air raid shelter. The inhabitants of Kharkov live in the metro tunnels despite the constant attacks of the Kremlin troepen troops
For more than two months, the only queues that have formed at the Heroiv Pratsi (Heroes of Labour) metro stop in Kharkov have been gathering food. They are queues invisible from the outside, forming in the rescuing entrails of the extensive network of tunnels that connect the different parts of the city. Located in the heart of Saltivka, the neighborhood Russia punishes with artillery every day, Heroiv Pratsi has become a makeshift shelter for 500 people. “When the first shells started falling, we were more than 2,500, but most of them went to the western part of the country or to Europe, those of us who stayed already know that we will fight to victory” , says Sergei, turned into a sort of person in charge of security in this new underground life to which the people of Kharkov have already become accustomed.
The country’s second city, which became the capital of Ukraine in the early days of the USSR, was home to two million people before Vladimir Putin ordered his attack, now the few left have to get used to not seeing the sunlight. It is the price that must be paid to stay alive.
Smoking and alcohol are not allowed. Everything is spotless, there is a super fast wifi network, the way to be connected to the outside world, and the police guard the entrances. The platform is now a series of mattresses, bunk beds, field blankets, tents and mats. One of the trains is on the track, and the interior has also become a home to entire families who have taken the foundations out of their homes to rebuild their lives underground. Similar scenes occurred in Kiev at the start of hostilities, but as soon as Russia withdrew its troops from the capital’s northern front, trains started running again and people headed home. In Kharkov the clock stopped on February 24 and it has been a city at war ever since.
Aleksei lived just ten minutes from a stop he used every day to get downtown. “I never thought I would live in the station, because it never occurred to me that Russia would attack us. Two months later I still can’t believe it, I go upstairs, I go out into the street and I don’t believe what my eyes see and what my ears hear. Russia attacks Kharkov, how is it possible?” asks this retired engineer who no longer has a flat to return to because it was destroyed by a bombing. The ongoing bombing has so far killed more than half a thousand, including 100 children, and damaged more than 2,000 buildings, the city says, two good reasons not to shut down the metro network.
The work done is voluntary, no one is paid. Irina works as a hairdresser, although “I had never cut hair in my life, but Ukrainian women can do anything and if hair needs to be cut, we do it,” she replies, razor in hand. At the back of his makeshift barber shop – it’s just a stool – Vitaly Marchenko strokes his cat Roma. Vitaly, a high school teacher, has also lost his house. His girlfriend has found shelter in Austria, but he stays because “this is my homeland, my country, my city and my people, I can’t leave now”.
Roma is one of the many pets that now live underground and in addition to cats you can see all kinds of dogs, birds and colorful parrots. Vitaly admits that “the subway is not the most comfortable and there is no privacy, but it is the safest place. There are people who stay in the basements of houses, but they are not safe. Here you don’t hear the explosions even on the worst days of bombing, you live oblivious to the war, if you don’t go outside you completely disconnect. It is the best legacy that the USSR could leave us, these subways prepared for war». The Kharkiv metro was the second metro in the country after the one in Kiev and the sixth in the Soviet Union. It opened in 1975 and has three lines and thirty stations.
The optimistic reports of recent days about the Ukrainian military advance on the Kharkov front and the liberation of a dozen villages have had no impact on these 500 people who will not leave here until the bombs are completely extinguished. “They are on the side, Russia can, if it wants, just attack us from its territory and reduce the city to rubble with missiles. The center is already badly damaged and Saltivka receives grenades every day. What will be next?” is the doubt of Konstatin, who has become accustomed to life on the station at the age of 80 and emphasizes that “the best thing is that we keep each other company, I can’t imagine doing this alone. live in my house ».
Source: La Verdad
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