Two Donetsks (photos)

The exclusive report of “EuroBelarus” Information Service covers the live of today’s Donetsk.

In March a correspondent of “EuroBelarus” Information Service visited Donetsk and Lugansk. Today we pose the first part of his impressions of life in the cities seized by separatists.

A common Donetsk citizen isn’t worn out with the war: he or she can use Internet, call friends, and take a warm bath. Shops, restaurants, and universities are working. Whereas uptown life has stopped. During a one-hour walk you can meet no one and no buildings they are untouched by the war.

A bus station “Southern” is the only gate to external world Donetsk has: airport and train station aren’t working. There is no busier place in the city than the bus station. One can see lots of striking things there: from shops, cafes, and even souvenir stores with symbolics of DPR and Novorussia to a recruiting station, where volunteers for fighting with Ukraine are recruited.

One of the first places I saw in Donetsk for the first time of the three times I was there is “Sokol” (“Falcon”) public garden – a beautiful European-like place. It is very hard to express the contrast between expectations and the actual picture. There was no feeling of war there: all the buildings were safe, there were no signs of bombardments or exploded missiles, but there were small children playing at the playground and mums with baby carriages.

The first place where I felt anxiety was a modern skyscraper that used to be a business-center: life could have been bustling there, but there was no life. The building was empty, a lot of windows were veneered, and guards met me with apprehension and didn’t allow going upstairs to make a panorama of the city. There is almost no business in Donetsk. Some moved, and some are waiting through.

If one takes a stroll down the Artema Street to Lenin Square one would see one more abandoned building that wouldn’t have got abandoned in any other European capital.

The first impression of Donetsk was deceptive: a lot of people in the bus station area, life is burning, quite a lot of shops and cafes were opened. However, after an hour of walking in the city the picture didn’t seem so peaceful: transport didn’t go on the schedule, there were hardly any strollers, and all the cafes and shops downtown were closed.

Grocery stores were rare to find, but even if there were open, the stores were empty but for choice of vodka or beer and the prices were three times as big as in Kiev. Problems with deliveries now concern absolutely all types of goods; it is impossible to transfer goods through close rows of Ukrainian and DPR’s block without bribery.

The management of one of the central trading networks agreed to talk to me, though, of course, anonymously. Three women didn’t voice their likings towards the parties to the conflict, but talked about their own problems for a long time instead. The chief with his deputies had to lay in supplies by themselves, both because there were no willing to risk and cross the border and because there were no money to pay to the hired people many times more than earlier – for the risk and for the increased distance.

It is impossible to load the lorry with goods bought at the Ukrainian territory, bribe the blocks, and bring them to Donetsk, as the weight limit of the goods is limited. The women were indignant at the politicians, due to whom common people had to limit their diet and starve.

They would have left Donetsk long time ago, but they are afraid that soldiers take away their trade areas for their own needs. For now there is no aggression on the part of separatists, women say. Separatists asked the women to pay taxes to DPR’s budget, but the women rejected to do that – there is no money enough even to pay salaries. Separatists don’t insist yet.

The former building of Regional Administration is still occupied by DPR-soldiers, but now everything looks cleared-up inside and outside it. Barricades are pulled down, and the only place that reminds of disturbances is the area of the former Ukraine’s security service. Today this building is also busy with DPR’s military men, but now armed people guard it. As soon as I took a photo of the barricades, three people went out from the car to carefully study my documents and delete the photo from my camera.

Mir Avenue – one of the city’s thoroughfares – brings to the main sight of Donetsk, Donbas Arena, where several years ago Europe’s Football Championship took place. And it is for this championship that Donetsk restored hundreds of Soviet buildings, glazed dozens of business-centres, and built a great water park that can rival with that in Vilnius or Jurmala…

And that is where the different Donetsk starts. Closeness of the airport that was the center of fighting for many months couldn’t but affected the fate of the northern part of the city. The closer to the airport one gets, the sadder the picture of destruction is.

The square near the train station is the last place where you can meet a lot of people, but only because it takes hours to wait for the public transport. When the doors of a trolleybus open, the whole crowd flies into the cabin; there is a lot of aggression. Although it took me as a pleasant surprise to notice that passengers buy tickets diligently, though over a week of staying in Donetsk I saw no single conductor.

Railway lines are called “life lines” – on the other side there is no more public transport and very few people. Almost all buildings are either completely ruined or torn.

The highest building in the area is a 9-storey building occupied by DPR’s military men, who don’t let owners of apartments into the house. It was forbidden to take pictures of this building, but it was hard to resist the temptation. IFVs with Russian imperial flag – a symbol of “Sparta” battalion and a board “To Kiev” – add to the picture’s vividness.

One of the most dangerous places in the city – garage cooperative – is situated near the 5-storey Soviet house that is robbed and where no one is living. Locals go there in twos to check whether their property is robbed. Armed people steal cars, computers, motorcycles, and other valuable things. The people I met there told me a lot of stories, about the missed people, too. They don’t like new authorities because they can’t establish order. The garages were seriously damaged from military actions; many of them carry traces of purposeful shooting. Locks were demolished with bursts of sub-machine gunfire or even with grenade-guns.

If one comes a little bit up, an awful view will open – a former airport. When approaching the airport, one will see the ruins of the former Metro hypermarket that used to be one of the largest trade centers in Ukraine.

With a sad smile I remembered my first impression of Donetsk – peaceful and crowded. It is hard to believe that there are cafes with sounds of laughter in them just an hour’s walk from here. It takes so little to walk from Syria to Europe, but it takes a lot in my thoughts to realize why everything that happened here could become possible that easy.