Volunteers at a reception center for people displaced from the front line, near Kharkiv. Photo: LWF/ Anatolyi Nazarenko
Heroes without uniforms in Kharkiv
Driving into Kharkiv, Ukraine, we were met with a surreal sight: City council employees planting flowers by the roadside. The main road leading into Kharkiv was lined with checkpoints, concrete blocks, so-called hedgehogs to stop tanks. Heavy machinery was digging trenches. It was an ominous view of a city preparing for an invasion. In the middle of all this, on this sunny day in May, we saw a truck with the city council markings, and people planting flowers.
Kharkiv in Eastern Ukraine is the second largest city of the country. It is only 40 km from the Russian border. When we visited on 16 May, the front was 35 kilometers away. There were air alerts every other hour. Despite feeling uneasy about being in a war zone, I was also really looking forward to meet the people and see the work I had heard so much about.
War
LWF in Ukraine is present through the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine (GELCU), an LWF member church, and our World Service country program which provides humanitarian aid in Kharkiv. The largest project is rehabilitating apartments which have been destroyed during the invasion in 2022.
We saw some of them in Kharkiv’s residential area. The effects of the war were visible everywhere. Many windows had plywood instead of windowpanes, the façade of the houses was blackened by smoke. Some buildings had big gaping holes, like a monster had taken a bite out of them.
We entered an apartment block that we later discovered has a missing section at the back. On the eighth floor lived Maria Ivanivna ,an elderly lady. Her apartment was struck by a missile in 2022. LWF fixed windows, doors, plumbing, painted the walls, making her home livable again.
Heroes
Maria offered us homemade sweets and showed us photographs of her two sons and a grandson in uniform. On her duvet, there was a heap of strips of green fabric. She was making camouflage nets. “They are with me, always,” she said pointing at the photos. “When I wake up, and when I go to sleep, I pray that they come back alive.”
Ukrainians call Kharkiv a “City of Heroes.”. This is a recognition above all of Ukraine’s defenders, the soldiers at the front. After two years of war, the army is everywhere: On posters, and on video screens in the trains, celebrating bravery and aiming to recruit soldiers.
Many of the people we met could have left Kharkiv two years ago. They stayed because they believed in a better future and that each of them could make a difference.
Cornelia KäSTNER-MEYER, LWF Senior Communication Officer
During our visit to Kharkiv we saw and met with the heroes and heroines who did not wear uniform: An elderly couple packing plastic bags with toothpaste and toilet paper for displaced people. Young men and women volunteering at the reception center, helping evacuees from the front line. Teachers in Kharkiv’s “Metro Schools” doing everything in their power to give the children a normal, joyful school day, while above ground, we were greeted by sirens the fourth or fifth time that day.
Hope
Our visit in Kharkiv taught me a lot about the power of hope. Many of the people we met could have left Kharkiv two years ago. They stayed because they believed in a better future and that each of them could make a difference.
Later that day, we visited the Lutheran congregation in Kharkiv. After a very warm welcome, they presented us a gift: an used shell from a bullet that had been transformed into a vase, and in it, made of wire and paint, three very delicate flowers.
