Liudmyla Kramnysta was born on 24th December, 1991 in Kyiv. Lyudmila has a degree in psychology. She is disabled due to visual impairment. Until 24th February, 2022, Liudmyla Kramnysta lived in Kyiv with her son, daughter and parents. She was looking for a job.
the beginning
OF THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR
Liudmyla Kramnysta prepared for the war the day before: she packed her things, a first aid kit, money and documents. She even cancelled her New Year’s trip to Kharkiv as she was afraid that hostilities might start there during the holidays.
At the time of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Liudmyla was undergoing rehabilitation at the Western Rehabilitation Centre near the city of Turka in Lviv region. On 23rd February, 2022, the staff of the centre informed the guests that they had to leave the facility the next day due to the introduction of the state of emergency.
I wasn’t sleeping on the night of 23rd to 24th [February — editor’s note]. I was packing my things. We said goodbye to the staff [of the rehabilitation centre — editor’s note]. At night, I started receiving some terrible messages on my phone which I simply ignored ’cause I thought: why is anyone texting me at night at all? What could it be? And then at six in the morning a girl ran in and said: ‘Well, guys, call everyone, there is a war in Ukraine".
Despite being in a state of shock, at 10 am on 24th February 2022, Liudmyla Kramnysta boarded a bus to Lviv. In the evening of the same day, the woman took a train from Lviv to Kyiv to be with her two children.
Kyiv. first days of war
On the morning of 25th February, Liudmyla arrived in Kyiv where the situation was quite calm.
On the 25th [February — editor’s note] we were driving around Kyiv, and it was quite calm. I was shocked. There was such a depressing atmosphere, something was in the air but it was quite calm. I heard and saw a lot of videos and photos about what Kyiv was like on the 24th [February — editor’s note]: no public transport, traffic jams, and so on. On the 25th in the morning, this was not the case”.
Her children had already packed their belongings for evacuation. Yet, the night of 25–26th February Liudmyla and her children spent at home in Kyiv, in the corridor.
We moved the refrigerator to the corridor, put all valuables there, backpacks. We were waiting because the forecasts were disappointing. We had saboteurs. We heard the shooting. Too bad we did not hear the sirens… We live in the area through which the Russians were supposed to enter. Bucha is relatively close… It was said that they [the Russian army — editor’s note] would take this road near my windows. And that night, it’s not that we were expecting them but we knew it could happen. So it was a hard night”.
The next day, on 26th February, the woman and her children were ready to evacuate but Liudmyla decided to wait. The factor for making the final decision was the message about the “long” curfew. Just in half an hour, they were ready to leave. However, they faced a problem: how to get to the train station?
We could not find anyone to take us to the train station. This was another problem ’cause I already knew that we won’t make it there before the curfew because it was more than an hour and a half to walk… I even wrote on Facebook looking for someone [smiling — editor’s note] who could take us. But in the end, it was my mother who found them. She paid a lot of money so that they take us to the train station. Checkpoints were already there, we were stopped and checked. Mostly they asked questions. Only the driver’s documents were checked. And me and my two children — they skipped us”.
EVACUATION
Liudmyla immediately decided on Poland as her destination because she had friends in Krakow. At the railway station in Kyiv, she and her children planned to take a train to Warsaw. However, it was completely full. Therefore, she decided to ask to board a nearby overcrowded train to Ivano-Frankivsk.
We were walking along the platform asking to let us into every carriage on the way. Although I was with two children, fourteen and nine years old, no one let us in. Everyone said: ‘Move on’. And at that moment, the shooting started somewhere. I don’t know how far it was but it was very impressive. The siren went on. Here we could hear it well. Many of those who were looking for a place on this very train went to the shelter. But we kept running along the platform, looking for a carriage into which they would let us”.
They managed to get into the carriage of the evacuation train which was literally jammed.
The corridor, the vestibule, everything was packed with people. We were standing. They closed the doors but even after that we were standing and standing and the train did not depart… We were waiting at the Kyiv station for about three hours. The train did not move. There was a siren, and no one knew anything: what to do, what to expect… We were just standing. Then they began to randomly place us in compartments. Children were given one upper berth for two. And in the compartment, there were twelve of us, a big dog and two cats — all in one compartment. I, of course, wasn’t sitting there, in the compartment. I was sitting in the corridor with our belongings… While we were travelling they turned off the lights and asked not to use the phones so that there was no screen light. They asked us to be careful and sit away from the windows, just in case. We stopped, stood, and waited for something”.
Around 2 or 3 a.m. on 27th February, the brother of Liudmyla Kramnysta texted her that he was in Lviv. Besides, she knew that in Lviv, there would be much more opportunities to get to the Ukrainian-Polish border. So Lyudmila decided to get off the train in Lviv.
LVIV
On arrival in Lviv, Liudmyla faced a huge number of people at the train station. As for a visually impaired person, staying together with her two children was a challenge for her.
The train station in Lviv was a nightmare. There was a sea of people. It was scary. I realised that it was a very smart decision not to take a suitcase because I was holding my children. I have a visual impairment so anytime there are a lot of people, not holding a child’s hand is very scary for me because I may lose sight of it [of the child — translator’s note]. I’m also afraid that I’ll miss some obstacles on the way or whatever. My son has a visual impairment, too, he got disability, so it is necessary to have constant physical contact — especially when there are a lot of people and you don’t understand the situation, don’t understand what may happen next. So it is good to touch each other all the time to be sure that everything is fine and we’re together”.
Liudmyla and her children went to her brother’s house where they managed to eat, rest, walk around the city, recharge their gadgets and sort through their belongings, leaving unnecessary ones behind to travel abroad. She took money, documents, a portable hard drive, two power banks, some winter clothes and her daughter’s favourite soft toy.
On the same day, Lyudmila contacted an acquaintance who was also evacuating abroad on options to cross the border. The acquaintance advised her to go by commercial buses at an affordable price. The women chose this type of transport and booked seats on the bus.
