The “Magic” campaign, according to the representative of the Zakhar Prilepin Foundation in Donbass, Uliana Strizh, was launched in December last year.
As part of the project, volunteers dressed as the Snow Maiden and Santa Claus came to the children, took letters from them with wishes for what they would like to receive for the New Year, and returned with a gift.
The action covered Severodonetsky, Lisichansky and Svatovsky districts.
Employees of the foundation and officers of the Russian army dressed up as Dedov Morozov and Snegurochka.
“Our senior officers were in Father Frost.
In the dangerous front-line territories, they just congratulated the kids, ”Yuri Mezinov, head of Zakhar Prilepin’s headquarters, tells RT.
- And our Snow Maidens generally made a splash.
All the military guys hugged and took pictures with them.”
According to Mezinov, often during the presentation of a gift or on the way to a child, volunteers came under fire.
“He was, in fact, pulled out of the other world”
Ulyana Strizh recalls how she was also a Snow Maiden and, together with her Santa Claus Yuri Mezinov, came under fire on December 24 in the village of Poltava
.
“We managed to go to two families, and then the shells began to explode,” recalls Yuri Mezinov.
- When the shelling subsided, we learned that one of the shells hit the house of the Selyavins.
The father and his 15-year-old son suffered.
© Personal archive of Uliana Strizh
According to the volunteer, the teenager was in a very serious condition.
“His mother Yulia and younger brother Dima were not caught by fragments.
We invited them to come with us after the doctors.
It is cold outside - the damaged house can no longer be heated.
And so she would be closer to her son and husband, ”says RT Strizh.
On the way to the hospital, the volunteers saw a stalled "loaf" in which the wounded Valya was being transported.
“In Patriot, we always have a cable ready.
We quickly attached a “loaf” and flew in a crowd to Svatovo, ”says Mezinov.
- The hospital works there on the principle of “stop the blood, process it” and send it further to Starobelsk.
And I helped the doctors bandage the wounds of our guy and get the fragments.
He, in fact, was pulled out of the other world. ”
© Personal archive of Uliana Strizh
Volunteers placed my mother and younger brother at their place.
“We gave them a room, clothes, food.
They constantly helped our volunteers.
We even told them: “Relax a little,” says RT Strizh.
We all celebrated the New Year together, like one big family.
We rejoiced at the good news from the doctors all together.”
According to Mezinov, now Valya is in the Lugansk Republican Children's Clinical Hospital.
On January 7, the teenager came out of a coma.
“We rejoice that he opened his eyes, moved his hands.
He certainly needs rehab.
He is not breathing on his own yet, only through a tube.
The fragments pierced the lungs, and fluid accumulates there, says RT Mezinov.
“Dad was lucky, he has already been transferred to home treatment.”
The boys' mother, Yulia, said that her youngest son wanted wireless headphones for the New Year, and Valya dreamed of a mobile phone.
“Now a new phone is waiting for Valya after being discharged from the hospital, and Dima has headphones,” says Ulyana.
Fulfillment of desires
According to Ulyana Strizh, during the action they managed to congratulate about 400 children from the LPR on the New Year.
“
The guys had completely different desires: from a chocolate bar with nuts, where we put something else, to tablets, phones and bicycles,” says Strizh.
Mezinov recalls that one child asked Father Frost for the New Year for tools to repair a house destroyed by shells.
© Personal archive of Uliana Strizh
“The boy wrote that the house was destroyed, he only had his mother and grandmother.
He is the only man, and there are no tools to fix the house.
We bought him tools for 30 thousand rubles, says Mezinov.
“We have hundreds of stories, and each one is hard to remember.”
As Mezinov explains, some of the gifts for the children were purchased with donations to the Zakhar Prilepin Foundation and the Good Angel Foundation.
The other part, based on letters from children from the Telegram channel of the foundations, was collected and sent by residents of Russia.
“In addition to the gifts that the Russians sent, 1.5 million rubles were sent to the fund.
500 thousand of them were donated by the military commander Peter Lundstrem.
Every morning we bought something more: bicycles, a guitar.
So it was not Yura and Ulyana who gave magic, but half of Russia participated in the action, ”says Mezinov.