Every morning they go out to keep Kharkiv clean. Ukraine’s second city is perhaps the most shelled after besieged Mariupol. Every day brings a hail of Grad rockets, cluster bombs, shells and missiles.
Hundreds are dead. The morgues cannot cope with the daily toll inflicted by Russia. At one city-centre facility, dozens of bodies, wrapped in plastic bags or blankets, are stacked in a courtyard. Yet Kharkiv’s people are determined that life must continue among the ruins, even if for now it is a terrifying half-existence in the shadow of sudden death. And that means keeping the city clean.
“They can bomb us for as long as they want: we will withstand it,” said Ihor Aponchuk, a driver whose collection round takes in ghostly neighbourhoods of empty playgrounds and a shelled school just sh y of the front line.
A few hours after Aponchuk emptied bins near the Heroes of Labour metro station in eastern Kharkiv, a rocket hit people queuing for aid about 500 metres away, killing six and leaving the pavement smeared with blood. The next day the city’s main Barabashovo market was set alight, and four died when a shell landed outside a clinic.
In Ukrainian cities less ravaged by the war, there is a cheery defiance. In Kharkiv, death is too close and too frequent for that. Men and women, drawing on extraordinary reserves of courage to go about their lives, openly admit that the situation is terrifying.
Yet in their hundreds of thousands, people have chosen to stay in their “hero city” – a title first awarded to Kharkiv for its resistance to Nazi troops in the second world war, and bestowed again by the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for its courage standing up to Russia’s invasion.
Esta historia es de la edición April 01, 2022 de The Guardian Weekly.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición April 01, 2022 de The Guardian Weekly.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
The Three-Coffee Ritual That Fuels A Nation's Daily Grind
500k Tonnes of coffee beans produced each year by Ethiopian farmers
Rising Hopes - Could Latest Ceasefire Talks Yield A Breakthrough?
There has been a recent flurry of activity around the talks, with an uptick of optimism about progress.
Fears Of A New War On Border With Lebanon As Tensions Rise
For the Israeli communities evacuated from the country's far north in the aftermath of 7 October, there is no longer any doubt about whether full-scale war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is going to happen. For most people, the only question is when.
World in motion
The Venice Biennale's 'foreigners everywhere' theme leaves Adrian Searle beguiled, tantalised - and frequently appalled
A hard-right tidal wave is coming, and outrunning it will be difficult - Gordon Brown
By the time of the European parliament elections in June, this year's rightward ebb in European politics will have turned into a tidal wave. Ultra-nationalist demagogues and populist-nationalists are now leading the polls in Italy, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, and running second in Germany and Sweden.
Shock and ore - Anglo sale would strip the jewel from South Africa's crown
The world's largest mining company has a problem. Australia's BHP has set out its intention to snap up the rival miner Anglo American in a multibillion-pound deal that would reshape the global industry.
In his Maga heartlands, Trump is a victim not a defendant
In one US, he cuts a diminished, humbled figure. \"He seems considerably older and he seems annoyed, resigned, maybe angry,\" said broadcaster Rachel Maddow of MSNBC after seeing Donald Trump up close in court. \"He seems like a man who is miserable to be here.\"
Seoul man - Ambassador by day, samba sensation by night
Brazil's latest music sensation grinned from ear to ear as he moseyed down Copacabana beach contemplating his unusual rise to fame.
Preserving the shoes of Stutthof
Leather footwear from Nazi concentration camps ended up at the Baltic coast base, and campaigners want them to be salvaged
On French coast, hope outweighs risk of death or Rwanda
Five drowned last week as a packed dinghy tried to cross the Channel, but those seeking a better life remain undeterred