Five souls tied hand and foot in a basement of a summer camp and hundreds of others scattered around the streets of Kyiv Oblast. To say that they were or rather are “civilians” falls short, it could be anyone, ordinary people, with dreams, family, friends and with a future ahead of them, who now lie lifeless on the asphalt around the Ukrainian capital.
To live, to see, to smell, to step on, to feel all that is something that could not be desired even for the greatest of enemies; but apparently that is what war is all about, a panorama so atrocious that it does not enter anyone's head, things that are only seen in horror movies, made by ruthless people.
“Dad, Dad”, cries inconsolably Daria, in the main cemetery of the city of Kyiv, where no more dead people enter, while 3 young soldiers armed with a screwdriver close the drawer where the remains of their father who was killed by the Russians in the city of Irpin lie. Sergei, had decided to hold on to his home, and ended up clinging to the end of his own destiny in this hell. A disfigured face, delicately made up to cover the horror before his relatives who watch him in an open drawer before being cremated. Between fog, cold and light drizzle, they take the lifeless body, put it in a van and head to the chimneys where the black smoke does not stop. Then, without giving time to the silence that remains in that room where souls say goodbye, another drawer enters, another family and everything starts again.
Meanwhile, in Irpin, one “lives”, so to speak, a tense calm.
A Ukrainian flag pierced by bullets, a bridge shattered by a bomb that passes over a river of green water and a row of 300 meters of fully burned cars where the inhabitants of Irpin flee as they could from that ordeal, now welcome northwest Kyiv.
Between artillery wreckage, wrecked tanks and a completely devastated and uninhabited city, the Ukrainian military is looking for mines that the Russians apparently left before they retreated, a kind of guarantee that their absence is not an impediment to continuing to wreak havoc. In one of the squares, meters away where the little ones in the city played a few weeks ago, are now under a rudimentary cross and a mound of sand, the remains of Maria Sharapova. Next to him, a crater, which one deduces is the impact of the missile that caused his death and his belongings scattered under a bench in that park; a perfume, comb, cosmetics, underwear, pills and not much else.
People who “flee”, what a difficult word to use to define the complex decision that the Ukrainian people take on the arrival of Putin's army. People who, in short, escape and this alludes to an act of cowardice, which is not the case at all and has been clearly demonstrated by the strength and tenacity with which they have resisted. Entire families who must leave everything behind, literally everything, and leave in a matter of hours with the bombs on their heels. Life becomes ephemeral in this context, it is not guaranteed but still they cling to it, in the hope, that someday, they will be able to return. Return to a bleak landscape, where nothing stood, nor where nothing will ever be as they knew it.
Some stay, such as Valeriy Belyachenko, a man older than 84 years old, resident of the city of Bucha, located next to Irpin. This is irrelevant given that there are no directions or borders in hell, the picture simply worsens as you go deeper and deeper following the tracks of tanks marked with a “V” or “Z”. After a cheerful and emotional reception, after the Ukrainian army regains power in the region, Valeriy shows his house, which has been reduced to the remains of columns, furniture and a hole in the façade left by the missile that fell on his bed. It is the place where he lives, the place where he saw with his own eyes the advance of Russian tanks and became a neighbor of horror. On the corner, bodies of their compatriots killed in cold blood for no reason by the enemy.
A few minutes from that panorama, five black plastic bags, eight bullet casings, a photo of someone's daughter in a wallet, food from Russian soldiers and stairs leading to the crudest part of the underworld, are five bodies tied and disfigured with obvious signs of torture. More “civilians” killed and the counter keeps turning.
In Kyiv the situation seems to be more encouraging, there is a timid return to everyday life, where its inhabitants try to continue their lives as they can between roadblocks and destroyed facades. In shops, employees attend with a forced smile that fades within minutes of one crossing the entrance, and everything is constantly reminiscent of what this piece of blue and gold earth is going through. In case anyone thinks about forgetting for a few minutes, there are the sirens that sound every hour announcing that the worst is yet to come again.
At 09:00am, church bells ring and the Orthodox faithful enter the few, but imposing cathedrals dimly lit by candles and full of images of saints that are open in the capital.
With 29 religious centers reportedly bombed until the first days of April, amidst both horror and grief, the Ukrainian people are entrenched in religion in search of peace. Mostly older women congregate to sing praises and look to heaven, in search of a loved one they lost at the front, hope that the current context will end as soon as possible or some answer that explains the inexplicable nature of what has been experienced in recent weeks. Hours later, heavily armed soldiers arrive, light candles and return to their duties.
Boys clinging to their stuffed animals, caress them and pamper them as if it were their most precious treasure, it's all they have left, the last thing to hold on to in this adult world. Accompanied mostly by their mothers alone, they head to the nearest borders, leaving what is known no longer recognizable to anyone, and to their fathers who had to stay to wield a weapon on the battlefront. They arrive at industrial estates converted into humanitarian aid centers, train stations and squares in search of asylum after hours and hours standing outdoors at border crossings. When they reach their destination, there are no more shrapnel, mermaids, bombs, the only explosions are those of soap bubbles thrown by volunteers from all over Europe willing to help in this migration crisis who do their best to steal smiles.
This story seems to have no end, every day that passes on this ordeal a new page is written, with more deaths and more displaced from their homes, buildings that were standing are hit by missiles leaving neighborhoods, towns and cities completely devastated, and scenes of horror come to light as the Ukrainian army recovers its territories.
It is a no-end, the sun falls on the rubble, another day it ends and the anti-aircraft sirens rumble in every corner of the cities inhabited by those who decide to stay and fight and defend their territory, meanwhile, life becomes underground, for some in the bunkers while for others, with another luck, in the graves of cemeteries.
Franco Fafasuli: Photos
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