As most IDPs Svetlana and Fedor Petrenko changed place of residents for several times this year. They became victims of false agency and lost their house. They didn’t go back to the occupied territory but took care over adopted child. Svetlana told the Informator.lg.ua about life of her family before the war and problems with a search for new house for her five children.

Before the war

We lived in Makeevka before the war. The life was great. I was working as accountant in a public organization “Martin Club”. It is a human rights organization. Since 1994 it has been working in the field of children’s rights, those who has no parents or has disadvantaged parents. Our organization had a number of houses and we tried to keep children in families. There was a project “Little mother” aimed at provision of help to mothers, who have no support. We tried to make them keep their children… That is why I have all my adopted children.

We were living in a big house. Our family was growing and we tried to rebuild the house. By the beginning of the war it had 120 m² and every child had separate room. We have 5 children – four adopted and one biological daughter Varvara – she is twenty, studies in Donetsk Technical University, she is sociologist. We also have a son Sasha – fourteen years, Vitya – eleven years, Nastya – seven years and Edik – seventeen years. My mother also lived with us.

Edik became a part of our family hear in Dnepropetrovsk. His mother – alcoholic, three brothers and sister stayed in Makeevka. He went to controlled territory to continue studying and had to go to orphanage. We knew him for a long time, he came to us, asked to take him, I went to juvenile service and one more son appeared in our family.

Prolonged “vacation”

We left on June 5, 2014, when unknown hideous armed young men came to the office of our organization. We understood that it was time to take away children.

We thought that we’ll go for a month and called it “vacation”. We chose Dnepropetrovsk because it was the closest big city. Our friends found apartments for us via the internet. Advertising described a big house with seven rooms. We paid agent. But it turned to be a very old house with three rooms. Our friends came there at night when it was raining and didn’t refuse. Nineteen people lived there – nine children and ten adults.

We spent a month there and decided to leave. The first family was sheltered for free by a woman. Another family went to a cottage of a businessman. We were offered to live and work in a roadside café on the Moscow – Simferopol route. In the past it was very active route, but now it is almost “dead”. All roadside cafes have similar signs – “for sale”. We fed our serviceman with borsch, filled them with fuel and gave water. It was terrible time. We saw boys, who were going to the war and on the way back we saw busses with refrigerators – not all of them came back.

We had to calm down drunk men very often. We were not afraid of that. You’ll never scare Donbass with such things. But still we wanted to take our children to normal society. We spent a month and a half there. Then we started to look for a house in a suburb of Dnepropetrovsk, when it became obvious that we will not return to Makeevka. Moreover, a three years old sheep dog Marta was going to us from Makeevka and we had to find a house.

We tried to find it via agency but were cheated and lost 2000 hrivna. There were a lot of such IDPs as we were. People are afraid of things which seem strange to them, that is why they looked at us with suspicion and we got many refusals. We found a house in a very bad condition, started cosmetic alterations but the owner sold it in three months.

“Children’s benefits” for “public utilities”

We didn’t want to move to another region, because children were going to school in this area and benefits for children were registered also here. The day we had to move my husband found a house in the same area for same price. We live here now.

I believe in God and think that the God helped us to find a house in this area so fast. I have no idea how we will manage to pay according to new higher municipal tariffs. The house is more than 100 m² and it will be very expensive to heat it. Children’s benefits are big but I calculated that we will have to give all that money to pay for public utilities and it will be difficult to feed children.

It is possible to get facilities but only if you are registered in the house or own it. A tenant can get subsidies only if he/she will have signed lease contract and register it in a Tax Service. It is a very long and exhausting procedure and I don’t think that the owner of the house will be willing to get involved into such challenge. I’m sure that if I will try to receive facilities the owner will show me the door and I don’t want to move with children again.

Informator.lg.ua starts a series of articles devoted to IDPs. If you are an IDP and faced problems with housing, job placement or relationships with officials, send us your stories to e-mail: [email protected]

Prepared by Denis Matsola for the Informator.lg.ua