostapchuk talked with Volkova and her relatives to tell the story of this family.

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This is my city

In December 2013, Alexei Nikitin called a friend and asked her colleague, only to bring the Christmas tree to the house of the Christmas tree, who was justified in Kyiv by Russian woman. Nikitin responded to the request, “he brought Katya Christmas tree and stayed with her forever,” says the family of the family of Alexander Aivazyan. Volkova herself, in a conversation with the “cold”, describes Nikitin as a starter (“The daughter has a brightly exposed sarcasm, it is immediately clear who”) and an animal lover-“one dog is good, but better than two or three.” “Merry and very thoughtful,” she adds.

Muscovite Volkova fell in love with both Nikitin and Ukraine as a whole. In Moscow, she worked at Booking.com, but she wanted to make her career and, as her friend Lisa Len recalls, constantly watched vacancies in the company's foreign offices. When Booking opened the office in Ukraine, Volkov was sent to work there. “I was very comfortable [in Kyiv],” says Catherine. - This is my city. Moscow was too big for me. Then I met wonderful people, I did not want to leave. ”

“It was evident that she found a man who was suitable for her, that she had changed,” confirms Lisa Len. - When we worked together, she was a careerist, a loner, never met anyone, and then she entered the family harbor. Everything turned out for her: she liked the country, and she was in her place. "

A couple of months after meeting, March 11, 2014, against the backdrop of a change in power in Kyiv and unrest in Crimea, the couple decided to get married. “The situation was tense, and I had to fly on a business trip to Moscow, and we were worried that they might not let me go back,” Volkova explains. - We jokingly exchanged messages in the spirit: “They may not let me go back, maybe we’ll get married?” He said: "Come on." Four days passed from the decision to the wedding: “Katya was happy that she has time to buy a dress for herself,” recalls Alexander Aivazyan. Volkov was in no hurry to submit to the citizenship: she was afraid that her relatives would live in Russia, where her relatives live with a Ukrainian passport.

Volkova’s parents “were in a slight shock” when it turned out that the daughter was getting married the other day: they did not even know that she had a boyfriend, and met Nikitin only after the wedding.

A very strong person

Soon, the Nikitins had a daughter Zhenya, and they also took two cats and a dog from the shelter. After adding to the family in the apartment, it became cramped, and they decided to invest in two -story apartments in the high -rise building in the Lviv quarter residential complex. It took several years to wait until the construction and finish was finished, but in May 2021 they received the keys and moved. Nikitin worked as a lawyer in “open public finance” - a state project launched to increase the economic transparency of state bodies. Volkova remained in Booking.com.

Old acquaintances were very happy for Alexei Nikitin. For the first time after prolonged depression, he was happy. “He is a very strong person. For a long time, more than ten years ago, he met with my friend Lena, they were going to get married. And she somehow suddenly had an asthmatic attack, she needed an injection, there was no medicine at home. Lesha called an ambulance, but she rode for 40 minutes. During this time, Lena died in his arms. It was Ultragore, ”says Lena Julia's friend. Recently, having met their common friend with Nikitin, Julia asked how he was. She, according to her, said that he was married and happy - "And we both noted that it was very cool, because at that moment it seemed that it was unrealistic to survive it."

In February 2022, the Nikitins understood that "something would happen," but did not think that it would affect Kyiv. On February 24, gathering a child to school, Volkova noticed that “traffic jams somehow began,” opened the news, woke her husband and said: “Wake up, war.” In the bomb shelter, during air worries, they did not go down - they went out into the vestibule, guided by the rule of the "safety of the two walls". All this time, Volkova was at a loss. “I did not understand why in Russia many are silent and pretend that nothing is happening,” she recalls. - There are people who pretend that there is nothing. I want people to take at least some position, even minimal. You can go on neutrality for a long time, but the question is: where are you going on it? ”

In the early days of the war, the family remained in Kyiv. Volkova did not want to leave to the last, but her first-grader daughter began to be afraid of sirens, and they still decided to leave the city for a while. “I remember how they talk to my daughter - and she, like Zhenina, Katya’s name. And the siren sounds. Zhenya shouts to my daughter: “Katya, run, rather in a bomb shelter!” And mine does not touch and says: "Everything is fine." That in response: “What is normal? Run!” She was very worried, ”says Alexandra Aivazyan. In the spring of 2022, Volkova and his daughter left for Slovakia, and Nikitin moved for a while to his parents to the center of Kyiv. At the end of April, a rocket flew to the Lviv Quarter - it hit the entrance at the level of the lower floors, about 20 meters from the Nikitin apartment. Nikitin at that moment was in the apartment, but everything worked out.

My children died

After the Ukrainian army pushed the Russian troops from Kyiv, Volkov waited on May 9, looked at the situation and decided to return home: it seemed that it became more or less safe. “They have not seen Lesha for a long time, she was very bored. Actually, that's why she returned, ”says Alexander Aivazyan. - They lived [in the “Lviv quarter”], although they did not have gas. Thank God they were not connected by gas, I can’t even imagine what would happen if at that time the gas was drawn to the house. It saved them. "

On June 25, the Nikitins went to bed: Volkova and her daughter - on the second floor, and Nikitin on the first, because he was sick and afraid to infect them. In the early morning, air anxiety worked - Russia hit with rockets in Kyiv. The family woke up from the explosion: glasses flew out in the apartment, the house shook. Volkova and her daughter ran to the corridor, and Nikitin went to release the dog that was in the cage. “After that, the second rocket went, and everything began to fall,” Volkova recalls. “I fell, as it seemed to me, the floor of two or three flew and all - I turned out to be under the rubble.”

“There was confidence that he could not get into the same funnel twice,” says Aivazyan. Later, the deputy mayor of Kiev, Nikolai Toroznik, will say that "this is the first time that a rocket flew to the same place."

Once under the rubble, Volkova thought she would die. “I did not know where Lesha, Zhenya. It hurts me and bad, ”she says. - Like in Hollywood films, when you watch how people die. So I also thought that I had to go, because you can’t suffer like that. But then the daughter of a daughter came from below. And I realized: so, it means you can’t die. ” They began to talk. And then after a while they heard male voices - as it turned out, they were rescuers. The first to be saved by the Nikitin’s daughter - she told where her mother was located, and after four hours they also pulled out Volkov.

Both have ragged wounds, hematomas and abrasions. Zhenya was operated on under general anesthesia and prepared for discharge. Volkova has a fracture of the spine: at least the next month she will spend in a lying state without moving.

The first days in the Volkov hospital was without communication and “tormented the entire medical staff with questions”, in what condition Nikitin was in. “They said: we don’t know anything, we don’t watch the news. I already approximately understood, ”she says. The fact that her husband died was later told by his brother.

“For most people on Facebook, this is just statistics:“ After a missile blow to Kiev, one person died ”... - wrote a friend of Nikitin Alexander Avramenko. “But for me this is not one person - this is the only person.” Lesha was the same person who, with his kindness, delighted all his people around him. This is the only person about whom I have never heard anything bad! ”

The wife has not yet told what happened to the dad. “Sometimes it seems to us that she herself guesses everything. So she seems to communicate, says something, and then suddenly becomes sad, turns away and thinks about something ... She knows that her cat and dog have died. She told my husband that “the animals flew to the rainbow,” said Alena Kravchenko's daughter -in -law Nikitina. About his favorite soft toys, Eugene, according to her, says: "My children died."

Volkova wants to stay in Ukraine and apply for citizenship. When asked whether she is now going to go to Russia, Volkova says: “Never say.” And he adds: “I really want to see my family: mother, grandparents. When will this happen? Not soon. Now this is possible only in some neutral territory. ”

She does not talk about the war with her mother, grandparents. In their family there is a rule not to discuss politics.