Life in Kyiv
PEOPLE emerge from their shelters in Kyiv, but uncertainty looms large on the horizon.
The rocket attacks on the capital have ceased as Russian forces retreat north, regrouping to inflict further terror on the cities of Ukraine’s south and east.
And as they do, signs of a former life are returning here and there on the streets. There are more cars parked on the road, many of the checkpoints stand unmanned or even dismantled, and places of business, other than pharmacies and grocery stores, are now open.
But it’s an uneasy normality, a shadow of the city before the end of last month when Russian armoured vehicles drove deep into the urban landscape, and special forces exchanged gunfire across busy streets lined with apartment blocks.
I encounter a man from my neighbourhood, returning home from a village to the north after weeks of absence. I almost don’t recognise him because I have never before seen him sober.
“My God,” he exclaims. “I thought the bombing would never stop. The entire village is full of craters. People were abandoning their animals to flee. Just one man tried to take his cow and its calf into the woods to safety. They told me to go back to Kyiv while it’s still quiet.”
As he continues, I notice he’s carrying a brown bag with two bottles of vodka – alcohol sales, along with shorter curfews, are another sign of normalcy returning.
For weeks after the initial Russian assault the city was in state of shock, walking, talking and breathing, but all systems running in emergency mode.
Guilt
Half the population had fled, with the other half hiding in their homes and bomb shelters, while pitched battle raged to the north. Explosions in the night revealed themselves as demolished buildings and corpses the following morning.
A light, cold rain was trickling down yesterday when I saw another neighbour coming up the street. She told of people gone abroad to stay, and others home alone in ill health. One man, I learned, had duped several well-meaning neighbours into providing him with food that he then hoarded or sold on.
It’s a strange conversation, a release of emotions choked by fear for the past several weeks, a fear for one’s own skin that later morphs into guilt and anger.
People in the city have seen the images from Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel – all a short drive from the capital. That’s where all the noise was coming from as we hunkered down in our homes. What we didn’t hear was the shots to the backs of heads in basements.
I had a friend in Bucha, whom I’d fallen out with a few years back for reasons that now seem ridiculous. His Facebook page and Twitter accounts have long gone silent.
I’ve made a friend from Congo named Chris, who goes to my church for soup but lives in the nearby metro station. It’s warm and safe and the people there are nice, he tells me.
When the war began, Chris, like so many others, lost his job, then his flat. He tells me he was attacked in a park by thugs and robbed of his valuables.
A man has recently appeared who says he was hired by an African-American basketball player to help Africans stuck in Ukraine. Chris is hopeful.
Even as I write I get text messages from another acquaintance, the son-in-law of my landlord who rambles on about wanting to kill Russians. His friend, he explains, was in the army but has now gone missing.
Those killed during this war, and many of the evacuees, will indeed never return to this city, which, itself, will never be the same as it was such a short time ago.