He was born in Chernihiv region, spent his youth in Donetsk, and his final years in a village near the front line. He left when there was no one else remaining
Every morning on his new smallholding, the first thing he does is open the chicken coop and call out to them. The hens are still wary — it’s an unfamiliar place. Nearby, Zhulka the dog is darting about. She came to him as a puppy and grew up over a year and a half in his care. He couldn’t bring himself to leave her behind. She made the journey with him.
The man was the last person to leave his frontline village in Donetsk region. He loaded everything he could salvage from his family home into an old Lada — a fridge, a washing machine, two sacks of seed potatoes, and grain for the chickens. The car broke down in the middle of Kyiv. Police didn’t just help him — they hitched the car to a tow rope and escorted it through the city with flashing lights. “I felt like a lord,” he laughs.
“I stopped because I didn’t know the road. I walked up to a car and asked how to get to Uman. The man got out, pulled out a thousand hryvnias and handed them to me. I said: no need, I have money. Then I saw he was crying. And then I noticed — he was wearing a cross. A priest, probably. He got out of the car, caught up with me, and pushed the money into my pocket.”
His life story reads like a portrait of an entire generation. Born in Chernihiv region, in the village of Kamin in Nosivka district. Finished ten years of school, moved to Donetsk, trained as a welder, served in the army on the Urals — including time at a cosmodrome. Settled in Khartsyzk.
On 24 February 2022, he was preparing to drive to his mother’s funeral. He pulled onto the highway and saw tanks. He turned around. He never made it to the burial. His father had died earlier — in June, just a month after his son’s last visit. The son came every spring to plough the kitchen garden.
“I’m the last one left”
His cousin was killed by a mortar near the beehives — the blast took his head. Drones set houses on fire. People are dying. “There’s no one left. I’m the last one,” he says — quietly, almost without emotion.
Now he is settling into his new home. Before Easter he is cleaning the yard, planting a vegetable patch, and covering the potatoes he brought against the frost. He admits that everything he needed was already here — there was no point hauling it all this way. But there was something worth bringing. And someone worth bringing too.