Welcome Матвей

14 Jul 2022

We are delighted to have welcomed Matvii (Матвей) to the St. Mary’s community and share his moving story with you.

My life changed forever on 24^th February. I woke up around 5am as I heard my parents talking. They told me that my aunty phoned and that she heard noises coming from outside and the windows and bed in her apartment were shaking. My parents and I packed our suitcases, grabbed some food, and stuck some tape on the windows to avoid damage. Then we heard the sounds of shelling. We had two choices of where we should go, either to the basement or to my uncle’s apartment. 

We chose my uncle’s apartment and we stayed there for a couple of hours, waiting for other family members to come. We were watching the news which said we were under attack from the east border of Ukraine. People were sending pictures of explosions and fires.

My uncle received a message that in 10 minutes the Russians were going to bomb the administration building close to us. We grabbed some pillows to sit on and decided to stay inside our building because it was pretty safe. We were sitting in the building for about two hours, hoping we would survive. After a while, we found out that the administration building attack story was fake and then we began planning what to do and where to go. My cousin remembered that his friend owned a resort 50 km from the city. Thank God his friend allowed us to come.

While we stayed there we had to stick to a strict schedule and follow rules, such as don’t wear bright clothes, don’t walk around the area of the resort, keep the lights off when necessary, and when it goes dark always keep windows closed. 

Things got harder when the Russians were shelling the area nearby bit further from our place. When this happened, we would immediately go to the shelter. I can’t say that it was normal life, but at least it was safe.

After two weeks we decided to go to Dnipro, which was a bit safer. The hardest thing to overcome was the first 40 km because there was a risk that we could be attacked by Russian troops or Russian tanks.

Fortunately, we reached Dnipro safely and we could have a rest from all that horror. We stayed at the new place for two days, but it wasn’t completely safe. We chose Alexandria as our next point. We arrived there late at night but couldn’t stay in the hotel we had booked as the city was overcrowded. We found a woman who could provide us with a place to stay. It is a miracle how people were trying to help in any way, despite the war.

The next destination was Uman. The hostel was very clean and even had a restaurant, so we didn’t have to travel around the city, wasting petrol to find a restaurant or cafe. While we were traveling around the country to find a safe and reliable place, we saw a lot of checkpoints, overcrowded highways, and so on.

My cousin texted his friend in Chernovtsy and arranged to rent a house there. We stayed there for almost two months and did a lot of jobs in that period of time, so the house is looking good now.

My cousin Darya called me and said there was a programme that would allow us to travel to the UK and be sheltered by a family. After researching, she found our British hosts Mr. Wilson and Dr. Almond. We are glad they have provided a place for us, they are very nice and friendly.

Our journey to Liverpool meant that we would travel to Lviv to cross the border between Ukraine and Poland. We would stay in Poland for couple of days, then travel through Slovakia to Hungary and then to the UK. Once we had arrived at the airport our sheltered family met us at the airport and took us home. After a week or two, I started attending St. Mary’s College.

The students and teachers at St. Mary’s are very friendly and polite and always glad to help you with any issue. I have met new friends here that are really nice to me. What impressed me the most is that I only have to choose three or four subjects that I will study. I’m now a Sixth Form student at St. Mary’s College and I really enjoy it.