‘They dress up as civvies’ 

Morning

Nadia, 70, a retiree. Kherson, the western bank

The Internet started working today in Kherson. My Internet company is called Status. There was no Internet for two days straight, but now it’s working. I never go out, I’m always at home. I’m moving around with a cane after a stroke. If the [Kakhovka] dam suffers an explosion, we’ll leave for our friends’ house, it’s a half an hour’s walk, the water is not going to reach that area. However, I don’t know how long it is going to take me to get there with my cane. We have no car, and I hear there’s no petrol in the city, too. As for the dam, I hope that the reason will prevail. Neither side is going to benefit from this. The eastern bank the collaborators have left to is going to suffer much more from the flooding than the city of Kherson.

Russia’s TV stopped working three days ago when the “evacuation” officially ended. I would turn it on sometimes to listen to what they lie about, but it’s not available anymore.

I’m so happy that the Internet is back. I had a remote class with my students this morning. It’s difficult for me to speak after the stroke, so my lectures now are sort of perfect: no idle talk, just the core ideas, straight to the topic. Both me and my students are happy with it.

The most exhausting thing is that I can’t reach my relatives and friends who are still here over the phone. It’s unbearable, imagine how many things come to mind when you hear the “person you are calling to is out of the network zone” thing. My phone that has a Russian SIM-card in it works occasionally, but rarely.

The priest from the local church says: pray all day long, only your faith will help overcome this nightmare. So I pray. Maybe this will help somehow (cries). The unbelievers have started praying, too.

I still can’t believe that the war is on. Maybe I should pinch myself, maybe it’s not really happening, maybe it’s just a horrible dream?

There are very few people left here. Back in the day we used to have dairy products delivered to our neighbourhood from the countryside. A crowd of 30 or 40 people would come there every time: not just to buy the goods the milkman offers, but also to chat with each other. It was this way even a couple of months ago. I looked out my window today and saw that only five people gathered there. When I made it downstairs with my cane, the milkman was already gone.

You never know what crosses their mind, what they might consider suspicious about you or your behaviour.

A friend of mine gave me a call recently, we used to go to the theatre together for years, that’s where we became friends. She sent her granddaughter to Crimea on a “health improvement programme.” My grandson could go there to, but me and my daughter were completely against it. So, this friend of mine gave me a call today, she was crying, told me the girl should have returned a week ago, but they did not bring her back. It’s not known where she is. They told my friend to come to Crimea and look for the girl on her own, and then off to the summer camps in [Russia’s] Krasnodar region if the child isn’t found. She uses a cane and barely walks, just like me. I don’t know how this will end up for her. The child is only 13, and her grandma has nobody else, her daughter is gone. She’s in a crying jag, and I cry along.

It’s very distressing here. I can often hear explosions, but they’re far away. There have been no strikes upon the Antonivskyi road bridge for two days. Only the elders are in the city now, there are barely any young people here.

I’m so sorry for the young ones, both Russians and Ukrainians. So many men lose their lives on both sides, it’s a horrible thing for our countries which will lead to a demographic pitfall in the nearest future. Remember the history of the post-war Soviet Union. Both nations will suffer a horrible period when the war is over. But I believe that the youth and the lust for life will prevail. You, the young folk, will do the right thing.

Noon

Ivan, 40 Kherson, the western bank

“Hey, sunshine!” Ivan is in good spirits, as ever. It’s raining outside. Kherson has become empty and dim. “Did you see that the ‘orcs’ have stolen monuments in our city? Why do you think they did it? Maybe they just want to trade it for scrap metal. Anyway, I’d rather they took their Lenin ones.

We’ve been packing bags all day. We actually packed them when the war started, but then we would unpack them and pack again over and over. No, there’s no way of leaving the city. My house is by the river, so me, my wife and our child are moving to our friend’s place, it’s located further away from the potential flooding zone.

The prices have increased enormously. It’s been three days nothing can be bought for rubles. The people are trying to get rid of those, but even the exchangers are unwilling to buy them. Nobody believes that Russia is ever coming back. My wife and I haven’t been working a single day since 24 February. It’s good that we bought some flour, cereals, sugar, a sack of each, and lots of sunflower oil.

Sasha, the one from the local police station who became a collaborator after he spent time in a basement, left town. He gave me a call, asked me to look after his house. That’s a rich house now, he’s raked up a lot of valuables. Anyway, I told him I had left town, too. He said once that he lived with his parents in a nice house by the seaside in Skadovsk. Sasha has made his dream come true, but there’s nothing to be happy about for him: that is someone else’s house, and the collaborators are being hunted down day and night even on the occupied territory.

There are no more police officers in the city. There are still as many servicemen outside as before, but they roam the city streets dressed in non-military clothing now. Their HQ is in one of the local colleges, I can often see them walking in and out of it, wearing civvies. I hear some kind of “territorial defence” is being set up here. I believe these exact soldiers are going to be in those units, acting as if they were civilians. That would be a nice picture for Russians, see, ordinary locals are defending the “Russian world.”

There are boats cruising between the Kherson river port and Oleshki or Hola Prystan. You can take a boat, a one-way ticket starts from 1000 UAH (€27). The “evacuation” was officially over on Saturday, but I didn’t see anyone taking the boat for free. You could join a military convoy if you have a car and wish to go for free.

Going outside without a good reason is a bad idea now. You never know who’s in front of you: a friend or a traitor, everyone is dressed the same these days. And they keep kidnapping people, too.

The rashist shops are still open, but there’s no supply, so all you can see there is empty shelves.

Evening

Vera, 38, Hola Prystan, eastern bank

There have been explosions on the western bank all day, in the direction of Mykolaiv, I think. It’s calm here, though. There are many strangers in our town. Those are collaborators as far as I’m concerned, they decide where they should go now. They head for Skadovsk or Henichesk as a rule; some go further to Crimea or the Krasnodar region.

It’s clear to everyone that Russians are fleeing. They forced us to use rubles in the summer, and now they’re trying to keep their useless money on the market.

The exchange rate was 1.25 sometime ago, now no one wants to buy those even for a rate of 0.4. You won’t get 0.3 UAH for one ruble in Kherson. The ruble has crashed, and no vendors wish to accept it: nobody wants to exchange real goods for worthless pieces of paper. One of the three bakeries in our town closed since the occupiers demanded that they switched for rubles. So, it’s not working anymore.

The boats between Kherson and Hola Prystan stopped their operation on Sunday. I had witnessed three huge white buses with no insignia whatsoever for a couple of days prior to that. Many people who arrived by boats would use those buses. I don’t know where those buses took them, but when they entered those, there were soldiers with rifles around the perimeter.

Who fled in the first instance? Those who collaborated with the occupation authorities. Those who received Russian passports and now have no idea what to do.

I can’t say many evacuees take up residence here in Hola Prystan. Our town is going to go completely underwater in case of flooding, so the collaborators prefer to move on. Some stay, though. Some people are forced out of the rented homes when it’s revealed they do not own the place. The evacuees are taking up their residences.

The general spirit around here is somewhat close to what Popandopulo (a character of the 1967 film Wedding in Malinovka) said: “We’re on the brink of an enormous hubbub.” It is unclear what all this is going to end up with.

There are so many servicemen in town these days. They raid hardware stores, markets, and abandoned farmsteads, looking for polythene wrapping or other insulants. I believe they are setting up a fortification nearby, and they’re attempting to bolster their dugouts.

I’m not anxious about the potential dam blast. I don’t think there’s going to be a great flood, maybe some minor flooding. This helps me settle my nerves. Before the wave is going to reach us, it will lose its force and height. If I am mistaken, we shall be sleeping in boats, and we’ll wake up in Turkey where the sun always shines.

Night or dark

Iryna, 53, Hola Prystan, eastern bank

“We set up a virtual bank card for our old grandma to receive Ukraine’s money. They transferred her retirement money for all those months that the Ukraine Post was closed.”

“I thought she received a Russian passport and got the retirement money from the Russians all those months. She said she hated the ‘khokhols’ (a Russian ethnic slur used to refer to Ukrainians — translator’s note) and ‘prayed for Putin’ each day?” I wonder in surprise.

“So what? What’s money got to do with it if you can get it from both sides? You can’t buy anything for rubles anyway. All vendors and shops stopped accepting rubles since Saturday. They swap those flags every day, and we don’t care who gives us money.

The kids that had left are still in that summer camp in the Krasnodar region. They had their term extended to 28 October. They’re fine, and they’ll soon meet their parents.

We’re not going anywhere. Our grandma can’t walk, we can’t just leave her here. So, if the water starts rising, we’re going to stay here. Maybe we’ll take a ride to Hladivka if we have enough time. We’ll fit grandma, grandpa, our son, our cat, and our dog into the car. We won’t be able to take anything else, we only have an old small car.

No evacuees arrived in our area. All our neighbours’ apartments remain abandoned. It would be great if we could go to Crimea, though. I hear every evacuee receives a hundred grand in cash there upon arrival, as well as real estate certificates to acquire an apartment in any Russia’s region.

Our TV works fine, thank God. If it didn’t, our grandma and grandpa would jar on our nerves completely. At least it keeps them sort of busy. They love watching the [Russian] 60 Minutes show.

I’m not expecting Ukraine’s army here. People say that Ukraine will make a comeback and confront all the traitors. Let the nazis capture Kherson, I just hope they leave Hola Prystan alone. I’m content with what’s here. It’s just that it’s spooky at night when there’s silence. The silence wakes me up, makes me listen attentively. If shooting can be heard, that’s a good thing, since it’s easy to predict how far the combat is. But if it’s quiet, everything inside me quails in fear.