Escaping the War: Ukrainian Waverlees Share Their Stories. Part 1
This is a personal story of one of Waverley’s team members who had to evacuate from Kharkiv due to the russian invasion, published with the author’s permission. By sharing the real stories of people whose homes and lives were stolen by the russian invaders, we hope to raise awareness in the global community, let people around the world know what it’s like to be in the middle of war so that more is being done to stop this cruel war from happening.
Waverley is a global software engineering company with over 400 specialists and offices in 8 countries on 5 continents. One of our development centers with over 150 team members was located in Kharkiv, Ukraine, which is 40 km away from the russian border. On 24th of February 2022 russia started the war against the people of Ukraine. The city of Kharkiv was heavily bombed by russians from 5 am. Waverley has done everything in our power to help evacuate our people from cities in danger, providing them with transportation, accommodation, and everything else necessary. Within several days 98% of Waverley’s team members moved to safe places and resumed work.
Ross K. from the Marketing department:
“On February 23, everything in Kharkiv was calm, we were doing our usual activities. I went to tennis where I discussed the latest news with a friend and we both were very skeptical about the fact that the war is going to start in the nearest future. We were convinced that all the news was a provocation.
Well, on February 24, I woke up at 5 am from the sounds of shelling in my city. First, I just stared at the wall for 30 minutes, unable to realize that this was all for real and trying to figure what I should do now. After I came to my senses, I told my girlfriend to pack things and get ready to get out of town to my parents’ house in the country. Having taken everything we needed and our dog, my girlfriend and I left the city. Traffic jams were terrible, people seemed to have forgotten how to drive, everyone was driving in the opposite direction and violating the rules. I thought that it would be safer to stay at home because at that time the probability of getting into a car accident was higher than dying under shelling. When I took my girlfriend and our dog to safety, I immediately returned to the city to pick up my sister and her boyfriend and take them to a safe place too.
We spent the next couple of weeks under shelling and tons of bad news. Everyone was very scared and I had to completely ignore my emotions and not show fear, so as not to spread panic in the house. Over time, everyone began to do everything in their power in order to be useful. Each of us cooked, volunteered, worked, etc. During heavy shelling, we used a neighboring cellar as a bunker. We had to walk through fields and gardens to get there. Once, when we tried to get to our bunker after the start of curfew, we heard several warning shots in our direction. We decided not to risk walking again during the curfew time, so we had to equip a shelter in our house, boarding up all the windows, and finding a safe room.
The situation with food access was not very good. All the shops became empty in the first days, nothing new was brought in, and humanitarian aid to our village had not yet been organized. We were lucky enough to have good neighbors who kept livestock and at the time of calamity they sold meat and other food at a low price. For the first time in my life, I had seen the whole cycle of pork production, from slaughtering to roasting and packaging!
In a few days, the shots got closer. The villages in the neighborhood were already bombed, and no one wanted to stay under such pressure. At the same time, everyone was afraid to go somewhere. There was news about shot cars, trains, and there was no guarantee that it would be possible to leave safely. However, I understood that staying any longer would mean increasing risk for us to be bombed. The situation wasn’t getting any better.
The toughest and most challenging task was to persuade relatives to take the train and leave to a safer location. But after a fighter plane flew over our house and all the walls and windows trembled, everyone felt that this might be our last night. At the same time, I told my sister and mother to pack their bags and put them in the car. I asked my best friend who working at the State Emergency Service to come with me, probably more for psychological support. We drove, accompanied by the sound of “Grad” (a truck-mounted 122 mm multiple rocket launcher) and it was hard to focus on driving, but we managed to get to the train station and put everyone on the train.
We decided to return from the train station driving around the city center and, as it turned out, that was the most unfavorable time. Because a huge cloud of dust was moving in our direction from the street next to us. Then, we heard several explosions and an explosion wave even moved out car a bit. There was shelling in the city center on that day. I miraculously turned onto another street, so we avoided direct hits of shells and debris. We left the epicenter of fire and went home. It was very tense. When we passed the checkpoint, the soldiers even took us out of the car and asked why our hands were shaking and if we were saboteurs, but after the dialogue they said that Ukraine would win and let us through.
With my girlfriend we had plans to go to the west of Ukraine, away from the military action. We packed our things and left the next day. The weather did not help us, it was snowing hard that morning, the road wasn’t cleaned for obvious reasons, and we had to make our own way, constantly skidding, but we managed to get out of the city. Along the way, we saw many burnt down cars, tank hedgehogs, and other military stuff.
We were in the way for about 4 days, we couldn’t find a place to sleep, everything was fully packed, we slept in the car. Fortunately, we had sleeping bags with us. Getting gasoline was a huge challenge too, and I had to stand in a line for several hours to fill the car with 20 liters (that was a general limit on petrol) and get to the next gas station. The roads turned out to be surprisingly good, there were rarely any potholes. We reached Bukovel in the Carpathian Mountains (Ukraine) and stayed there for two weeks. We had a hope that the war was about to end and we would return to Kharkiv. Unfortunately, this did not happen and we went to Poland, and then to Germany where we have been staying so far. But we are sure that the war will end soon and we will be able to get home to our native Kharkiv and will take an active part in making it even better than it was before the war.”
