A new sound is heard from the open windows in this city near the front: children screaming, even long after dark. The markets are full. Sales are increasing at the local bike shop. Red tulips, planted by hand, are opening up everywhere.
It’s amazing — “unrecognizable,” said a city official — how different this small town in eastern Ukraine feels compared to a year ago. Last summer, Pokrovsk was an eerie landscape of boarded-up houses and unkempt courtyards. Now it’s hard to take a few steps without bumping into someone on the sidewalk.
Nothing has changed outside of Pokrovsk. The front line is still 50 kilometers away. Ukrainians continue to die en masse. Russia is still bombing cities and trying to take as much territory as it can.
But what has changed are people’s calculations. How much risk are you willing to accept? What is best for them and their families? How should they accommodate war on a day-to-day basis? The answers seem different this year and many Ukrainians have come to the same decision. It is resilience, but perhaps it is also resignation.
“There is no safe place in Ukraine”said Natalia Medvedieva, who tried to live in a safer place in western Ukraine with her son, but returned here a few months later. “So it’s better to go ahead”. And home is home.
When Russia invaded in February 2022, this principle did not hold. More than 13 million Ukrainians, a third of the country, fled their homes. But as time went by, it became more difficult to stay away.
“I was running out of money,” said Iryna Ilina, a fitness instructor and beautician, sharing a common problem for the displaced. Many said it was difficult to find work. Ilina recently returned to Kramatorsk, another city not far from the front line where she has an apartment. She was having trouble paying her rent in Pavlogrado, where she had been staying.
Since last summer Ukrainians have been coming back at a fairly steady pace. More than 5.5 million have returned home, the International Organization for Migration reports, and not just to big cities like Kiev, but also to small places, including those just behind the front lines.
Of course there is concern. Medvedieva keeps a bag with her documents, money and some clothes. Viktoriia Perederii, a veterinarian who returned to Pokrovsk last year, said many families bring their pets to her to get health certificates for international travel in case they need to leave in a hurry.
“It is difficult to assess the risks“, said. “there is umanhe added, referring to the recent missile attack that killed 25 people in a city many Ukrainians considered safe.
Pokrovsk is enjoying spring. “business is good”said Larysa Titorenko, a seed vendor at the busy central market in Pokrovsk.
Then tears welled up in her eyes. Her daughter’s house had recently been destroyed in a frontline village not far from there. “I’m fine, reallyhe said, wiping his eyes.
Since last summer, the Russians have been gaining Bakhmut meter by meter, closing in on Avdiivka and laying Marinka in ruins—all an hour away. The front line is slowly approaching. You constantly hear thuds.
But people continue as if it were a distant storm.
Before the war, the population was about 50 thousand inhabitants. It dropped to around 30,000 last spring. Now it’s up again — to 57,000, in fact, said Serhiy Dobriak, who heads Pokrovsk’s military administration. Beyond the residents who have returned, other hot spots in the surrounding area, Avdíivka or Mariúpol, have flocked.
No one here expects the war to end anytime soon. Some worry that this notion that life must go on no matter what means there will be less pressure to end it.
A military convoy puffed past an intersection. Not far behind, a boy was pedaling on his bike.
Night was falling, it was warm, and the air was cool. Everyone wanted to stay outside, even as curfew loomed.
JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6706822, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-05-10 20:30:07
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