Baranovych Mykhailo Mikolaiovych

“My name is Mykhailo Mikolaiovych. My family name is Baranovych. I was born in 1954 on May 30 in the village of Babyn-Serednii of the Kalush district of Ivano-Frankivsk region.

From 1982 to 2008, I have served in the Armed Forces. At first, I was an artilleryman, and at the end I was in tank forces. I was not a tank operator, but supervised a material support unit in a tank regiment in the city of Vyborg.

I’ve never been married. I have always lived with my parents. They were doctors. My mother was a physician, my father has worked in an ambulance all his life.

All their life they worked as doctors, and now they found themselves in the hospital late in life. When I went to Kyiv, I left them in the hospital.”

“What’s up with them?”

“Caught a cold and can not recover. Because they are the old ones…

Since 2008, I worked as a mechanic, combine operator, tractor driver…”

“And why have you come to Kyiv? What are you doing here?”

“I got a message that I need to pass a physical examination in Kyiv, they will me give some kind of additive to the pension. I have a disability, a general illness.”

(when they make a diagnosis of a “general disease”, it means a psycho-neurological disease)

“So what happened?”

“I drank a little at the station, was badly beaten, everything was taken away – my money, my phone, documents, and other things.

I do not know what to do, I spend the second month in Kyiv. I tried to board the train, but the conductors would not let me do it without any money or documents. I do not remember any phone numbers. Maybe I will die here in Kyiv…”

“Next week we will help you to take a bus and give you some money so that you can get to your village from there.”

“Please, help me, I will thank God for you till the end of my life!”

Last week, we sent Mykhailo Mikolaiovych to Ivano-Frankivsk.

Photo credit: Alexander Chekmenev