Roads covered with snow. Fingers go numb from the cold. Under the high-voltage power line, there is an inscription: "Avdiivka is Ukraine". The last city before separatist-occupied Donetsk.
It is worth looking at the roadside signs here. White skulls on a red background warn of mines. One of them is passed by an elderly man on a bicycle. He carries jute sacks stuffed with firewood tied to the trunk.
Another resident drove a similar route almost eight years ago. It was summer. Suddenly, without sirens or alarm, shelling of the city began. The man pushed the bike away and threw himself into the ditch. Shells from tanks and rocket launchers of the "Grad" type flew from both sides to two corner blocks - the "fifteen" made of white brick at 15 Worobiowa Street and the colorful "painting" at 20 Youth Street. Both turned into ruins.
"Malowanka", followed by "fifteen". Both buildings were destroyed by shells from tanks and "Grad" rocket launchers. Source: WP, photo: Maciej Stanik
The buildings were several hundred meters from the checkpoint at the crossroads. It was built by separatists, but Ukrainian soldiers eventually took control of it. This is a strategic place, about ten kilometers from the famous Donetsk airport, for which there was a bloody fight.
Source: Maciej Stanik, WP
People ran away from this house eight years ago. They have nothing to go back to
Shells also fell a few kilometers away, in the old part of the city, which borders the "promka", or industrial zone of Avdiivka. Bullets and shrapnel stopped on single-family houses along the street called "dead". Signs of life are only seen in the house at number 22.
Everyday life of war
Even before the shelling, the army warned the inhabitants that it would be better to leave. But no one believed that a real war would knock on their door. Some were waiting for the Ukrainian army to deal with the separatists, others were moving their legs at the thought of the arrival of Novorossiya. There were also those who just wanted peace and quiet in their home.
Avdiivka in the Donetsk region. Dramatic photos of destruction after war clashes:
After the shelling, the city began to depopulate. The number of inhabitants has shrunk fivefold. Some left because of the shelling, others because of lack of work. The hopelessness lasted until 2017, when the checkpoint disappeared from under the blocks, and those who could not settle anywhere else began to return to Avdiivka.
“We lived in apathy, but last summer something changed. People started coming to their old apartments to repair the damage. Young people even began to appear on the streets, says Nina Ivanovna. Three shells hit her 9-story block. All the windows flew out of their frames. Until recently there was a big hole in the back, as if an elephant had fallen into the building.
Nina had a small construction company in Donetsk and a dacha in the industrial part of the city. She says she had a good life before the war. When the shelling began, she was just entering the bazaar for quick shopping after work.
- Nobody was prepared for this. I knew I had to hide, but my heart told me to run home, where my son was left. So what if I'm an adult, but I was still very worried. To this day, I don't know how I survived. When I reached the stairwell after the shelling, everything was destroyed by shrapnel. It dawned on me that I had to run between them,” she recalls.
From that day on, Nina Ivanovna never returned to work. She also had to say goodbye to the dacha.
The everyday life of war has begun. - During the subsequent shelling, we acted instinctively. There were no stairs at the entrance to the basement, but no one paid attention to that. Even old people jumped into the basement under the influence of adrenaline. There was a week when we didn't go out at all. We started plastering the walls with styrofoam, spreading pallets on the floor so that no one would sleep on the ground. There were about thirty people there, he says.
Nina Iwanowna: "There was a week when we didn't leave the basement at all. We started covering the walls with polystyrene, spreading pallets on the floor so that no one would sleep on the ground. There were about thirty people there"Source: WP, photo: Maciej Stanik
From the first shelling, for many months, the inhabitants had no water, electricity or gas. - It was really hard. We waited for the rain as for salvation. You could wash and do your laundry in the rainwater. The hardest part was in the winter, without heating, but I didn't want to leave anyway. My family dragged me out of here by force, but only for a while. I cried and missed and came back as soon as I could.
Over time, everyday life turned into indifference and numbness that lulled vigilance. Not everyone went down to the shelters. On the eighth floor of "malowanka" lived a woman with a disabled child. The elevators didn't work. She had had enough. A bullet hit her apartment. She died together with the child.
Luba was more lucky. She was hiding in the bathtub with her husband. Since several shells hit the foundations of the building, some were more afraid of being buried alive under the rubble than of shells and shrapnel.
Luba was hiding in the bathtub during the shelling. Since several shells hit the foundations of the building, some people were more afraid of being buried alive under the rubble than of shells and shrapnel. Source: WP, photo: Maciej Stanik
Only the windows in Luba's apartment blew out. The neighbor's house is still full of shrapnel marks, some broke through the ceiling and fell one floor below. The windows are boarded up. - A family with two small children lived here. They left the city after the first shelling, he recalls. There is still a crib against the wall, a pile of colorful toys and neatly arranged laundry.
The boy from the photo
In the backyard, between the blocks of flats, the wind rocks a crude metal swing. A rusty bench haunts the entrance. Silence. The hum of a transformer. Some doors painted blue with the yellow coat of arms of Ukraine hide the word "will", meaning freedom.
- At one time, apartments in Avdiivka cost almost as much as in the suburbs of Kiev. The city was Donetsk's bedroom, where my wife and I ran a curtain shop. We had a great life. A dozen or so minutes from work and I was in our quiet town. Trains ran every few minutes. Now the tracks and traction fluttering in the wind are closed - says Yuri, a resident of the bombed "painting area", in which only one cage survived. Thanks to being covered by Fifteen.
On the day of the shelling, Yuri was at his dacha, a few kilometers from the block of flats. “I was standing upstairs and watching more bullets fly. I knew my wife and son were in the line of fire. I looked in the mirror and saw that I had turned gray in an instant.
Sergei: "I am Russian from my father, Ukrainian from my mother. I am most afraid that we will return under Russian tutelage again"Source: WP, photo: Maciej Stanik
The man recalls it in the company of his teenage son Nikita. - We were with my mother in the yard. We fell to the ground. My mother shielded me with her body. A man jumped out of the basement and called us over. I try not to think about it, but these images keep coming back – says the boy.
The images also return to Yuri. As he drove one of his neighbors to the hospital, he passed by torn bodies. He saved the second one by accident: he called him to the basement when he saw that he was hiding behind the block. Moments later, a bullet hit the exact spot.
- Sometimes the shelling lasted for days. All you could do was drink and pray to get through the night. Many have fallen into alcoholism. In the morning I had to find the strength to leave the basement, see the damage, take care of the child. War, not war, but children must learn. My wife and I took turns going to lessons with Nikita. I sat next to him in the bench, waiting for him to finish class.
The war changed not only the inhabitants. – I once met two young soldiers in the yard. Clean, fragrant, you can see that they have just arrived at the front. They stood by the tank and took pictures for mothers and brides. I looked at them and my heart broke. More than once I have seen bodies like them loaded onto a crate. I told them to remember that war is the worst thing in the world.
Mural of a Ukrainian language and literature teacher. Maria Grigorievna could have left the city, but she decided to stay with her students. She became a local hero. Source: WP, photo: Maciej Stanik
A few weeks later, a gray-faced man accosted Yuri in a store. Yuri got scared: the terrified look and the rifle. Only after a moment did he recognize him as a young soldier. He was no longer the carefree boy in the picture. The second one panicked during the shelling. Started to run away. He was seriously injured.
Faces of War
Babushka with a small dog returns from a walk. The dog is lucky, as a rule, dogs usually roam the streets alone. They are either nobody's or all those who are left.
Cheeks red from the frost emphasize the woman's good look and shy smile.
– Through the window I saw them banging on the block next door. The shock wave threw me against the wall. I hit something with my jaw. Over time, the teeth began to fall out. He doesn't want to introduce himself. – Write that I am a babushka and I will not go anywhere, because I buried my son here. He died before the war. I will stay here too.
Sergei Shevchenko: "For the rest of my life I will remember the smell of gunpowder that I smelled when a shell landed next to me. The ground trembled, I managed to lie down"Source: WP, photo: Maciej Stanik
The old lady in the quilted jacket is also not going to leave. Snowflakes fall slowly on her hot head. Ludmiła, 72 years old, lives in a five-story block of flats on Youth Street. The children forbade her from talking to journalists and watching Russian propaganda. She didn't listen. - If I tell you what I think, I will go to prison - he hides himself, but a moment later he spits out a series of sentences about Ukrainian soldiers.
“These are not soldiers, they are terrorists. Recently, when a medical student came to his grandparents from Donetsk, they killed him. bandits! They organize a safari among people – he gets excited.
After a while, she admits that she learned the story on a Russian channel, which is best received here. There she also heard that the shooting at the block where she lives was a Ukrainian provocation. Even though everyone around saw how the separatists killed a woman when she was going to fetch water, Lyudmila believes that it was also the work of the Ukrainians. No one can convince her that it's a lie.
The woman talks about everything against the background of a symbolic mural by a local teacher of Ukrainian language and literature. Marija Grigorievna, painted on a block of flats under fire, stayed in the city during the shelling so that children would not be doomed to Russian propaganda. Under her image, Lyudmila repeats everything that Marija wanted to fight against. Only a tired face connects them.
Sergey, Yuri's cousin, is nervous about Novorossiya.
– I am Russian from my father, Ukrainian from my mother. My biggest fear is that we'll be back under Russian tutelage again. I remember armed people shouting about Novorossiya at checkpoints. Instead of referring to myself as a Ukrainian, should I call myself a Novorossian? After all, it sounds like something from Orwell - he is indignant, recalling that when the Ukrainian soldiers returned to the city, he took a bottle and went to celebrate with his neighbor
A living man on a dead street
On the already mentioned "dead street" at number 22 lives another Sergei, Sergey Shevchenko. They call him Chechen. For eight years he has been making sure that his backyard does not become part of Novorossiya. A bit behind the neighbor's plot, you can see the tires set up in a barricade. Behind the buffer strip, the separatists are already in power.
When the shelling starts, shrapnel whizzes around. There is not a single building left in the city that would not be damaged. Source: WP, photo: Maciej Stanik
Sergey has been hearing gunshots almost every day for eight years. The front is several paces beyond the window. Even in the morning, on the day we are talking, the series from "Grady" flew towards "Carska Ochota", once a very elegant restaurant. However, it usually happens in the evenings. When dusk falls and the OSCE controllers end their duty, the game of "cat and mouse" begins. The sides exchange fire, accusing each other of violating the ceasefire.
However, this is nothing compared to what happened just after the outbreak of the war. – In my garden, Ukrainian soldiers have prepared trenches. There were about three hundred of them nearby. I didn't want to leave because my son still lives here. Wife and second son went to Russia. I tried to live normally. "Grady" flew, eardrums hurt from the sound of the explosion, and I was just digging potatoes - says Sergei.
He became aware of the danger as more neighbors left. One had an arm broken off, another a leg. Many died. "For the rest of my life, I will remember the smell of gunpowder I smelled when the bullet landed next to me." The ground shook and I lay down. Shards flew into the house, the shock wave shattered windows. The destruction can be seen everywhere.
- This is where the son and mother lived - he points to a nearby ruin. - When the shell hit the house, they were inside. The whole roof collapsed on them. By some miracle, they survived. They took nothing with them. On the same day they left for Russia. Opposite, right next to the Ukrainian trenches, lived a family with two children. In the dilapidated one-story house, drawings of a tank with the inscription "we are for peace" in yellow and blue are still hanging on a cork board. The family went deep into Ukraine. The 26-year-old mother was leaving her possessions with a broken leg. The bullet flew into the kitchen while she was cooking dinner.
- At the worst moments of the fighting, hundreds of shells fell daily. It was impossible to go outside, so I made a corner in the basement. I had food and water supplies. Some built cast-iron stoves, but I was not afraid of the cold as much as I was of loneliness. As long as there was still someone living in the area, as soon as the shelling ended, we would go to each other to see if everything was okay. After the conversation, I immediately felt better. Then I was alone here. I was sitting in the cellar and with a lit candle, I saw the bottles dancing lambada from the shock waves.
War memorabilia can be seen at Sergei's in the yard. One bullet in the loft, the other a bit further. Over a meter long. Sergei hits him with a shovel because he's frozen to the ground. He reassures that it will not explode, because the shrapnel from it has already damaged the walls and roof of the house. Almost everything has been repaired. He reinforced the facade of the house with dismantled ammunition boxes.
The last winter in "fifteen" and "malowance"
"fifteen" and "malowanka" were also to be renovated. There was even a cost estimate, a contractor was found. The process took too long, and during the administrative scuffles, the buildings fell into more and more disrepair. Finally, an expert opinion came: "The degree of damage is too great, the renovation is not worth it."
Residents of both buildings will receive a refund of up to PLN 300,000. hryvnia, just over 40 thousand. zlotys. It's a fund to start a new life that will allow you to buy something in the area. It is still unknown whether the money will also go to those who do not have owner-occupied housing. They wonder if they will be homeless in the spring, when it is planned to "turn off the blocks".
They're not the only ones afraid. No one will promise the inhabitants of Avdiivka that war will not knock on their new home again. Subsequent threats rewind in them a film from the one that still hasn't ended. Everything comes back to them. Despite this, they remain calm, but mattresses, quilts and pillows are waiting in the basement just in case.
Yuri prefers not to think about it. "If it starts again, we'll leave." I can't do it anymore.
People in Avdiivka often repeat this phrase: "You can't do it again."
Sergei Shevchenko smiles nervously. - You're in the basement. The stomach stops. You can neither eat nor drink. If a great war starts again, I can't stand it. My heart is so weak that even pills don't help. If it starts again, I'll just die.
