MYKOLAJIVKA/SLOVJANSK Natalia Lysjukin there is a round hole in the glass of the balcony caused by a splinter. It is the work of the Russian army.
Where the shrapnel actually flew from is unclear. No one quite stays on the map when it’s a rocket, when an artillery fire explodes.
The village of Mykolajivka is located a few tens of kilometers from the eastern front of Ukraine. It’s the same as living in Helsinki, and the enemy would raze Järvenpää to the ground.
The Russian offensive in nearby Bahmut has been going on for months.
Right now the front line is almost standing still, but in Russia the war leadership has chosen a new tactic. Missiles and drones are aimed at Ukrainian energy plants: the goal is to make winter unbearable for Ukrainians.
Mykolajivka is also trying to prepare for that. What to do if the electricity goes out for days and the temperatures drop to freezing?
After all, the lights are on in Natalia Lysjuk’s apartment apartment. A pungent smell emanates from the door. Black and brown-striped creatures crawl out from under the sofa and from the bedrooms. Some of the cats run out of the open door into the neighbor’s apartment.
– Only the two of us live here, one police officer and the cats, Lysjuk describes the apartment building.
Others have fled either to other parts of Ukraine or abroad.
Natialia Lysjuk clearly is a person who takes care of others. He leads with him to the basement below the bakery, where twenty people live.
One of them is 78 years old Vira Semenovna.
– You shouldn’t live here. There’s probably mold on the walls, but at least it’s safer here than at home, he says.
The basement is a barren maze where benches and couches have been brought in for sleeping. The village management has taken care of the electricity, but the walls are oozing with dampness.
We live like homeless people, gasps the lady from the next room. No one would want to be here, but explosions are rare that day.
All loud noises startle, Semenovna says. He’s crying.
Before in February 20,000 people lived in Mykolayivka after the Russian invasion. Now about a quarter is left, Natalia Lysjuk estimates.
A small bus from the nearby town of Slovjanski rarely goes to the village.
Standing at the bus stop Svitlana Vynohradska the phone rings.
– They have no job to give, he says after hanging up.
A familiar employer was on the other end of the line. The 48-year-old Vynohradska used to work at the coal-fired power plant behind the bus stop. The job didn’t match the education, but it paid the bills and brought food to the table. This year, everything has changed.
In addition to the start of the war, in March the man died of a heart attack, and in May Vynohradska fled west with her parents to the city of Kryivyi Rih.
The situation in Vynohradska is familiar to many. Up to five million jobs have disappeared from Ukraine during the war. Many people’s savings have been spent on the evacuation trip, and the subsidies paid by the Ukrainian authorities are small. That’s why the lack of money also drives people back home.
Already in October, the home, located in a stone two-apartment house, is cold and damp. The family digs out of the boxes for donated winter coats. They will still be needed.
The rain makes Mykolajivka to gray. Traces of the Russian invasion are visible everywhere. A meter-wide hole in the ground in front of the store, a collapsed orphanage, a school with a hole in the middle.
The residents say that the houses that stand next to the school are called “Finnish houses”. No one really knows the origin of the name, but it is probably about Finland’s war reparations. Finland won Ten thousand wooden houses to the Soviet Union (you will switch to another service)which also ended up in Ukraine.
Serhi opens the gate a little hesitantly but lets in anyway.
Does the gas work?
– What do you think, he laughs. He doesn’t want to say his last name.
District heating pipes surround the block, but according to Serhi, they are of no help, because the heating plant is not in operation. After all, he has trees.
Mykolajivka is located near the town of Slovyansk. Slovyansk is one of the places where the war in Ukraine started in 2014.
Now the city has been under attack again since spring. The Russians have not reached Slovyansk, but the threat is constant. That’s why the streets are deserted in the afternoon. Air alarms create an eerie soundscape in the quiet city.
Grandmas, grandmas, grandmas, the taxi driver shouts when we ask if there are any families with children left in town. Only those are left who find it difficult to escape.
The windows and doors of the grocery store are boarded up, but inside it is quite ordinary. Everything you need is there, says the shopkeeper. Except for alcohol, which cannot be sold because of the war, he adds.
For those on a business trip Karina Shalamova and his Kirill-koki is enough for his son. 10-year-old Kirill has returned the other day from his grandmother’s, where he was sent when the Russian invasion began.
Why did Shalamova and her husband stay?
– Because of work. We cultivate land in a nearby village, he explains.
The husband is in the field right now. According to Šalamova, there are hardly any others working on the land because the work is so dangerous.
But home is home, says Šalamovak. Despite the fact that sometimes you have to sleep in the stairwell if Russian cannon fire and rockets are directed at the city.
– I can already recognize from the sound whether it is an outgoing or directed hit and estimate how far away the explosions are, he explains.
30-year-old Šalamova says she wants to live as normally as possible. He takes the dogs out and meets one of his friends who stayed in Slovjanski. But only at someone’s home, because it’s not worth staying outside for nothing.
The arrival of winter is scary, because there is guaranteed to be power outages. If they last for days, 10-year-old Kirill may have to be sent back to his grandparents.
– My husband and I can move to the country to our home village. There is wood heating.
You can discuss the topic until Sunday, November 6 at 11 p.m.
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