‘The first semester was very difficult’- he adds, frowning worriedly – ‘then we got used to it. It’s colder in Kharkiv, the trees here are also different’- he smiles to himself – ‘the landscape is also different, there are mountains here. The girls liked it after the first year. It was good for them, maybe they are used to it by now, they feel at home.’

The Ruslans were first placed in a kindergarten building together with many other families, where there was a complete lack of privacy. Moreover, the grandparents – Ruslan’s parents – remained in the apartment in Kharkiv. They were 75 and unable to leave the city where they lived. But Ruslan, who had already been divorced for seven years and raised the girls alone, wanted to leave just for the children’s sake.

After a year in the kindergarten, they were moved to a room upstairs in one of the wings of the Lyceum in Perechyn, where finally only three of them live among the worn walls, as well as an adopted mother cat with her three kittens. ‘We live upstairs here’ – Ruslan points to the side entrance of the classic school building in a distinctly crumbling village that once had noble, beautiful days. The central part of the U-shaped building still functions as a school today, attended by 800 children. However, one of the two side wings is currently occupied by refugee families who have been resettled here. One family lives in each former classroom. They try to create the possibility of privacy for themselves. In some places, a thin curtain has even been placed in front of the door, to show that the family wants to be doubly separated from curious neighbours. And although the kitchen, toilets, bathrooms and the laundry are shared, like in a real dormitory, after all only one family lives in one room on ten or so square meters. The bed can be the intimate sphere for every family member, but Ruslan is also grateful for that.

‘Our flat (in Kharkiv) is practically destroyed, although my parents still live in the flat, the windows were broken because a bomb exploded right in front of our house, so they had to be replaced. The school the children attended was devastated about a week ago. We don’t want to go back there. The children and I are scared’ – says the father, listing the information he has received from home.

However, their lives are not easy as refugees in their own country: ‘We don’t even receive state benefits anymore (Which are paid because of the limited work capacity due to birth defects. Ed.) We collect donations, live on what we get, but the donations are getting less and less. Once a week we go to Uzhhorod, where we receive a small donation of food. We live day by day, the most important thing, of course, is that there is bread,” says Ruslan and shows us the part of their room where they placed the desk, under which they collect what can be collected. Dry pasta, oil, bread, water, everything that is needed for basic food and can be obtained by donation. It is hard to imagine any of the girls studying at this desk.

Next to the desk there is a large suitcase. You can’t help but notice that the hard-top suitcase is a little bit open. As if calling.

‘I would like to go back to Kharkiv, but the children would rather go on to Slovakia,’ – he says, a little despondently. Although they have no relatives, acquaintances or friends abroad, the girls would venture into the unknown…. Anywhere but not back, definitely. But the roommate, a beautiful, grey mom cat, insists on sticking with what is here for now. Peace, petting, scraps and an empty box in which she can feed her three kittens in peace. The rest, the future, is still shrouded in uncertainty, even at the beginning of May 2024……

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