Months of shelling and brutal invasion can cause societies to disintegrate. But we’re fighters, not powerless victims
For the last three months, 600 people have slept in the Heroiv Pratsi metro station in Kharkiv, north-east Ukraine. The city lies just 40km (25 miles) from the Russian border and has been heavily shelled since the first day of the invasion. Last week, the mayor of Kharkiv urged the temporary residents of Heroiv Pratsi to return to their homes. I first visited Heroiv Pratsi in mid-March, and recently returned to the metro station a few days before the mayor’s announcement. I was amazed by how well-maintained people’s temporary sleeping areas had become since my previous visit. Bouquets of lilac and daffodils had been placed next to almost every mattress.
Nina Maksymivna, an 80-year-old woman who had been staying in Heroiv Pratsi on my last visit, was still sleeping by the stairs in the same place where I had met her in March. Aside from very brief forays outside, she had barely left the underground in two months. It’s still possible to hear sounds of distant explosions in the area. For her, they were too close to feel safe. The Ukrainian army pushed the Russians back from Kharkiv’s outskirts in early May, but local fighting continues.
Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist specialising in foreign affairs and conflict reporting, and the author of Lost Island: Tales from the Occupied Crimea (2020)
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