Most of the stalls haven’t reopened and it’s easy to pass by with teary eyes in the aisles, but the rebirth of the Bucha market brings this Ukrainian martyr city to life.
Behind a pile of eggs, 69-year-old Natalia Morgoun vividly recalls the “coldness” that reigned in this suburb of Kiev in early March, when Russian troops arrived. She also remembers the “silence” experienced when the guns fell silent as the vast majority of its inhabitants had fled.
“Thank God, things are slowly returning to normal,” says the shopkeeper, who lets tears in his wrinkled face for the first time since the start of the war. “You know, I was born in Russia but I’m ashamed to say it.”
Despite Moscow’s denials, Loofah is the epitome of war crimes attributed to Russia. Ukraine announced on March 31 that it had found the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian civilians in the area after the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Dressed in red and pink, 21-year-old butcher Valeria Bilyk doesn’t want to “think about it” and is focusing on the reopening last Thursday of the small covered market where she worked with her husband. .
“It’s getting better every day, we see people coming back with their kids, with their dogs,” he says. “If you don’t look at the ruins, you might think we’re fine.”
While the debris and burned vehicles are removed, the buildings destroyed around the bazaar, bullet holes in some windows and traces of loot are hard to ignore.
Most traders have not returned and the clientele is still infrequent. “There are more cats than customers,” says a passerby.
Stefania
Still, 63-year-old Nadia Grebenyk’s business selling seeds and flowers is doing well.
“Spring has come, everyone wants to plant the garden of glory,” he says.
Sergei, 42, decided to open a stall in this market to earn some extra money. An airport engineer hopes to supplement the salary of his wife, Maryna, who has been unemployed since the start of the war and an English teacher at a neighborhood school.
The couple delved into an original niche: birthday party decorations. “Even in hard times, children need a laugh,” they explain as they place pointy hats and colorful banners in their little tents.
But there are also difficult conversations in the hallways. According to the couple, people constantly talk about the tragedies that occurred during the Russian occupation.
He describes his sister’s tortured godfather and shows photos of the corpse on his cell phone. He also talks about a murdered mother before changing the subject. “You have to move on to something else, to routine, to work, to oblivion…”
Dmitro Yefremov, who came to buy a water filter from a small hardware store, has no intention of forgetting “all the evil done by the katsap” (a pejorative name used by the Ukrainians to refer to the Russians). “Let’s remember this up to the tenth generation and make them pay!”
But he agrees that “life cannot end here”.
34-year-old Olena Khokhlova is expecting her second child. She says she lives on Yablunska Street, where many civilians’ bodies were found, with a small bag of vegetables in her hand, and was “terrified” before fleeing on March 10.
“It was shocking, but we have to accept, adapt and live our reality. Because if we don’t, we’ll go crazy.”
She will name her daughter, who will be born in August, “Stefania” after the song by the Kalush Orchestra that led Ukraine to victory in the Eurovision Song Contest.
source: Noticias
