In a gut-wrenching video, a Ukrainian mom took several minutes in her bombed-out home to play one final song on her piano hours after they were hit by Russian attacks.
Irina Maniukina, 48, hurried to their family home in Bila Tserkva, the largest city in Kyiv Oblast, after learning her 16-year-old daughter Karina survived a missile hit nearly 30 feet from their house on Saturday.
The worried mother of two returned to their home from the local market to find the house destroyed with doors blown off their hinges and glass strewn across the floor, plus the aftermath of a fire that burned in her 23-year-old son Anton’s room.
But amid the destruction, Irina took a moment to say goodbye to her home and the city where she was born with a touching tribute at her piano, which amazingly was in near-perfect condition among the rubble.
Karina captured the heartbreaking moment of resilience in a viral video posted to TikTok, according to Kennedy News, with her mother stepping up to dust debris from the keys and begin playing a beautiful melody.
“She started playing not only to relax but to collect her thoughts and say goodbye to the house, and also to remember the good moments that were in our house,” Karina told Kennedy News.
At one point, Irina appears overwhelmed by emotion and stops to take a deep breath and gain her composure before continuing on with her song. In an overwhelmingly emotional moment, the camera pans to show the mother surrounded by the debris of her home.
The touching TikTok video has reportedly gathered more than 1.6 million views and drawn comparisons to the movie “The Pianist.” Viewers have been seemingly overwhelmed by emotion watching the “hopeful” video.
“After all this destruction, music and hope survives,” a commenter named Betty replied, according to Kennedy News, while someone named Minkook Younee commented, “I just burst into tears.. this is so beautiful but also so heart-breaking.”
“This is absolutely incredible and heartbreaking, just so many emotions from this video!” another user said.
The teenager told Kennedy News that her mother, who is a music graduate, took the chance to “forget about the war and worries for her family’s safety,” which allowed both of them a moment to remember normal life before Russia’s invasion.
“It wasn’t a sad moment. My mother just wanted to let go of unnecessary thoughts, and I remembered events in our house with a smile,” Karina said.
“She wanted to forget about the war and her worries for our safety. She’s been playing all her life and she even graduated as a pianist. Since there was a lot of ash and dust in the keys and everyone was in a state of shock, she could not play for a long time,” she explained.
After Irina stopped playing, the family called friends and began to clear their house.
Photos from the attack show the bomb’s crater on the street outside the home and neighbors’ houses caved in and demolished.
“I stood in the kitchen and had made pancakes and suddenly I saw an orange and black cloud to my right. Until that moment, I had not heard any aircraft or a bomb flying,” Karina said of the onslaught that overtook her neighborhood.
“After the explosion, everything was smashed and in ashes. I looked around the house and saw that a fire was starting in my brother’s room,” the young girl said, adding that after the fire was extinguished, “everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and my mother decided to gather her thoughts and sit down at the piano.”
The family of three was forced to leave their hometown on Monday. They moved in with friends in Zhovkva, Lviv Oblast, in western Ukraine, and are currently looking for an apartment to stay in — but Karina said: “They are all occupied.”
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