Bucha. It is a cozy town with a population of 53,000, situated in the suburbs of Kyiv. And this is our home. The residential complex “Continent” became home to almost half a thousand families. This is one of the best complexes in the Kyiv region. A green closed yard, sports and children’s playgrounds, space for a comfortable and calm life. It also became a platform for many business initiatives. It is the perfect combination of comfort, modernity, development, and coziness. More than 700 were enjoying their happy childhood here. We are all happy here. On February 24, early morning,
our life turned into a horror movie. The war came to our house. Our windows shuddered from the armed actions at the Hostomil airport. We, the families, children, and pets woke up in shock. We Thought, it would end quickly, but it turned out differently… The russians’ imperialist plan to “take Kyiv in three days” turned into a month of occupation of Bucha, Irpin, and Hostomil. It is hard to describe all the atrocities experienced by those Ukrainians who did not escape. Sadly, many of them will never tell about what they saw that days…
Our residential complex consisted of 6 buildings, became the epicenter of the deployment of the Russian military forces. The geographical position of the houses allowed them to control the actions of the long-suffering Irpin. The historic battle on Vokzalnaya Street worldly known thanks to images of a pile of destroyed russian’s weapons; the completely destroyed Giraf shopping center, where the guys from the community security forces held back the “second army of the world” and Yablunslka, the street of death and place of personification of all the horrors of war without rules – all the sites are within sight of our residential complex.
Many families with children, elderly people, and even people and children with disabilities, who did not fled, found the shelter protection in the basements of the buildings during the last month of winter. Insane cold, darkness and constant fear accompanied them in the basements for long days. Without gas and electricity destroyed by constant shelling and black waves, parents cooked food outside over a fire. The basements of the “Continent” became a shelter not only for the habitants, but also for nearby houses. When russians entered our complex for a permanent place of deployment, it became the norm to prison the people in cold and damp, dark basements telling us “You’ll die here anyway”.
And all this is in the 21st century, when it seemed, it could happen only in bad movies.

Unfortunately, we also have personal tragic stories. One of our neighbors was shot out, and his body lay under a bench in our yard for several days, before the russian soldiers allowed his relatives to bury him.
In the other family, the husband tried to save his pregnant wife by taking her to Kyiv, but the family’s car was shot near Giraffe. The future father died. The wife was injured and lost the child now the young woman is learning not only to walk again, but also to live with her loses. These two stories have one more thing in common – the families’ apartments were re also destroyed. Our walls also remember the terrible torture of a volunteer who gave his life trying to help ordinary people. On March 10, the civilians stayed in their homes, but in fact, the hostage received the command ” You must get out of here, now this is our territory”. Our habitats fled the “hell” through the last evacuation corridor. In addition, unfortunately, not everyone managed to escape the horrors of war… After, the surrounding territory has been actively shelled from the yard of our complex. Children’s and sports grounds became a location for russian military equipment. Next to the walls of the houses, the russians parked their tanks, firing from them at the buildings of civilians in Irpin, thereby putting our buildings under the danger of the crash. The cover of the courtyard is soaked with the oils of murderous military equipment. And it is a miracle that after such horror the houses were not completely destroyed.
For the sake of fun, cars of civilians were destroyed that people could not use them. The actual destruction of our property began after breaking down all the doors and looting or destroying everything that russian non-humans could find. All 522 apartments in our complex were broken into. Children’s and sports grounds, gates and even simple trees were destroyed. There was simply no entrance door to the house. The houses were able to survive 5 rotations of racist killers. Our buildings stood up during the hostilities, but the general picture was very sad: · almost 80% of windows, including window frames, were knocked out by the blast wave; destroyed facades simply flew away in pieces; · roofs and parapets pierced by projectiles; · completely non-working communications, as well as mutilated elevators; · holes in the apartments walls and apartments simply burned out. Some of the apartments have been completely destroyed inside: interior partitions, damage and displacement of monolithic slabs, complete destruction of furniture. One of the buildings needs strengthening with metal structures. It was impossible to look without tears at the buildings, which were put into operation actually 2 years ago. Only memories of a happy life in this complex remain. The buildings suffered significant destruction and, as a result, require significant investments for their restoration. Most of the work on cleaning of the territory, climbing works to remove the destroyed facades, air conditioners and glass, restoration of communications, installation of new gates, restoration of ceilings in the buildings roofs, installation of entrance doors to houses and gates around the complex were carried out immediately with the help of the residents themselves and the developer , who did not leave us in a difficult moment. Months have passed since the heroic liberation of Bucha and the entire Kyiv region by Ukrainian Armed Forces. Now our region is considered to be quite safe. In fact, more than one and a half thousand people returned to their homes, but most of the apartments are simply unlivable. Today, the most painful issue is the installation of windows. Unfortunately, the President’s program does not work in full. Since winter is near, it is simply impossible to live in an apartment with a hole instead of a window (the apartment had panoramic windows measuring approximately 3 by 3 meters). After installing the windows, we need to restore the facades immediately, in order to avoid further destruction of the buildings Considering the great losses everyone is experiencing due to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, we do not have the opportunity to restore everything at our own means. We have to call help with renovation of our buildings – home for 1,775 people and home for more than 700 children.
We are asking for help in bringing life back to our residential complex in the heroic town, which has become a shield for Kyiv.