Western Ukraine is still enjoying relatively calm, while the Donbass region, on the other end of the country, continues to be shot down by the Russians. Lviv, for example, which suffered several missile fire at the start of the fighting, has become one of the cities where the threat is less felt.
Nazari Malenovsky is a young actress who usually sings in Ukrainian. But tonight, in front of passers-by crossing a square in downtown Lviv, he wants to clear his mind because, every day, he thinks about the war. It has survived in his city so far, but what is happening east of his homeland is killing him.
” What can I do if bombs fall in front of my house? We must continue to live, to show Russia that nothing prevents us from living normally. “
Located 70 kilometers from the Polish border and more than 400 kilometers west of kyiv, Lviv welcomed thousands of refugees at the start of the Russian invasion.
In recent weeks, the city with more than 700,000 inhabitants, a magnet for artists and youth, has re -bubbled, as if nothing had happened. The restaurants are mostly full of customers and everyone is going about their day-to-day business. Trams and buses carry their flows of employees to their respective shops and offices.
We can almost forget that this country is suffering the ravages of war a few hundred kilometers away.
At night, the contrast with the besieged cities of Donbass is even more dazzling. The streets were full of Lvivian children drinking while talking about their day.
Sitting on the windowsill on the second floor of a bar, Anna Syvokhip, in her twenties, watches these dancing children with excited and pleased eyes. He, who left his Russian -speaking family three years ago in Mariupol, said he was proud that he chose Lviv to live there. She moved here to study fashion design. Without a second he regrets leaving his family who chose to help the Russians win the war.
They think that everything is better in Russiahe regrets. They were poisoned by Moscow’s propaganda. They said that everything was bad in Ukraine and America, but in Russia everything was good.
He is saddened by what is happening in the east of the country, in the Donbass, especially in his former city, Mariupol, which has been devastated by Russian strikes. I don’t know what to say because it’s hard to imaginehe goes down.
Russia’s invasion in any case convinced him of one thing: his attachment to Lviv and to this country that he wanted to leave not long ago to go and settle in Norway. I dreamed of going to this country, but now I want to live in Lviv and raise a family there.
In this city with Austro-Hungarian architecture, which emerges as an oasis of relatively calm in a war-torn country, it is not only Ukrainians who take advantage of the opportunity to recharge their batteries. In particular, there are foreigners who leave their homes to help Ukrainians.
This is the case of Johanna Flogberg, a 26-year-old Swede from Gothenburg, who arrived in Ukraine on the second day of the Russian invasion.
Walking the streets of Lviv, wearing military camouflage, this truck driver and nurse did not sit down. I could not stay home, knowing that some were suffering from the war here. I had to help themhe shouted.
Accompanied by her British colleague, Tony, 30, to provide first aid to the wounded near the front, Johanna said she was willing to stay until after the fighting, even though what she saw in Kharkiv, Boutcha and Irpin scared to him. Worse than what the media shows you, it’s heartbreaking.
Within a few days, he was in Lviv to breathe.
” At night, I show my smile, because I want to see all these young people on the streets. I love this city. And maybe after the conflict, I’ll rent an apartment there. “
In this apparent recklessness, Lvivians like Nazari Malenovsky do not forget those who suffer the daily attacks of Russia.
Everyone is worried, of course, he agrees. But Lviv is a place of peace, and it’s very good like that, because it allows us to forget the war a bit.
Source: Radio-Canada
