In Ukraine, from Kherson to Mykolaiv: where the Black Sea is Russian roulette
The skeletons of war, the hope and commitment of those who help
MYKOLAIV (Ukraine) – Zetas and swastikas on metal cockroaches, the green livery devoured by rust. Carcasses of tanks, planted in Admiralska Street: meanwhile a boy climbs onto the hull and looks inside the turret. “It’s an open-air museum, so that everyone can remember what happened” warns Anatoly, who stops to explain. He is 51 years old and has been living here in Mykolaiv for a while, a city of shipyards overlooking the Black Sea.
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Anatoly actually comes from Kherson, 70 kilometers further east, on the banks of the Dnieper river, which is the front line in southern Ukraine; and from where so many continue to arrive, suitcases, envelopes and shopping bags, because the other side is there and the risk is too high. “Staying would have been like playing Russian roulette” says Anatoly with a bitter smile. The tanks on Admiralska Street were also Russian.
The letters zeta, painted in white, are the symbol of the “special military operation” launched on February 24, 2022: the objective is to march on Kiev, depose president Volodymyr Zelensky and “denazify ” Ukraine. It didn’t go like this: someone drew swastikas on the carcasses, perhaps to mock the Russian head of state Vladimir Putin, while there is no end in sight to what should have been a blitzkrieg.
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At the intersection with Naberezhna Street we meet Anna Horbatenko, coordinator of Innovatsiini sotsialni rishennya, an organization that provides assistance to those in need in around thirty citiesof the Ukraine, including Mykolaiv.
“Since we started work in August two years ago”, says the volunteer, “we have supported at least 3 thousand people, often displaced from Kherson or from rural areas under fire near the front”. A colleague joins. Her name is Maryna Tokmakova and she is a psychologist: “We help find a place to sleep, look for a job and overcome the trauma of violence.” You come across stories of everyday life, sometimes even extraordinary ones. “Like that couple, wife and husband in their 70s, their eyes shining with joy” recalls Tokmakova. “They had been to Kherson to check the damage caused to their house by a bombing and had seen that one of the walls was still standing; instead of despairing, they said: ‘We will rebuild the other three.'”
RETURNING IS A BET
The risk of snipers and mortar fire from the other bank is too high. Even the United Nations does not organize missions in Kherson that last more than two hours, armored convoy and always return within the same day. Paradoxically, Mykolaiv has come back to life also for this reason: it is immediately behind the front and allows many people held hostage by the war not to go too far from home. “In 2022 the city was almost empty, then little by little the returns began, even from abroad” underlines Iliya Kurtev, a local manager of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which also supports the social workers of Mykolaiv .
RATIONED ELECTRIC CURRENT
You can see that the city has started to live again when the electricity goes out, which has long been rationeddue to the raids on the power plants. At sunset the pedestrian street fills with strollers. And on the riverside, near the Yacht Club, boys who are not yet 25 years old and not yet eligible for military service dive. Summer has arrived, even if it seems suspended. Nobody makes predictions, at most someone shares hopes. Mykolaiv has no longer been on the front line since November 2022, when the Russians withdrew from Kherson crossing the bridge over the Dnieper. However, the skeletons of the war remain. Like school number 51, hit by a ballistic missile at five in the morning. “And it was the school that saved me” cries Ljudmila Stablina, 66, who lives next door and was also a refugee in Italy, in Treviso, for six months. He gesticulates mimicking the trajectory: “See, right that way; it would have hit my house, but instead the glass shattered but she is still standing.” Among the rubble of the school you can glimpse some desks and the backrests of a gym. “My nephew was in the eleventh grade,” says Stablina. “Now he is 19 years old, he is well and is studying at the naval academy in Odessa: he will become a sailor”.
We pass back to Admiralska Street, next to the tanks with the letters zeta. Beyond the barriers and a checkpoint there is what remains of a Stalin-style skyscraper. Pieces of roof and floors seem to dangle by a thread. Until March 29, 2022, the palace was the seat of the regional governorship. Today you can’t get close, you can try to imagine. The explosion, which devoured the heart of the skyscraper, occurred at 8.35 in the morning. According to an investigation published by The Truth Hounds, an organization awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, the shot was fired from the Russian frigate Admiral Essen which was cruising in the Black Sea at that time. A film would give credence the hypothesis of a Kalibr cruise missile.
“There were at least 37 victims, while the governor was saved because he was not in his office” Anatolij continues to tell. He sits under a marble monument commemorating the fallen of the “Great Patriotic War”.The port of Mykolaiv,Nikolaev in Russian, was liberated from the Nazis between March 28 and 29 of another year: it was 1944. The units of Rodion Malinovsky, a general born in Odessa and who died in Moscow, retook the city. In 1944 he was in command of the Soviet, Russian, Ukrainian and other troops. Then the enemies were Germans.