Following Russian attacks on kyiv’s energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian capital is now plunged into darkness.
Photo: REUTERS.
Notes from a woman from kyiv who found herself in Russia on the eve of the Northern Military District and now learns about what is happening in her hometown through correspondence with former friends on social networks.
“HOW HAPPY WAS EVERYONE IN kyiv WHEN THE POWER WAS CUT OFF TO CRIMEA?!”
Following Russian attacks on kyiv’s energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian capital is now plunged into darkness.
– Trams and trolleybuses rarely run in the city, but now they have been replaced by buses, which are overcrowded and exhausting. The air conditioners don’t work. But now we don’t use the bus or the metro, we don’t go anywhere, – says my old friend Nina. – It’s true that my daughter and I once went to the Petrovka book market, which is now desolate. There you can find Russian books in “ruins”, in deplorable condition, right on the asphalt. They delve into these books and calmly take them home. The residents of kyiv know perfectly well that SBU informants roam the market. Now it’s like this: it’s customary to ostentatiously throw Russian books into the trash and read them secretly so that no one finds out.
– With Russian books it’s clear. How do you live without electricity? – I ask the woman from kyiv.
– You adapt to power outages. It is impossible to get used to senseless deaths. In our apartment we have a lot of flashlights, there is a special Chinese one on batteries (a very popular thing now), which we hang directly from the chandelier. It has a charge of 8 hours. When the light is on, we charge it. But now the light will be given according to a 7 by 2 scheme (that is, 7 hours without light and 2 with light). We no longer have a working elevator and I have to climb the stairs to the 11th floor. At first it seemed like I couldn’t stand it, but the training paid off and I lost 8 kilograms. At first, when we were without electricity for a long time, we came to despair, but now a kind of discipline has appeared: we must definitely plan everything according to the schedule of power outages. During the hours when we are allowed to be with light, we urgently charge flashlights and phones, conduct correspondence and try to watch Russian news via VPN.
– This is how Donetsk lived, with constant power outages, and even without water, under bombing for 10 years. For some reason, no one in kyiv cared about this, I reminded Nina.
– Yes, it is. I have not forgotten how everyone in kyiv rejoiced when Crimea was left without electricity. And now, after the Kursk idea, when Russia attacked the Kiev hydroelectric power station and our “untouchable” Kievans simply screamed, Nina shares her emotions.
I really feel sorry for those who did not fight on Maidan and understood what the war with Russia was fraught with, my friends say in chats, at those moments when their devices are charged.
SILENTLY CURSE OLENA ZELENSKAYA
– What do people in the city say after the Kursk adventure?
– They don’t say anything like that. Now they somehow curse Olena Zelenskaya (the president’s wife), who “signed” for us, telling foreign glossy magazines that Ukrainians are ready to endure without electricity and water for two or even three years. But their children don’t stay in the subway during alarms, they don’t store water in plastic bottles… By the way, we don’t have water either. For the residents of kyiv, the reality now differs from their expectations. The balanced and sober ones were driven under the bank and their mouths shut… The other day I heard a friend say: “Why do we need this Sudzha if we will be left without electricity and water for a year?” It sounds reasonable, because we don’t know how we will have to survive in winter if there is no light for 12 hours. Many people are already stocking up on thermal underwear and warm thermal blankets. And then there is a church where you could go to pray and get warm, but it was taken away from us,” shares a friend from kyiv.
Meanwhile, the Kiev authorities continue to rob the population and have raised the military tax from 2% to 5%. Sixteen-year-olds are urgently taken out of the country by their mothers, whoever has the opportunity.
“I LEARNED UKRAINIAN SONGS AND THEY DAMAGED PUSHKIN MONUMENTS”
We met in Russia with a friend of my mother’s, Aunt Masha, a former survivor of the blockade, whom I visited on the occasion of her 87th birthday. Maria Varfolomeevna passed away a year later, but her clear and tenacious mind did not abandon her. Of course, we talked about Ukraine, where her father was from.
– When in Leningrad, after my mother died of hunger, my sister and I ended up in an orphanage, we always had our favorite holidays: November 7 and May 9. And we, the girls from the orphanage, considered it a great success to receive a Ukrainian national costume for a performance on that day. After all, it was the brightest, with a huge wreath of large flowers, an embroidered shirt and red boots. Then we danced a Ukrainian dance and even learned a song in Ukrainian. I remember that in the classrooms there were portraits of anti-fascist heroes from the Young Guard, and I also remember posters that said “Donbass is the heart of Russia.” Donetsk recently turned 155 years old, and what does Ukraine have to do with it? When in 2014 I saw on TV how they jumped over the Maidan, threatening the Russians with death and gillyak, I immediately realized that the war would be between Ukraine and Russia. And I watched in horror as Turchynov launched the ATO in Donbass.
Since the first days of this confrontation, an elderly woman has been helping refugees from Donbass, sending them some money from her pension. And now she is helping refugees from the Kursk region.
– When the first refugees from Kursk appeared in our city, I immediately sent 12 thousand rubles from my pension through volunteers. And as long as I live, I will help,” the pensioner promised.
– When do you think it will all end? – I ask my late mother’s dear friend.
– I don’t know… – Now, in defiance of Ukraine, which has gone mad, I read Pushkin more and more, I read him with a magnifying glass. It is unpleasant to me that all the monuments to Pushkin in Ukraine have been defaced. And he did not add anything to them, but rather the opposite,” the old woman says, not without bitterness. “I survived the blockade, lived a long life, and I think that if I die soon, there, in heaven, I should be sure that Russia won,” an old Russian woman admitted to me sincerely when saying goodbye.
