Destroyed church, school and cultural center. People in a village in eastern Ukraine are not giving up

(from our correspondent in Ukraine)

For security reasons, we do not publish the name of the village or the exact location. The front passed here when the Russian army advanced from Kherson to the north in 2022. Destroyed houses can be seen. We drive past a bombed-out church, a school and a cultural center.

“The Russian army, advancing forward, destroys everything in its path. They shell the cities and villages in front of them, through which they then advance,” describes Jury, a stout man who fought at the front for two years. Due to his injuries, he can no longer fight, but he continues to help as a volunteer and is our local guide.

The mentioned village looks like a ghost town. Houses are destroyed, practically every single-family house has bullet-riddled doors and fences. When the queue passed through, the number of inhabitants dropped to a few dozen. Nevertheless, people are gradually returning here.

“I’ll tell you exactly. During the hostilities, only 38 people lived here. Before the war there were 1,000, today 296 people and 17 children live here,” the energetic Ms. Svetlana explains to me. The local representative, who as soon as the hostilities started, took on executive functions, takes care of the running of the village, organizes meetings and distribution of humanitarian aid.

Mrs. Svetlana describes that mainly people of retirement age return. “There are most of them. But people want to return home, so they gradually repair their houses and apartments. Because wherever they live, everywhere is good, but home is better. Children don’t go to school, they learn online. The regular bus runs here poorly. Because of the shelling and the fact that all the men have to go to war, so they are not drivers. People can’t get to work on time and come home from work on time. But the locals make arrangements. A few people regularly go to the city and back, then they will take the others if necessary.”

The destroyed cultural center is the only place where locals can meet for occasional religious services and other events. Although the main hall was destroyed by a raid of three Russian drones, one smaller room remained practically intact and became a kind of “point of unbreakability”, as the locals call it.

“Nine months of heavy fighting here. Practically everything was damaged. This is now the only space where we can gather. Everything that is needed happens in this house. People come home and need somewhere to go, somewhere to meet other people. Rockets and drones fly over our village to Mykolaiv. We hear everything. For those who return, it’s terrible. And here they find a place where they can talk, where they can they can move where they can like each other. And that’s very important. So that people don’t close in on themselves,” explains Ms. Svetlana.

Several dozen locals stand in front of the destroyed cultural center, where a joint Ukrainian-Czech mass will take place. Here together with the local Orthodox priest, the Roman Catholic priest, biologist and ethicist Marek Vácha will serve. He is a member of a group of approximately 15 volunteers who imported cars from the Czech Republic to Ukraine. It drives directly on the front and serves to increase the mobility of people and humanitarian material.

Locals stand patiently in front of the building. The Czech priest, with the help of an interpreter, agrees with the Orthodox priest – Father Tomáš on how to lead a joint mass. We enter the building of the cultural center, which was destroyed by the strike of three Russian drones. In the main hall of the cultural center, the decorations that the locals were preparing for the 30th anniversary of Ukrainian independence remained in ruins. There was no more celebration.

We all meet in a single slightly larger and usable room, where the common mass will take place. It’s hard to say what the space was used for before. If it weren’t for the serious situation, it would seem slightly comical. A disco ball hangs above us, on the walls there are paintings reminiscent of the Soviet conquest of space. Under a large Ukrainian flag, less than a hundred locals – mostly elderly women – sit down on the benches that have been brought. The mayor and the priest energetically bring a small table on which they will create an improvised altar.

The locals light each other’s candles, first the mass is led by a Ukrainian clergyman, after a few minutes he hands over the leadership of the mass to the Czech priest Vách. At the beginning, with the help of a translator, he thanks for the reception and emphasizes that there is only one God. Czech volunteers sing, Czech actress and volunteer Sarah Haváčová reads from the Bible, Marek Vácha translated a part of the service into Ukrainian, the Our Father prayer is sung by a cultural worker in both Czech and Ukrainian.

After mass we go outside, it starts to get dark, the thunder of rockets or cannons doesn’t stop and they are heard from afar at irregular intervals. “You live here? Aren’t you afraid?” I ask the trio of older women standing in front of the building. “You’ll get used to it,” the women wave their hands. However, there is no sense of apathy from them, rather determination to persevere.

Darkness falls on the village. In the sky we see flashes of downed Russian drones. A group of Czech volunteers is embarking on a journey of less than 1000 km back to the west of Ukraine and back to the European Union and NATO. Locals stay.

Do you believe that Russian aggression will end and Ukraine will be free again? I am asking about the farewell Mrs. Svetlana. “We are not broken. We will not be broken, we cannot be defeated,” he says determinedly.