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| 'We're all in the same boat': mother of many children and officer's wife saves SVO fighters |
| 2025-01-22 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Olga Borisova [REGNUM] Russian fighter, assault trooper Farhad, call sign Okhotnik, received a serious abdominal wound right before the New Year. A native of Chebarkul (Chelyabinsk region) was taken to a hospital in Makeyevka. The injury was very serious: Farhad was covered in tubes, barely alive, and hallucinations had already begun, recalls the head of the Donetsk headquarters of the Committee of Families of Warriors of the Fatherland (KSVO) Anzhelika Bairachnaya. At the time, she herself was on vacation in Krasnoyarsk Krai. "Nobody took him out - they planned to route him to another hospital on January 1. They called us at half past two in the morning, there was no time to waste - every hour counted. I called the girls at headquarters from Krasnoyarsk, they rushed to the hospital. But it was a holiday: no head doctor, no one. And the soldier's condition was terrible. The girls bought a phone so that he could call his wife - she was in Omsk, and I contacted our Ministry of Health. And with the assistance of the Ministry of Health, we urgently took him first to Rovenki, and then to Rostov," Bairachnaya said in a conversation with IA Regnum. After that, Farkhad underwent three surgeries, now his condition is satisfactory, but doctors continue to keep the man in artificial sleep. At the same time, doctors confirmed: the count really was every minute, the fighter had to be taken out immediately - otherwise he would not have survived. "DONETSK VOLUNTEERS SAVED" This situation with an emergency, but at first glance impossible, transportation of a wounded soldier is far from the first on the account of the head of the Donetsk headquarters of the KSVO. A little less than a year ago, she managed to take another serviceman out of the Donetsk hospital. It was spring. Vladimir from Kurgan had frostbite on his extremities, he was in the Kalinin Hospital, but they wouldn't let him evacuate - there were no cars. "They could have amputated his legs, but we don't have that kind of equipment here. That is, to save him, we had to evacuate him urgently. Well, we jumped into the car ourselves, even though it was late at night. We arrived at the hospital, talked to the doctors, and they quickly discharged him. We loaded him into our car - we have a Gazelle, brought him to the evacuation point, from there we sent him to Rostov on the same day. His feet were amputated anyway, but there was no infection or other terrible consequences. The man's family and the head of the region thanked us," says Bairachnaya. Deputy Head of the KSVO headquarters in Kurgan is Olga Pashkova. She wrote about Vladimir and his wife Elizaveta on social networks, as well as about his rescue - thanks to Donetsk volunteers. Anzhelika Bairachnaya also remembers Vladimir very well. She found out that the man signed a contract, served for literally a week and got frostbite. But after treatment in the hospital, after two months he began to use a wheelchair and began to recover. A LARGE FAMILY AND FOUR CHILDREN OF THEIR OWN Servicemen and their relatives contact the KSVO headquarters with a variety of problems, says an interlocutor of the IA Regnum. Some were helped with medical care, others with payments. The headquarters also collects and delivers food and essential items to families whose breadwinners are missing. Often, explains Bairachnaya, the task of the committee staff is precisely to build a “bridge,” to establish interaction between the fighter and government agencies—the Ministry of Health and other departments. However, the headquarters staff also have other things to do: deliver humanitarian aid and conduct master classes on folk crafts for the children and wives of military personnel. "We have a warehouse - help comes: clothes, shoes, books. People come every Sunday and choose what they need. Once a month we give out a food package, give gifts for the holidays... Recently we went to the monument to the children who died in Donbass and made doves with the children..." - recalls the head of the Donetsk headquarters of the KSVO. Another category of people that the headquarters helps are displaced persons from recently liberated settlements: Selidovo, Maryinka, Ukrainka and many others. Anzhelika Bairachnaya is not only a native and patriot of Donetsk, but also the wife of a serviceman, so it is not difficult for her to find a common language with families who find themselves in the same situation. Although by her first education and many years of pre-war work, the woman is a financier. Already in the DPR, she began to engage in public activities, for eight years she held the position of the chairperson of the Council of Large Families. In 2022, her husband, Ivan, volunteered for the front, and the headquarters of the Committee of Families of Soldiers of the Fatherland opened in Donetsk. A competition was held for the position of head of the regional division. Among the candidates submitted by the local administration was Bairachnaya. “I had a smooth transition from the chairman of large families to the KSVO. There is a family that we are still leading, ” she recalls. “The father was in the militia, he died in 2019, three children from two different mothers were left. Both of them abandoned the children and they were taken by their grandmother, the mother of the deceased. And then, last year, the grandmother died, the children were left complete orphans. We helped them, of course: with things, food. We helped the eldest girl transfer to a budget, now she studies for free. We have a lot of families with five or six children, and the fathers are fighting…” "THEY LEAVE US WITH SMILES" There were never even thoughts of leaving Donetsk: neither in 2014 nor in 2022, admits Bairachnaya. In the family, with her husband and children, they simply did not talk about it. Although the danger was tangible, all the time nearby. The headquarters where she works is located in the city center, HIMARS missiles flew nearby. "We're used to it. We sat out the shelling, came out of the basement - and continued working. In 2014, when all this began, Donetsk was practically empty. It was a city of a million people, but there were 140 thousand left in the entire Donetsk People's Republic. People left, but then came back. And I didn't even think about leaving: I love my land, I love my city. In 2014-15 it was still scary. Everything was closed, nothing worked, and then the fear began to subside. This year, for the first time in all this time, the circus opened, the theater started working," - the interlocutor of IA Regnum shared her emotions. Working with the wounded or relatives who have experienced loss is always hard work, Bairachnaya does not hide. At the same time, the woman's colleagues have had their own troubles similar to what people who come to KSVO for help have to endure. "One of my colleagues lost her husband, another came at the call of her heart, others are the wives of active servicemen. We are all together, in the same boat. Therefore, knowing this pain, these problems, it is easier for us to help each other. And support helps to cope with all requests," says the head of the Donetsk headquarters. And to help people even more effectively, Anzhelika recently received a second education - in psychology, working with military personnel. It also came in handy in her work with civilians. "You know, when a mother or a wife comes, when they cry, telling their story, the most important thing is to hug and say "thank you" for your son or husband. That's enough. You listen to them, let them cry, they tell their story - about how they served, what they were like, how their childhood was... And everything goes away: they leave us with smiles," says Bairachnaya. |
| Posted by:badanov |