Today is 3 years since the start of the war. Traditionally, I went back to see news from that day, to relive how I felt back then.

Brother and dad came over. Brother said he wants to █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ We talked about it for a while. I showed dad my binoculars.

We went to a restaurant nearby.

We reminiscenced about pets that we had.

CW: Death. One of the most tragic events that we had, was that one of our cats basically hanged himself accidentally around 10 years ago. At home, we have a chicken coop. It had a roof with holes, that you could get into, and our cat usually jumped through one of the holes to get inside the roof and sleep there.

My dad, unaware of this, partially closed the holes (likely because they were ugly). After this, during night, our cat went to jump to the hole as he usually did before, but only his head could go through, and the other part of body got stuck. He then likely suffocated.

The scene was brutal. In the morning, mom and dad went outside and found him hanging, body cold. Me, mom and brother cried for a whole day. Dad immediately removed all the blocks from roof, and even 10 years later, our later cats still go to that place to rest during the night, luckily without such events since.

The year was 1975. My dad, young and impulsive, left school early to attend a tractor college. In the USSR, it was common for students to be sent to different republics for hands-on work. At just 14 years old, he and a group of boys no older than 16 were sent to Kazakhstan to help with farm and factory tasks.

He found himself working on a farm near a tiny village in the middle of the vast steppe, where no more than 100 people lived.

The full moon hung brightly in the sky, casting pale light over the village. My dad was resting in a dimly lit building when two large, middle-aged men suddenly barged in. One of them spoke in a cold, menacing tone: "Put on your clothes. We’re going to kill you."

The man blocked the only exit. Adrenaline surged through his veins. "Is this how it ends for me?" he thought.

Complying, he moved toward the hanger, pretending to search for his clothes. Then, in a split second, he made his move — charging full force at the man guarding the door. Caught off guard, the man stumbled and fell. My dad didn’t stop to look back; he sprinted into the darkness.

The farm was a maze of stables and buildings. Heart pounding, he ran around a stable, the men’s shouts fading momentarily. Spotting a small window, he knew it was his only chance. Despite its narrow frame, he squeezed through and tumbled inside.

He held his breath, listening as the men ran past, unaware of his hiding place. They searched for over an hour, their voices growing fainter until silence returned.

When he was sure it was safe, he crawled out of the barn and slipped into the open fields. Climbing onto a hay bale, he looked up at the moon. Its cold light bathed the steppe, but he no longer cared. He was alive.

Dad called me telling that mom will fry ribs and that I should come home (what an alluring proposal). I haven’t ate anything yet, so I decided to come. I quickly put lens in (only in 5 minutes), and got in the car.

My room has been renovated with new wooden walls. It kinda looks like an old wooden hut, which is cozy. My brother’s room was under renovation after mine, so my room was filled with random stuff from his room.

I ate and talked with family. Brother was absent, since he was in the ██████████████████████████████.

It snowed a little. Seems like every time I go to parents it snows… maybe I should visit them more often.

My eyes felt really dry and sleepy for the entire day for some reason.

Went to supermarket, bought some groceries with dad and came home. Then fell asleep. Apparently it snowed quite a lot while I was asleep, and it was already over :(