Hanna and Timofiy, only four months old, were the protagonists of one of the saddest stories of the war. Both lost their lives in an attack on the building where they lived with Sergiy, Hanna’s husband and father of the baby, and Liza, the couple’s eldest daughter.
June 15, 2024, 10:02 a.m.
Hanna and Timofiy, just four months old, were killed in a Russian drone attack in March. (Photo: TN).
In the early morning of March 2, the life of Sergiy Gaidarzhi changed forever. A Russian drone hit the building where he lived with his wife and his two children, in Odessa. The 4-month-old baby and the mother died. They were buried under the rubble of six collapsed floors. They were found several hours later, together. Sergyi, who that day injured his hands searching for 17 hours in the remains of the building, tries to move on, for his two and a half year old daughter who, miraculously, survived along with him.
A little over three years ago, Sergiy and Hanna began to build a family. He made a living as a photographer and working at an auto security company and she worked in design and decoration. Shortly after starting their life together, Lisa, the eldest daughter, and two years later, Timofiy. In the first months of this year, with already two years of large scale invasion in your countryHanna and Sergyi they were trying to move forwardlike so many Ukrainians, and they rented an apartment in a modest residential area.
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Sergiy Gaidarzhi looks at a photo of his son, Timofiy, on his cell phone.(Photo: TN).
Odessathe city in which they lived, is known as “pearl of the Black Sea”, for its enormous cultural value. It is also the main port of Ukraine and, being a country that exports raw materials, the strategic importance of the place is key to understanding why, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, it has been the target of constant attacks.
There, at 1.17 in the morning On March 2, a drone hit, causing almost all the floors will collapse of the building where Sergiy and his family lived. When he desperately left the room where he was sleeping with his daughter, Liza, he opened the door to the next room, where his wife and his baby were sleeping. Upon opening the door, he found that the room was no longer there.
This is how the building where Sergiy Gaidarzhi lived with his family looked like. (Photo: TN).
The young father of 32 years received TN to tell his story. He seems shy but willing to talk. Although he is a man of few words, each of his phrases has the forcefulness of a sentence. “I heard the sound of a drone approaching. It was getting more and more intense. Then, an explosion. I got up quickly, I reacted very quickly. I took my daughter and we left. The door to the room where Hanna and Timofiy slept was closed. When I opened it, I saw directly the street. So, I understood that there was no hope that they had survived,” he recalls. “They ask me how I cope… But I don’t cope. There only comes a moment of acceptance”.
Sergiy Gaidarzhi survived the Russian attack with his two and a half year old daughter. (Photo: TN).
On that night of March 2, together with Sergyi’s wife and little son, 10 people died, 5 of them children. They are all remembered in a sanctuary at the entrance to the residential complex. On the table they set up there, they display photographs and teddy bears. All belongings and memories of those who are no longer here. Local artists made tributes in murals and paintings to those who are today the angels of Odessa, a city that, like so many others in Ukraine, knows well the cruelest side of war. In one of these works, you can see the image of a baby from whose body bricks and debris fall away. In another, the postcard of Hanna kissing Timofiy. Love, horror and pain coexistlike in every corner of the punished country.
A work of art honors Timofy in Odessa. (Photo: TN).
The apartment where Sergiy lived with his family is now uninhabitable. Try to contact a neighbor to let us in. As we follow him in silence, he reviews in each room what he experienced on the night of horror. He heads first to the photo in the main hallway of the small apartment. It’s a great poster that someone put up to pay tribute to his wife and son. In the image, Hanna is kissing Timofiy on the cheek.
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Then, he shows us the kitchen and says that on the day of the attack, no one could even distinguish it among the rubble. Finally, she takes us to the rooms. “Just before the attack I decided to move the bed. Maybe that’s why nothing happened to us.”he remarks.
This is how Sergiy Gaidarzhi’s house looked after the drone attack. (Photo: TN).
In the place where the white door used to be seen, there are a couple of pieces of wood that someone put up to wall it up from the inside. “Us we lived many beautiful moments. As people of faith, I believe that we will meet again in heaven,” says Sergiy. When talking about his daughter, for whom he continues today, he says: “She is very little. She is two and a half years old. She doesn’t understand what’s happening. One time, while we were walking, I pointed to heaven and told him that Mom went to Heaven with Jesus. She flew. Thank God, she didn’t understand what happened. I removed it immediately… It’s difficult when he asks: ‘where is mommy?’. But immediately she herself says ‘she is in Heaven.’”
Sergiy Gaidarzhi with his wife Hanna, his daughter Liza and his son Timofy. (Photo: courtesy of Sergiy Gaidarzhi).
Before leaving the place, the young father finds one of the last traces of his wife in a corner of the empty house. Take that little bottle, it is a perfume sample, and walks us to the door. Once at the entrance of the building, open it, smell it and put it back in his pocket. “She wore Chanel, but she had several of these samples,” she says. Although she knows that nothing will make her come back, this may be her last attempt to rescue something of her life that was taken from her on the night of March 2. The tender struggle of a man alone against everything irreparable.
