The museum workers of Luhansk Region Museum of Local Lore are part of the Museum Crisis Center Team. With the beginning of the war in 2014 the Museum was forced to relocate to the city of Starobilsk, in Luhansk region as well. But with the beginning of the full-scale invasion is was unsafe to stay there, even more, it was impossible. Mykhaylo Vlaykov, a member of the museum’s staff, whom the Museum Crisis Center supported financially, shared his story of evacuation and support. Now Mykhaylo has moved to Lviv and continued to work in the Museum, that temporary works on the basis of the Museum “Territory of Terror”. His story is a part of oral history. 

“For me, as well as for many Ukrainians, the war started on February 24th at 4:30 a.m. when with Mum we had heard the explosions and couldn’t fall asleep anymore… We turned on the TV immediately and all the channels said the same: russia invaded Ukraine. For a long time I will remember the first moments when I simply refused to believe that this could happen at all... My mother immediately started packing everything we needed, in case of emergency.... But all our things fit into one small backpack...

At 7 a.m., my colleagues and I decided that we needed to come to work, at least for half an hour. First of all, to hide our valuables in the bomb shelter and to get our personal belongings. The meeting with colleagues was not the same as usual... On the way to the museum, we passed by enemy vehicles. There were a lot of them... There were explosions in the neighboring towns, so the joy of the meeting passed us by. In less than an hour, everything was in the basement, and we quickly said goodbye to our colleagues, promising each other that we would meet again in a few days... But fate decided otherwise.

When I returned home, I immediately started monitoring social media and got to one of the groups where our local activists were going to express their position that Starobilsk is Ukraine! We agreed to meet on February 25 at 10:00 a.m. in the central square.

On 25.02.2022, at 10:00, about 300 Starobilsk residents came, as agreed. The local newspaper was there (as it turned out, it would not be "useful" for me). We listened to the Anthem of Ukraine many times, sang, shouted slogans... The beginning was calm. Later, we got "bored" of standing, and decided to walk through the city with flags and the Anthem. As we were walking through Starobilsk, we saw a huge column of enemy vehicles heading towards the regional center. Wasting no time, we all ran in their direction to stop them. We crossed the road, raising our hands to the sky to show that we were civilians and had no weapons. Half of the vehicles had already passed, the other half stopped in front of us. We begged them to turn around and go back to our place; we said that we do not want war, we do not want to live under Russian rule. They listened to us silently, but their eyes were full of anger and hatred And about 10 minutes after our pleas, they started shooting at us, at civilians. Not directly at us - they were aiming above our heads. In a split second, we were all lying on the ground with our heads covered with our hands... Never before have I heard shots so close... Never before have I seen the muzzles of tanks so close... Never before have I experienced such cruelty... We were dispersed, and the convoy moved on. My friends and I walked home in silence. It was here that I realized for the second time that it was war.

And then the worst began - our city was seized by the "liberators". They felt confident, driving around in stolen cars, tearing down Ukrainian flags everywhere, installing their ugly tricolor rag. Storefronts were empty, banks could not withdraw cash, pharmacies were selling their remaining stock...

Watching what was happening to our city for three days, I could not keep silent. And again, we met with activists, this time led by our mayor, a brave woman who was not afraid to negotiate with the armed monsters, who offered to discuss all the issues calmly. But these cowardly monsters didn't even dare to come out, apparently afraid that there were too many of us. And then we did one good thing: we took down the tricolor in the central square and raised our own blue and yellow flag. To our anthem, the anthem of free people, the anthem of Ukrainian people. In the evening, they took it down again...

And that's when the thing that made me flee my hometown began. The local newspaper that filmed the meeting posted the video on YouTube. There were a lot of views. And these freaks started looking for the participants. My friend called me and said they were looking for me. They asked him if he knew where I lived... I had to act quickly... In a few hours I found a carrier who was taking people to Kharkiv, and from there I had to go to Vinnytsia.

The road to Kharkiv was very disturbing. I had nothing forbidden in my  bag, only clothes, but knowing what these non-humans were capable of, it was still scary. We passed 21 checkpoints from our city to the center of Chuhuiv... Unfortunately, these were not our checkpoints. We twice got off the bus with our hands in the air and turned our bags out under the sights of machine guns to make sure we weren't carrying anything illegal. At other stops, they just checked our documents... The Russians checked our documents, Ukrainian documents... I still can't get my head around it!

Finally, Kharkiv... Although it is completely different, it is still Ukrainian... There are no people at all, but there are our military. And those three hours while I was waiting for the train, I was sure that I was safe, even though the explosions were very close by.

In Vinnytsia, I lived with wonderful people, the parents of our museum friend. Only Ukrainians can welcome you so warmly. And I am proud to be a Ukrainian.

There is no doubt, I am sure that our country will definitely win, because only we have the bravest people; only we have such strength of spirit! The truth is behind us and God is with us! Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!”

P.S. We publish the stories of our fellow museum workers with their permission, and only when they believe that there is no threat to their lives and the lives of their loved ones.