War in Ukraine: Yevgen, the kyiv “guardian” who watches over the empty houses

Yevgen Yelpitiforov collect 19 sets of keys in his pockets, since since the beginning of the Russian invasion against Ukraine he has begun to take care of the houses and apartments of his friends who have fled the conflict.

At the wheel of an old blue car, Yevgen regularly drives through the streets of Irpin and Bucha, on the outskirts of kyiv, to watch over their “property”.

Russian forces withdrew from the region in late March following a particularly devastating occupation. Soon after, his services began to be in demand.

“Many of my friends who left asked me to come and see if their houses were intact, if the windows and doors were still in place,” says this 37-year-old man, with a blond goatee and an elegant smile. .

Therefore, started getting sets of keys, sometimes by post, sometimes through neighbors. On some occasions they thanked him with coffee or with chocolates.

Yevgen regularly visits the properties under his care and he does it voluntarily.

On his tours he waters the flowers, empties the refrigerators, sometimes he sends his things to the owners and on other occasions he simply turns the lights on and off “to show someone’s there” and frighten thieves.

Those who dare to return find a welcome gift prepared by Yevgen. Sometimes a bouquet of flowers or cherries to make them feel “happy”, notes the young man who earns his living as a gardener.

“If I were in their place, they would help me,” he says.

In his story he says the worst is the smell of spoiled food who spent weeks in refrigerators that didn’t work due to power outages.

Yevgen even has a Soviet gas mask, for which he uses particularly nauseating operations.

Even after cleaning, there are times when you need to air again, as “there are smells that linger for a week or two”.

In Bucha, the nearby suburb of Irpin that became the symbol of the crimes committed during the Russian occupation, park your car in front of a series of beautiful new buildings, but marked by war. Nobody has glass in the windows. They all exploded.

In the parking lot are the remains of a car that has been reduced to pieces.

Yevgen wastes no time. He has to water some plants in some friends’ small apartment. There are hardly any remnants of the conflict on site, except for a message on a wall left by the Russian military: “Sorry for breaking down the door.”

But Yevgen is not the only one, Oleksandre Furman31 years old, in April he dedicated himself to this task.

Before the war he made a living like double tv and after the invasion he devoted himself one day a week to deal with it six apartments in kiev who had been abandoned by their friends.

What was your most unusual mission during this time? Hide in inconspicuous places sex toys that his ex-girlfriend and her new partner left abandoned in her home shortly before the invasion began, in the early hours of February 24.

“He told me ‘I can’t ask Mom to do this,'” she recalls with a laugh, noticing that she first washed them and then hid them.

Then the conversation takes more serious courses.

“I was lucky. They didn’t shoot me. The missiles didn’t land near me,” says this young man for whom helping others is his “duty”.

In Irpin, Yevgen enters an intact building. next to it there is a school that has lost its roof in the bombing. In a duplex, he films the owners’ plants with his phone.

Once out, he stops in front of a house of which nothing is left but the burned walls. While the workers work to redo the roof, the young man stares at a cedar tree badly damaged by the flames.

“It makes me think of the Ukrainian people,” he looks thoughtful. “On the one hand it burned, on the other yes the strength to keep growing and turns green, “he says.

Ania Tsoukanova, AFP

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