The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation continues to collect stories of Donbass civilians whose fates the armed conflict changed dramatically. In the framework of the project Civilian Voices, the whole world will be able to learn about the real stories of people who shared what they lived through. Among them is the Milakov family from frontline Avdiivka, which is raising four adopted children.
The Milakov family heard constant rocket shots and mine explosions near their house. One day a shell exploded a few meters away from their house.
‘We had a terrible situation here continuing around the clock. Bombing continued from the morning till the evening. The house was shaking and everything was moving up and down. The kids were staying in the hallway. A few meters from the house a shell landed, followed by an explosion, it’s scary... There was a terrible scream, and my legs were sinking under me. That was not the only case when it was scary and horrifying,’ Viktoriya Milakova recalls.
The woman describes the challenges the family faced during that period of round-the-clock bombing.
‘For a year or a year and a half, there was round-the-clock bombing and shelling indeed. We had to survive in all senses of the word: at home and everywhere. We needed to get food for eating and needed to wash. The kids know what it is to survive, what it is to tighten the belts. This is a great lesson in life,’ Viktoriya sums up.
The Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation is a project with a global outreach that plans to collect 100,000 accounts of civilians affected by the armed conflict by 2025.
‘We cannot open the museum in Donetsk, so we are creating it online. It will function as an online archive, online exhibitions, online and offline projects, and as a media resource. Rinat Akhmetov helped, is helping and will continue to help civilians from Donbass. In 2014, the Humanitarian Center was created that provided unprecedented assistance and, in fact, saved millions of lives. There is a separate story behind every saved life. We want to create the world’s main archive of Civilian Stories. We believe that in this way we keep the voices of the past and the present for a better future,’ says Natalya Yemchenko, a member of the Supervisory Board of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
The Museum of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation is the largest collection of stories of Donbass Civilians in Ukraine. Each of them is extremely important! Fill out a small questionnaire and tell your story to the world. Make your input to the preservation of memories!
