Fellow villagers spoke about a family that died during the shelling of the Belgorod region: they had been waiting for a child for a long time

The couple and the baby were buried in the Belgorod region

In the village of Kazatskoye, Belgorod Region, they said goodbye to Dmitry and Nadezhda Ryapopolov, as well as their one-year-old son. The family was killed during the shelling of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the center of Belgorod on December 30, 2023.

The farewell took place in the courtyard of Nadezhda’s parents’ house. All residents of Kazatsky came to the funeral. A family place was allocated for burial in the village cemetery. The one-year-old son was buried in the same coffin with his mother.

“This is a huge loss for the entire village, where everyone is either relatives or godfathers or matchmakers,” Tatyana, a neighbor of the Ryapopolov family, told MK. “For the surviving parents, this is a great grief: to lose their daughter, son-in-law and grandson all at once. They had been waiting for a new addition to the family for so long, almost 10 years.

Nadezhda’s mother and father live in the village. Both are pensioners. They were glad that Nadezhda had found both a good job and a worthy husband: Dmitry worked as director of Belvodokanal JSC, and Nadezhda worked there as an economist.

– They met in the village. Nadezhda is from here, and Dima’s mother lived in Kazatsky. Now she has left, but ten years ago he came to see her. That’s where I met Nadya,” Nadezhda’s sister Svetlana told MK.

The couple postponed the birth of the baby. Everyone wanted to get on their feet, become a public figure, so that the child would be born into a wealthy family. Finally, they decided it was time. We bought a car and moved to the city center. On December 30, Nadezhda and Dmitry, as usual, went for a walk with their child.

“They always walked along the same route: from their house on Slavy Avenue down to Victory Park. There they looked at the New Year tree and went home. But that day they went differently: up to the department store. We wanted to do some shopping before the New Year. This is what destroyed them,” said the sister of the deceased.

A shell exploded very close. Nadezhda and Dmitry died on the spot. A one-year-old boy was lying in a stroller. Doctors found the child still alive. He was placed in an ambulance, but the baby died on the way to the hospital.

The news of Nadezhda’s death shocked the entire village.

– Nadya immediately after school left for the city to study. She stayed there. But she visited her parents often. Visit and help with housework. They thought that when the child grew up, he would also go to the village for fresh air,” the head of the rural settlement of Kazatskoe, Alexander Chilikin, told MK. “We are now providing parents with all the necessary assistance. We are collecting funds for the entire village. I know them all well; we have been friends since childhood.

According to her sister, Nadezhda had big plans for her life. She and her husband wanted to move to Moscow, they took out a mortgage on the apartment, but their house had not yet been completed.