"We left at seven in the morning. And my husband says at ten o'clock: 'It's crazy what's happening here!' He walked 80 kilometres because no one would take the men on buses or trains. He reached Vasilkov, got on the train there and went to Ternopil. We met him there. But first we went through Khmelnytskyi. Near Khmelnytsky we stopped in a field. My sister's car was on gas, and we ran out of gas. And we suddenly understood that if we didn't meet a gas station now... But all the gas stations were empty. We drove across half of the Ukraine - and all the gas stations were empty. And it's clear to us at that moment that if we're stuck in a field now, it's over. With children, without food, without water, without fuel, in the cold and frost. And suddenly, a guy on a bicycle rides in front of us. I ask him where the nearest petrol station is, how many kilometres we still have to go. He says 16 kilometres. My son-in-law replies that we have gas for about 20 kilometers. I say: 'Let's go, we can do it.' We arrived at the gas station and it turned out that we were 40th in line for gas. We got out of the car because the kids were crying, they weren't used to driving that long. We got to the gas station and the gas man came up to us and said, 'These are all without kids, you're the only ones with kids - I have two myself - go ahead!' So we went ahead and filled up. We arrived in Khmelnytsky... I said I wasn't going to cry..."
"When I was leaving I called a taxi because the buses were no longer running, the whole city transport system was no longer functioning. I called a taxi at five o'clock in the morning. They stopped us at a military checkpoint, the Chechens pointed a machine gun in my face, and they said, 'Where are you from? Give me your papers. What are you doing here? You should be at home. We'll put you in a trench now, and you'll serve us all nicely!" I took out my passport and showed it to them. They said, "Oh, you're ours - your permanent residence is in Luhansk!" I said, "Well, how should I put it... yours. I live here, I'm registered here, I have my property here." They said, "Okay, go. But if you want to come back, we won't let you go."
"There were two camps everywhere: in every family and among the students. Because Lugansk and Donetsk - these were the regions that stood behind President Yanukovych, because he comes from Donetsk. And all those who were in power - the directors, the heads of the organisations - were for Yanukovych. But because there were also people from western Ukraine or from other regions who were studying in schools, they were naturally for Yushchenko. Because Yushchenko is originally from western Ukraine. That's why there were these conversations everywhere. But it never concerned my sister and me. Politics is a complicated thing. It's a kind of art, a science. It's better not to get involved."
Maryna Silich was born on 18 August 1991 in Belogorsk, Russia, the place of her father‘s service - an officer of the Soviet Army. The family soon afterwards returned to Luhansk, Ukraine. In 2013, Maryna graduated with honors from the Luhansk National Agricultural University. She worked as a consumer credit expert at the Luhansk branch of the French bank UkrSibbank. Married to a Muslim student from Turkmenistan, Arslan Khadzhanov, she herself remained faithful to her Orthodox faith. In 2014, she was forced to leave everything behind and flee Luhansk, which was occupied by the Russian Federation. As a refugee, she ended up in Odessa train station. She then worked for three years in Odessa at a branch of the Hungarian OTP Bank. In 2017, she moved to Kiev, where she joined the Kiev branch of OTP Bank. On February 26, 2022, two days after the massive Russian missile attack on Kiev, she was again forced to leave everything behind and to save the lives of her children, she fled Kiev with her relatives by car along the route Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil, Chop, Budapest, Prague. From Prague Central Station she arrived with her husband and children at the Regional Assistance Centre for Ukraine (KACPU) in Karlovy Vary, after which they stayed in a hostel in Loket. With the help of Karolína Ruppert‘s charity, the family was able to move to Prague. Maryna‘s husband works in a construction company, they rent an apartment, their children go to a Czech kindergarten. Maryna is intensively learning Czech and is studying a second university degree in psychology and pedagogy at the University of Kharkiv.
