Widow of Saratov SVO Hero Recalls Prophetic Dreams

It was August 2022, and the Semenov family lived an ordinary life in Saratov. Pavel Semenov worked at a factory and provided for the family, while Nadezhda was on maternity leave with their daughter—she had turned one year old. But then Nadezhda had a dream. She was walking with a little girl about four years old to the clinic and met an acquaintance. For some reason, he said words of support to her: ‘Everything will be fine!’ And she retorted in frustration: ‘Nothing will ever be fine!’ And she cried, realizing that her husband was no longer alive. But at that time he was alive, on shift, at his ordinary job. And three years later, when their daughter was already four, like the girl from the dream, combat officer Pavel Semenov tragically died in the Special Military Operation (SVO) zone. The dream turned out to be prophetic.

Nadezhda Semenova recalls her husband with tears in her eyes. The funeral was very recent—4 November, and she refuses to believe that Pavel is gone forever.

‘You know, his next leave was supposed to be on 18 March. And I’m waiting, as if he will still return,’ she says.

Nadezhda goes through photographs and smiles: ‘Our wedding day fell during the Covid-19 pandemic. We got married in masks, there could be no more than five guests, and everyone was at a social distance from each other. It looks so strange.’

She recalls how she and Pavel met, and from the first day they were inseparable—they felt as if they had known each other all their lives.

— We met on a dating site and talked until dawn on the very first day, — Nadezhda recounts. — I was working as a nurse at the regional hospital then, Pasha was at a furniture factory. We exchanged numbers, met a week later, and I realized that he was ‘the one’ for me. He felt the same. Before that, I had relationships, interests, attachments, but it wasn’t the same, with Pasha I truly fell in love. It’s like in a movie. I didn’t think I would encounter such a feeling. Earlier, I was skeptical about stories when people talked about love at first sight. I thought, well, probably people have watched too many romantic films. But it turned out that it really happens.

The romance between Pavel and Nadezhda developed rapidly. He was 27 years old, she was 30, and for both it was their first marriage. Then their daughter Katya was born. When mobilization was announced, Pavel assured Nadezhda that it would not affect him.

— I was very worried, I cried. Pasha calmed me down, said he wouldn’t be called up. He had done compulsory military service in North Ossetia, where he fell seriously ill and was discharged due to illness. He thought that those discharged for illness weren’t called up, and he convinced me of that. And when I had already come to believe it, on 26 October 2022 we were called and told to pick up the summons. Then he left for training, to the training unit, and then—for service in the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR).

Only later did Nadezhda learn that Pavel had always dreamed of becoming an officer. But he no longer thought that childhood dream would come true. After mobilization, he signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence. And he received the rank of junior lieutenant—the first officer rank. And he wanted to link his future life with serving the Fatherland.

— When the SVO ends, he planned to extend his contract, not stop at that, — Nadezhda recalls. — Pasha was very proud of his officer rank.

Her husband regularly took leaves. In May, the couple got married in a church ceremony, Nadezhda wore a white dress for the first time and was the happiest wife. But trouble knocked at the door—Pavel’s younger brother Alexei was killed in the SVO. He was 28 years old. Following his older brother’s example, he also went to serve under contract, but his very first combat mission proved fatal for him.

— First, we were told that he was missing in action, — says Nadezhda. — We believed, hoped, waited. But in the end, we were called from the Center for Identification of the Deceased, and all expectations ended there. This hit Pavel very hard. Lyosha was more than a brother to him, he treated him paternally. I think this loss affected him, subconsciously leading to his death. One could say he went into the thick of it, not sparing himself.

Pavel tried to stay in constant contact with Nadezhda. He would message when he was going on a combat mission. And everything seemed to be going as usual, but Nadezhda’s prophetic dream repeated.

— In the morning, on Sunday 26 October 2025, I dreamed that he had died. I woke up in tears, started writing to him and crying. He faced the truth and answered me: ‘Anything can happen.’ He was going on reconnaissance—a dangerous moment. But then he returned. He wrote that he would have lunch and go out again. I tried to live a normal life, went for a walk with Katya, put her to sleep. But my heart wasn’t in it. I felt that something was wrong. The wife of his comrade-in-arms called me and started asking how I was, what I was doing… I said: ‘Marina, do you know something?’ Yes, she said, Pavel is wounded. Then the battalion commander called and said the same thing.

The family started searching for where Pavel was being treated, calling military hospitals.

— On Monday 27 October, I was told that he was going to be transferred to a hospital in Rostov. It’s very close, I rushed to sort out affairs, arrange with the kindergarten for Katya to be taken by her grandmother for a while. I was planning to care for my husband, to be by his side. But on the evening of 28 October, the political officer called and said that Pasha was no more.

We were blown up at dawn

Our sapper missed a mine.

The metal in my body armor

Quickly cooled my nerves.

We were blown up at dawn,

Suddenly an explosion occurred.

A hole in my body armor

Seemed to me just a terrible dream.

We were blown up at dawn,

The plot of a sad tale.

A cold wind roamed the fields.

But we are no longer in the fields.

Pavel wrote poetry. These lines date from August 2023, two years before his death.

After that, everything was like a fog. Nadezhda recalls that Pavel’s comrades-in-arms, who were in Saratov at the time, helped her a lot. During their service, they had become close, there was a real combat brotherhood between the men, and the wives had become friends too.

— They told me: ‘Nadya, we’ll handle everything.’ And so on 4 November we said goodbye to my husband, he lay in an open coffin, — Nadezhda cries. — My dad died in 2012, we were very close. And you know, it’s true what they say, that daughters choose men like their fathers. Even if outwardly they and Pavel weren’t similar, mentally they were the same. Kind, tender, caring, it’s just indescribable how they were. And my father’s death was also dreamed of in advance…

Nadezhda has many relatives, and Pavel’s relatives also became her family. For now, the widow looks to the future without optimism.

— To be honest, I see the future as the three of us—me, Katya, and my mom. Pasha and I were married in church, so I will have one husband for life. Yes, I know there are five stages of grief, that now it’s the denial stage… Yes, I know the pain will dull, become quieter. But it will be with me always. We only lived together for five years, but it felt like 20 years of marriage. I used to joke from the start that we were already like an old couple. I knew so sensitively what he would say, how he would react to something… I would finish his sentences, he would finish mine. I don’t want to believe that I will never hear him again.

Recall that earlier we told about SVO heroes—Yevgeny Trofimov, Alexander Demin, as well as about the widow of SVO hero Maxim Sokolovsky—Kristina Sokolovskaya, who performed a song dedicated to the feat of Russian soldiers.