Yachts, the sea, the scent of acacia trees and sporty Mykolaiv – this is how Alla Ihnatieva remembers her home. The woman spent her entire life in the city of sailors: from her youth in a yacht club to many years of work in intensive care, and later – in her own grocery store, which became the centre of the neighbourhood. And then came the war. And for three years, her life has been divided into “before” and “after”.

Alla and her husband moved to Radomyshl and joined the “Nezlamna_Ya” hub. A community of women who have experienced loss but have not broken. They were united by a common trauma and a common strength.

Alla Ihnatieva tells about eight months of continuous shelling of Mykolaiv. Her family survived two before leaving. One day a missile landed in the neighbourhood and her friends were wounded. Returning home every year is not nostalgic, but painful: the house is overgrown with weeds, mice have destroyed furniture and food, everything is stinking and mouldy.

Nevertheless, Alla continues to return home every year to put things in order. She says it’s physically hard, mentally it’s even harder, but how else? After all, these are not just walls, this is a piece of her life.