‘Don’t touch. It could be a bomb’
LATE YOU COME, BUT STILL YOU COME. — FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
In the liberated towns north of Kyiv, Ukrainians are trying to heal from the scars of Russian occupation. To better understand this, I accompanied a volunteer organization called District #1 as it spent the day Wednesday cleaning a destroyed kindergarten in Hostomel, a small town in Kyiv’s suburbs. The experience poignantly illustrated the tragedy of Russia’s invasion, as well as the power of grassroots volunteerism popular among Ukrainian civilians.
As one approaches Hostomel, they are greeted by the burnt out remains of a gas station, and then there are houses with roofs blown to pieces, their sides blackened with fire. One of the main bridges to the area has a gaping hole where two lanes used to be. You can still cross via the remaining usable lane, supervised by security forces, though your car tilts towards the chasm.
Within Hostomel, there is no electricity, running water or gas. Locals cook their food over fires just outside their apartments. Ruined tanks can be spotted every once in a while.
When the Russians evacuated, they extensively booby-trapped local homes and cars with mines, which reportedly injured some civilians. The day before I visited Hostomel, a soldier, Dmytro, warned me, “Do not touch anything. A book. A newspaper. A door. It could be bomb.” However, the danger is minimal so long as one stays in areas that have previously been cleared by the military.
On Monday, before starting on the kindergarten, District #1 had cleared war debris off one of the town’s roads. Aided by construction machinery, they shovelled fragments of rooftops and other junk into a large dumpster and filled trenches that had been made by Putin’s soldiers. When they finished, the street looked borderline normal, notwithstanding the ruined buildings around it.
On Wednesday, a group of approximately 40 volunteers from District #1 arrived at the kindergarten. According to Andrii Titarenko, one of the organization’s leaders, they had chosen to specialize in repairing social infrastructure, such as schools and community centres, under the assumption that the government would prioritize restoring residents’ apartments. When they first came to the kindergarten a few days beforehand, a lone teacher had been struggling to fix all of the damage by herself.
At the kindergarten, many of the windows had been shattered and, as a result, broken glass was strewn throughout the hallways. Some areas had been sprayed with bullets. In one room, a wall and ceiling was covered in bullet holes, contrasting horrifically with nearby children’s books and cartoon posters.
The volunteers immediately began sweeping up debris and knocking out jagged shards of glass that were still attached to the window frames. From every corner of the building, one could hear the sound of breaking glass, almost like rain — crunching beneath feet, scraping against the floor, falling into wheelbarrows.
There were toys, pencil crayons and other minutiae scattered over desks and tables. The areas that were undisturbed were like a dusty museum display. However, the Russians had scrounged through cabinets and drawers, tossing their contents onto the floor. In several rooms, there were beds for napping children, eerily untouched with identical pillows and sheets, some with pyjamas still discarded on them.
Racks of children’s shoes were abandoned throughout the building. Like so much else, many were covered in glass.
An older woman explained in Ukrainian that this used to be the best kindergarten in the area. She took me to the office of the director, which looked as if it had been assaulted by a tornado, and pointed to an empty shelf — the Russian soldiers had stolen a religious icon from the office.
In one classroom, there were green and yellow chairs in a pile, upon which were taped the names of children — Kiril, Filip, Masha and so on. Elsewhere, in an open drawer, I found photos of a young girl painting and playing with building blocks. I put her photos on a desk and it was cold in the room, quiet save for the distant scraping of glass, and I went empty inside.
On the second floor, rainbow curtains billowed in the wind that blew through broken windows. Strings of butterfly silhouettes, cut out from coloured paper, had been hung among the curtains. It was as if they were dancing. But these butterflies were only in one half of the room. Then I noticed a pile of cut-outs on the floor — it was an art project that had been interrupted by the war.
When I realized this, I choked with anger and wanted to shout at someone, but who could I shout at? There was nothing to say. Nothing to do. Only butterflies mutely dancing in the breeze.
On many of the carpets, and only on the carpets, there was feces which looked as if it came from humans. I asked one of the volunteers if the Russian soldiers had defecated on them out of spite. She said she wouldn’t be surprised if that were true — the Russian soldiers were notorious for their vandalism.
Within a few hours, the volunteers cleared most of the debris. The sound of breaking glass abated until there was mostly normal sweeping, punctuated with occasional crashes of wheelbarrows being emptied in the front courtyard.
During lunch, Andrii explained that District #1 had existed for years as an association of businesses in one of Kyiv’s cultural neighbourhoods. They organized large festivals in the summer to enliven their street. The group had decided to pivot toward neighbourhood reconstruction last Friday, and, as a result, many of the volunteers cleaning the kindergarten worked in the cultural industry — clothing designers, DJS, photographers, models, musicians, architects and the like.
Some had not joined the war as soldiers because they lacked the necessary military training. The Ukrainian government prefers that those without training focus on working and contributing to the economy, if possible, rather than risk being a burden in the military. However, other volunteers simply lacked the constitution to kill.
Andrii said, “It’s not so easy to kill people, actually.
Even to shoot in the direction of the enemy. I know many situations when people even went to the army and said, ‘I cannot do it.’ And these people, they really want to help but they don’t know how. I think we gave them a sense of how they can help.”
District #1 was buoyed by access to high-quality talent. One of the volunteers worked as a prominent events organizer before the war and helped the group secure everything it needed to effectively clean up the streets of Hostomel, a literal war zone still infested with mines, on short notice. After clearing the kindergarten of debris, the group plans on fixing the roof and refitting new windows.
To actualize these dreams, Andrii has begun strategizing for aggressive fundraising, noting that District #1, by simplifying the supply chain for humanitarian aid, reduces the risk of corruption.
Afterwards, I approached a woman, Marie, who, along with other volunteers, was picking glass shards out of a garden in front of the school. When asked about what she felt when she first saw the kindergarten, Marie responded, “I found out that nothing can shock me. It’s terrible, but it’s war. It’s normal to see such views. It’s normal to be here. I wasn’t shocked. I pluck up my courage and do my work.”