Former engineer Maria Nikolaevna, 92, looks at her family cat, Kisiau, next to her makeshift bedroom inside a basement, where she has lived with her daughter and son-in-law since the beginning of the war, in northern Saltivka, one of the most damaged residential areas of Kharkiv, Ukraine July 26, 2022. REUTERS/Nacho Doce
KHARKIV, Ukraine (Reuters) - After surviving World War Two, Maria Nikolaevna lived a busy and fulfilling life, raising two children, working as an engineer in the Soviet aerospace industry and cultivating a beautiful garden at the family home in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
As she grew old and her husband, Vasilii Emelianovich, died, her horizons narrowed to the confines of her second-floor apartment, the view from the window of children playing on the swings and visits from her daughter who lived nearby.
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