Well, I was given the second category, bypassing the third. For a woman... Women who worked at the factory for so long were given the third category only before retirement. And I came... And they immediately [assigned me this category]. My boss, though not really a boss, but a supervisor, who gave me this job. He took my designs that I had [made]... Well, they were so complicated... And he went to the chief designer and said, “Here... A woman making this.” The designs were worthy of the first category. I have already assembled a rolling mill and completely traced it out. All the details are not separate. We've already [done] the general drawings. The foundation. That's it. And I was immediately granted the second category, skipping the third one.
It was my father who suffered because of this. He got a voucher from the enlistment office, he was a veteran, [to] Koncha-Zaspa. It was at that time, in May. They didn't tell him anything, and it was very warm. And he said, “We went out to the garden. And I got my shoes off. I was [walking] on the grass.” And this is when the catastrophe had already happened. This cloud had just moved over Kyiv. Nobody said anything. And then my father came and his legs started... His legs turned black. And so, in short, he... They offered amputation, but he did not want it that way. He died of gangrene.
Oh, it was just, I don't know. As usual, I was also nominated by the trade union. And this... You go, and they tell you, “Here is something that came to the bureau, you got this and that.” You come to the bureau, “How are we going to divide it?” By voting. I mean, by drawing lots. — Wait, what could have gotten there? — ”Refrigerators, some electrical appliances, clothes, coats, jackets. You know, all sorts of things. Whatever there was. And this is what we will get, well, these were the lots. <...> We chose what we were going to get... Whoever drew the lot, that's what you got. And once we had one, Valeriy Pomazan, who drew it. Another time he drew it again. Well, the man was lucky. Harassment has already begun. Well, when you remember all those scandals. I didn't take anything for myself. I got a coat once, because it didn't fit anyone else, it was too small. It was black. A coat like a trench coat. Well, those were the times, yes.
Oh, yes, our whole environment, my friends and their friends, all of them were in favor of that referendum. They ran to vote. I guess that's what they said, only Olya was not with us. I kept my Ukrainian flag on the window at work until the very end. I said, "What are you doing?" I had a premonition even then, I said that it would not end like this, there would be war. "No, Russia will come, everything will be fine." Vitya's [coworkers were like that] too. At my husband's work, too. Most people supported this whole mess. We went to the barricades. So it was just the two of us. It turns out that there were none of my friends, my close friends, the ones I had at the time there. They all supported the referendum and Russia. And we were alone. And we were sitting in front of the TV and just watching it all. Later, when they kicked us out, we made a decision. I told my husband that we had to do something. We have to look for something. To look for like-minded people. And so, when we had this headquarters, these elections to the city government. We went to Rzhavskyi. And that's how my husband signed up.
Yes, the administrator of all those militants used to work with us. And he was climbing around the building with an automatic rifle. I said, “Ihor, what are you doing?” We had a common hobby, snooker. We watched it on Eurosport. Snooker is like English billiards. And we were always discussing it. The world snooker championship was just taking place. I said, “Ihor..." I was about to mention that the snooker championship is going on. "Drop it," I say, "all of it. Let's discuss like we used to.” — "No." And he and his militants were sitting next to the boxes. And I was watching through the window.
Olga Rubanovska is a professional engineer and volunteer. She was born on December 29, 1961, in Kramatorsk to a family of a crane operator and a saleswoman. In her childhood, she dreamed of becoming a pianist, but opted for a career as a mechanical engineer. From 1979 to 1984, she studied at the Kramatorsk Industrial Institute, where almost all of her friends went after school. After graduation, she worked at a Sloviansk branch of the Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering. In 1990, she got a job at the Starokramatorsk Machine-Building Plant, where she worked in her field of specialization. In the 1990s, when the plant was out of work, she worked for a short time at the military registration and enlistment office while raising her children. Later, she and her husband started their own business and provided household services. Olga survived the occupation of Kramatorsk by “DPR” militants in 2014. After the city was liberated, she began her battle with cancer. In 2018, she retired and started weaving camouflage nets at the Together to Victory volunteer center. Now she stays in Kramatorsk and continues to volunteer.
