where there was a flood before russian tanks burned down on the street, opened a bed shop. A small vegetable garden grows on one of the graves at the entrance of an apartment building. Where is the wall with blood marks shot a few neighbors have new paint. And children are running around again in the children’s playground, which has turned into scrap metal. Six months after discovering the horrors of the world Russian forces massacre civilians in BuchaThe Ukrainian city is trying to erase the traces of the devastation left by the invading soldiers and overcome its immense collective trauma. The first part of the exorcism proceeds relatively quickly; the other is difficult to measure. Almost no one talks about what happened anymore: everyone lives with their ghosts.
Oleksandr Beszmerny She spent most of Bucha’s Russian occupation in the neighbourhood, caring for her mother. irpinIt is a city with much more material destruction than the first, as it has become one of its fronts. kiiv war. “The hardest thing on the way home was finding all the people who died. And not just those killed by the Russians, but also those who died days after leaving after living in hiding for a while without heat, water or barely any food,” he says. 64 years on the doorstep of his apartment, where two of his neighbors died shortly after the end of the occupation. “It’s impossible to leave all this behind live horrorbut we’re trying,” adds Beszmerny with a half smile.
Bucha was the first major massacre of civilians in this war, courtesy of Mariúpol, a city of nearly half a million people razed to the ground by Vladimir Putin’s army. From February 27 to March 30, an assembly of atrocities at the gates of the capital: extrajudicial killings, murders, torture, rape, mass graves… 458 people died Some became so unrecognizable during the Russian occupation that they were buried in unmarked graves at the local cemetery. “At first, everyone wanted to talk about what happened to them,” he says. Lilia Usakova while sweeping the autumn leaves on the street of his house. “But it’s not talked about much anymore. People are so tired and trying their best to erase it from their memory. They don’t want to remember it.”
Tragedy changed this small suburban town west of Kiev, how could it be otherwise. “Shared pain has made neighbors more united and willing to help each other. People have become more empathetic and closer,” adds 72-year-old Usakova. 1953 Lives in Bucha His family ended up there due to force majeure. “I come from a Russian family of political victims. My family was imprisoned by Stalin and held in camps for visiting Ukraine during the Nazi occupation. do not die stalin they were allowed to leave as long as they settled in a village in the country. Bucha finally became that village,” she says now angrily. “My family knows very well who they are”saviors‘ and how they behaved, ”he adds, referring to Russia.
Teams of workers work here and there on the roofs and facades of the neighborhood, the same place where most of the bodies dumped on the shoulders and in the gutters show up. Priority was given to the rehabilitation of houses that did not require demolition, as well as schools used by the invaders as command centers and military barracks. Most destroyed houses were boarded up to disappear from view, and sections of streets battered by bombs were re-paved. “We are doing our best“, says the head of the reconstruction brigades Town hall. “The only thing that isn’t money right now is redoing the electrical and heating of damaged homes.”
slow homecoming
A barracks of prefabricated houses donated by the Polish government was erected next to one of the schools where the Russians left weapons and supplies. They shelter those left in utter misery. “About 70% of those who left during or just before the invasion returned,” he says. Iryna Paschna, Bucha City Council Director of Social Services. “Families with children are having trouble returning because they are still afraidDespite everything, this is a place still marked by absences. murdered and those who want to put land.
Now the topic of conversation is the approach of winter. “People are back too stressful because they don’t know what to expect,” says Usakova. heating has been repairedThere is talk of another invasion of Belarus, after which the attacks on the capital have returned”. Unlike how he behaved at the beginning of the war, this retired Making a living by coordinating ambulances, this time he has prepared a backpack containing everything necessary to escape if everything goes wrong again.
who won’t go anywhere Natalya Zhabenkoa woman 65 years now lives in prefabricated houses for the displaced. He has health problems and can barely walk on crutches. Her house burned down after she moved with her sister to the neighbor during the Russian occupation. hostel at the beginning of the war. One of the great battles of these early stages, Antonov airport. “We lived next to the airport. Planes and helicopters were constantly passing in front of the building. There were fights and tremendous explosions for days,” he says from behind those small, frightening eyes.
Now, like many Ukrainians, he is frightened by every noise and knows that he will never return home. “I had flowers and a bench in the garden. I don’t want the house back, but I want flowers and a garden. It’s the only thing that excites me to keep livingsays Zhabenko.