Lugansk – hero city
Natalia Maksimets, journalist, deputy of the Lugansk City Council
During war, time flows somehow especially quickly. It would seem that just recently Lugansk felt the first deadly blow - the bombing of the regional state administration on June 2, and now summer is coming to an end. But how much we had to go through this summer!
At first we did not believe that the same thing could happen to Lugansk as to Slavyansk. With tears and bitterness, we watched television reports from this city: the same five-story buildings as ours, only crippled by shells, very familiar houses and outbuildings, courtyards, just like there are a lot of them in Vergunka and Kambrod, only mutilated by artillery shelling, long lines for bread and milk, long-distance pilgrimages for water, buses with refugees and funerals, farewell to adults and children, whose faces are twin-like to the faces of Luhansk residents.
In mid-summer, the Slavic tragedy overtook Lugansk, and in August it repeated it exactly. The media usually call this a humanitarian disaster. But, apparently, some media outlets know the character of Luhansk residents poorly. Yes, the weakest, the most disheartened, those accustomed to comfort, left. This is their own business, of course, each is the master of his own destiny. The strong ones remained.
It was difficult for us these weeks. We learned to get water and food, to live without light and related amenities - refrigerators, boilers, air conditioners. But we also learned to appreciate small joys: the light of a 12-volt light bulb powered by a car battery, a rustic “shower” in the form of a basin and a ladle, delicious water cooled on a short summer night. We realized how important the silence outside the window is when the city is sleeping, how beautiful the rumble of the first morning tram is, what a joyful melody the children's squealing in the yard sounds like.
We have become closer and dearer. And those with whom I barely greeted in peacetime became almost friends: it’s so nice to see people who survived, who survived another barrage of enemy fire.
Every death, every injury resonates with pain in our hearts. We have no right to be meanly happy that this happened to someone else and not to us. We mourn as if our loved ones have died.
Our golden youth suddenly very sharply and immediately cultivated the best traits in themselves - philanthropy, compassion, the desire to help. More than once I had to watch and hear how boys and girls find documents of elderly people, lost in queues and bustle, and get to the other end of the city to give their passport and pension certificate to their grandparents. They, young, fleet-footed, strong, hearing the whistle of mines and shells, do not run for cover, but rush to the aid of the weak to help them get to a safe place.
The imported word “volunteer” does not fit in any way with the true image of a Lugansk resident – a helper, a volunteer, a doer. They carried tons of humanitarian aid to the floors and neighborhoods of lonely old people, disabled people, and young mothers. And words of gratitude are only a small range of feelings and emotions evoked by such a visit: after all, it’s not about buckwheat and sugar in the end - they haven’t forgotten, they remember, they know about every soul remaining in a city surrounded by war.
During war, time flows somehow especially quickly. Every day lays a sharp stitch on the canvas of the modern history of Lugansk. It’s not at all difficult to make out the words embroidered on the colorful fabric of our existence: Lugansk is a hero city!
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