On the outskirts of Kyiv, vegetation grows unchecked and the cats run wild.
Up till six months in the past — when the primary Russian troops landed at Antonov Airport round a kilometre and a half away — the brick buildings of Proskurivska Avenue in Hostomel evoked idyllic Soviet postcards of an orderly and peaceable world.
Now, solely bare buildings stay. Inside are piles of rubble. One thing rots, hidden beneath.
The cats now not belong to anybody. They roam hungry and lonely, approaching anybody who involves ponder what’s left of the neighbourhood.
One among them is Lyudmila Holovienko.
The 55-year-old’s condo in Proskurivska Avenue was burned down in late February, within the early days of the invasion.
Now, she wanders the abandoned road that had been her house for 35 years.
“We have not touched anybody, we have not taken something from anybody, we have not attacked anybody,” mentioned Lyudmila, referring to the lack of her home. “Do you see what the Russians did?”
The three-storey property that housed her condo, which dates from 1936, had endured Nazi occupation however did not survive the Russian invasion.
Hostomel was among the many first cities occupied in Kyiv’s suburbs, together with neighbouring Bucha and Irpin, the scenes of alleged civilian massacres.
Avenue-by-street battles broke out in Hostomel, forcing many residents to flee. Those who stayed hid for days or perhaps weeks in cellars with out heating, fuel or electrical energy.
Volunteers who tried to deliver them meals and medicines got here beneath gunfire, mentioned Lyudmila, and the city’s mayor, Yuri Prylypko, was killed in early March.
Lyudmila was not at house when her property burned down, as a substitute dwelling together with her ailing, bedridden mom just a few kilometres away, a call that may save her life.
It was there that she heard the primary noises of the invasion.
“I believed it was a fuel tank from our neighbours,” she mentioned. “After which three hours later, every part began: planes, smoke, capturing. It was simply such a horror.”
If shedding her house wasn’t sufficient, in April she misplaced her mom. She was 86.
“She did not survive all of it, the chilly, the starvation,” Lyudmila mentioned. “So long as I stay, I will keep in mind all of it for the remainder of my life.”
Only a few months earlier Lyudmila had misplaced her daughter, who died from most cancers, aged 32, on 31 December 2021.
In August, six months because the struggle started, Lyudmila is again at her late mom’s property, dishing up a meal of chilly salo, hen dishes and recent pickles.
Subsequent to Lyudmila are her younger niece and daring 75-year-old aunt, who confronted Russian troopers after they knocked on her door in the hunt for males, meals and weapons.
The trio, together with Lyudmila’s uncle, sheltered within the farmhouse throughout the occupation.
The damaged roof and broken home windows left by the explosions have since been mounted, however the glass has tape marking an x as a precaution.
Now a quiet sense of normalcy has set in however the wounds and painful recollections linger
Lyudmila doesn’t know what’s going to occur with the reconstruction of Hostomel and the rubble inside her constructing stays untouched.
With the concern of a powerful winter forward, she should put together for what’s to return.
“I will come again right here, I need to stay right here, I prefer it right here, every part is native right here,” she mentioned of Proskurivska Avenue again in June, her voice trembling.
“All of us simply bought damage, all of us. Each household has grief, misfortune. It is simply terrible.”
