They saved not only themselves but also the animals of their neighbors.
50 animals came under fire in a car transported by a Kharkiv family from Severnaya Saltovka, not only their pets but also those that were previously abandoned by the owners or thrown out of veterinary clinics.
The fugitives arrived in the Kirovograd region, seeking shelter in slippers alone because they were saving the life of the most precious – four-legged and winged pets.
It is noisy in the new courtyard of the Kudryavtsevs: their resettled four-legged pets, who were in the basement with their owners for a month and a half after the bombing, are happy to be free.
Before the war, the couple had five dogs, but the neighbors were so frightened by the explosion that they ran away and abandoned their animals. They just left the keys. Thus, we had all the keys to all the apartments in the house. Then we didn’t leave the animals, we had to take everyone,” says Tatyana.
In the basement of her house, she also took in animals that the owners or veterinary clinics abandoned on the street. “We had 16 dogs and probably only 50 live animals, including rabbits, parrots, and chinchillas. There were a lot of things. People fled and took everything alive.
Between the cages of the aquarium, there was a cage where the turtle sat. We took everything that fit into the car,” says our heroine.
When the Russians again attacked Saltovka with artillery, the family decided to flee.” They were shooting near us, the shell exploded 200 meters from the car.
Four bags of food were placed on the roof. Other than that, there was nothing else. We didn’t have things, ”recalls Mikhail.
“Everyone was in the same cage, no one knocked, it was quiet, and the guinea pigs were in their jars.
Outside and around the cab, parrots were flying, and turtles were running on torpedoes … It was so quiet in the car, we needed to escape so much, ”recalls the woman.
And a local volunteer, who prepared a house for migrants in one of the villages of the Kirovograd region, located 400 km away, could not hide his surprise at the sight of this spectacle. “When I arrived and got out of the car, I could not understand where they were all located together! There are dogs, cats, cages, jars,” recalls volunteer Tatyana.
Many of the relocated animals, both running and flying, have been adopted by the locals, while others are still waiting for new owners. Tatyana and Mikhail worry about the animals but try not to think about their pain from seeing hell. “Everything around them exploded.
There were many corpses in our and the neighboring yard. Children and women were torn to pieces, a child was torn to pieces. There was so much pain.
And the worst thing is that even in this silence, when everything calms down, you understand that your neighbor is dying, not from old age, but from the fact that his heart is breaking from pain, ”recalls Tanya.
However, the family dreams of returning to their hometown of Kharkiv and taking their displaced animals with them. For them, probably, the owners will still return.
