Dramatically intertwined reality – brutal war mixed with the prose of life. More death reports and Christmas cards. This is a daily occurrence in Ukraine.
In Lviv, from time to time, you can hear New Year's songs, but also the last farewells of those who bid farewell to heroes on the streets. You can also see and hear those who have started to rebuild despite the continuing war.
In the morning of September, before 6 o'clock in the night, seven people, including a mother and three girls, were killed in a bombed-out apartment. Irina, the midwife, also died – her husband survived, although he was by her side. Now he lives alone in an almost empty apartment.
– I wake him up and say: they are shooting, go. My wife left, I was already behind the wall, says Irina's widow. Irina died in a moment.
The upstairs neighbor also died as a result of the shooting. He died within two weeks from shrapnel wounds that entered his body. Even today, Irina's husband finds such pieces in the house.
The exterior of the building is under renovation. The reconstruction of one of the residential houses, which belongs to the time of the Second Republic of Poland, is financed by Poland.
An apartment was hit by a TVN24 rocket
PREMIUM Text: Nuclear Conflict? Five billion victims
Funerals mark the time
The center of Lviv is a beautiful city, even if a little neglected in places. Everything works except the basements with bags. Sometimes there is no electricity. Saints are buried in stained glass windows behind metal or plywood. They also wore impure roles to survive the day of victory.
In different cities, time is measured differently, somewhere a bugle bell sounds, bells ring, someone sings. In Lviv, the funeral will begin at 11 am.
Farewell ceremony in Lviv churchTVN24
– It seems like this every day in Lviv. One funeral service will take place before lunch and the other after lunch. Now 50 thousand residents of Lviv are at the front. Almost every family authorized someone. Andriy Sadovy, the mayor of Lviv, says that more than a thousand residents of Lviv were killed in the war.
Residents of Lviv bid farewell to Vlad and Andriy. Andrij was about 50 years old, so, apart from his family, his colleagues said goodbye to Vladimir, who was almost a generation younger, to his friends from high school. This is their moment of glory before they pass into eternity.
– Everything is organized by the city. The beginning of the conversation with the family and this is terrible news. There are psychologists, two ceremonies and a trip to the cemetery, says Andrey Sadovy.
Volodymyr Zelensky: we have recordings showing that Russians are burning the faces of dead Koreans Monika Krajewska/TVN Fact
It is afternoon. Lvivs stand and kneel, but they soon get up, go to school, work, even travel.
– This group consists of people from the occupied regions, where the war continues. From Zaporozhye, Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk regions. They now live in different places in the Lviv region, and such trips are organized from time to time for those who wish. Today we are in Lviv for a few hours, – says Valery, a resident of Bucha.
– Nothing kills this city, it is a bit magical. On the one hand, war, on the other hand, our everyday reality. Even when there was a plague, people lived and danced because we didn't know what would happen tomorrow, says Andrzej, a guide in Lviv.
– It should be a holiday for children. There is a Christmas tree. The city is alive, children go to school and students go to university. Sometimes the sirens sound. It is very difficult psychologically. No one can explain to you what it means to a child who has lost his father. Everything falls inside. No one understands the pain of these people, Andrey Sadovi concludes.
The period before Christmas in Lviv TVN24
The number of war cemeteries in Ukraine is increasing
How much the world is changing there, how uncertain tomorrow is, can be seen even on a map. On the satellite map, the Field of Mars is still a green field. At present it is a cemetery.
The war cemeteries we still know are usually rows of crosses or plaques, often without names. Modern ones are very specific, they have faces, they have tattoos, they have chairs and mothers next to them. In one of them sat Vlad's mother, who told us about her son's life: when he was one and a half years old and already ran away from his father around the city, when he was three years old, he was beaten in kindergarten, and how he worked at school.
Then the whole story of my son was in the army, where they didn't want to accept him because he had a flat foot, but when the war started, he volunteered. How he gave his friend his camp bed and he was complimented until suddenly he was shot twice in the neck. Vlad died.
War cemetery in LvivTVN24
There are hundreds of such places throughout Ukraine, and probably every modern cemetery has its own war section.
How many soldiers were killed is still not publicly known. The number of wounded is also confidential. It is known that in one of the hospitals of the city of Lviv, a special wing is being organized for the rehabilitation of soldiers, and three thousand of them have already been helped there.
– We want them not only to be as healthy and healthy as possible, but also to return to society as much as possible, so we involve family members and various specialists in rehabilitation, – says Oleg Bilanski, head of rehabilitation organization “Niezlomni” Center .
Main photo source: TVN24
