Odessa self-defence holds exercises for all those who want to protect the country and city if needed.
The conditions of the training are very close to the real ones: there are no toilet facilities and shower, trainees rest in an unfinished building construction in sleeping-bags, their belongings are packed, since they are always ready to change location of their camp.
Sometimes they are attacked at night. They learn how to fight and handle a weapon both in an open area and in a town.
Do you think all those people are military men? Hardly any of them actually is.
These are people of various civil professions, mainly local businessmen, but you can find even a professional photographer among them.
‘I could never think, I, a businessman in my age, would have to undergo a training like this, but there’s war in our country’, one of the trainees in his 40s says.
‘It was much easier to fight in a computer game’, another one smiles.
Almost every group of participants has at least one woman that undergoes the same training as men.
The camp also has a pet – a dog named Shashlik, which actively participates in training and warns trainees about night attacks.
