The Daily Telegraph

Stubborn villagers wait in Soviet nuclear bomb shelters for war to end

- By Colin Freeman in Luch

A‘I’m scared one day I will find there is nothing left. With every explosion you think: “Is this the end?”’

s the lead singer in his village band, the Free Cossacks, Feder Sichiv’s favourite music is country and folk. Yet after three months of Russian invasion, during which he hasn’t played his guitar once, he has also learnt the rhythms of another, less soothing noise – war.

“Hmm, no, I don’t think that one landed near us,” he said, as shellfire rocked the village of Luch yet again on Monday. “It depends on the sound – sometimes it’s the Russians firing at us, sometimes it’s us firing at the Russians. Often, though, I can’t really tell – it’s just all around us, all the time.”

Mr Sichiv, 65, is one of just 90 people still living in the village, which normally has a population of around 1,000. It sits in the rolling farmlands east of the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv and in quieter times could have provided the backdrop for a Ukrainian version of The Archers. Wood pigeons coo in trees, the cultural pavilion stages amateur dramatics, and the most exciting gossip usually concerns sugar beet harvests.

Since February, though, it has been on the front lines of the war, as Vladimir Putin’s forces push towards Mykolaiv from the Russian-occupied port of Kherson. The nearest Russian guns are three miles away and the shelling has reduced much of it to rubble. Several artillery rounds have wrecked the village school, one still lying wedged in a floor.

It is the sort of thing that would have sent Linda Snell and the rest of the Ambridge cast scarpering. But the folk of Luch are made of sterner stuff. Or rather, more stubborn stuff. The elderly are especially reluctant to leave – either because they have nowhere to go, or simply because they are reluctant to abandon their homes, pets and vegetable patches. Others, like Mr Sichiv, have stayed to look after them. “We have to keep an eye on the old folks,” he said.

When he spoke to The Telegraph at lunchtime on Monday, Mr Sichiv was busy practising another new skill – al fresco cooking. Most residents of Luch now live in the Soviet-era undergroun­d bomb shelters located around the village, none of which has gas or electricit­y. So outside each one, makeshift canvas awnings have been set up, under which pots of broth bubble on open fires.

These pop-up restaurant­s also offer quick access to the shelters if shells land close – something that happened as Mr Sichiv was cooking during The Telegraph’s visit. As the noise of huge explosions engulfed the village, he whisked us down to the shelter – though not before calmly putting the lid back on his cooking pot.

Built in anticipati­on of a nuclear war with the West, the shelters have been all but derelict for 30 years. Some are used to store vegetables, others have served as secret drinking dens for teenagers who daubed devil-worship graffiti on the walls. They have a dank, musky smell, and when Marina Tofstiko, 57, and Tatiana Honcharova, 60, moved into one in early March, they hoped it would be for no more than a night or two. Two months later, their shelter has a semi-permanent feel, with mattresses and linens brought in from their house, and a makeshift kitchen dresser.

There is a laptop for watching DVDS, and some Red Cross parcels brought by humanitari­an volunteers from Mykolaiv.

“It’s horrible and scary to live here, we just want to go home,” said Ms Tofstiko, whose bed sits under a pentagram graffiti.

“But it’s too dangerous right now, even though our house is just across the street. We can’t go to Mykolaiv either – my mother is 91, and she doesn’t to leave here. Anyway, who would say it was safer there? As long as we stay here in the shelter, we’re OK.”

Indeed, the subterrane­an existence of Luch residents has restricted serious casualties to one. But the stress is taking its toll. “My teenage boys are scared,” said Olga, 36, whose sons have spent the last 12 weeks in a shelter reading Agatha Christie novels. Miss Marple’s’ adventures in St Mary Mead offer only limited relief from the war, however. “The kids cry a lot,” Olga added. “They are just stressed.”

So too was her elderly father, who emerged briefly from the shelter to ask if The Telegraph might take his daughter and grandsons to Britain. “I am scared that one day I will come out to find there’s nothing left of the house,” he said. “With every explosion, you think: ‘Is this the end’?”

As for how it actually would all end, nobody in Luch could say. The front line has remained largely static in recent weeks, although Ukrainian forces say that with more Western weapons, they could push the Russians back. Mr Sichiv, however, is not expecting bookings for a Free Cossacks victory gig any time soon. “I don’t even think about who will win the war right now,” he said. “There’s wood to be chopped, and cooking to do.”

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 ?? ?? Singer Feder Sichiv has added cooking to his repertoire during the Russian seige
Singer Feder Sichiv has added cooking to his repertoire during the Russian seige

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