War involves destruction, pain, anguish, fear, anger, indignation and a long list of adjectives that are related to suffering. Even so, there are also recesses for hope. This illusion is breathed by the inhabitants of tsyrkuny, a town just 16 kilometers from Kharkov, thanks to the humanitarian aid they receive from organizations such as the UN, the Red Cross and government entities of the European Union. The latter has installed a camp with some tents to supply the citizens of food, clothing or medication. There is also offered psychological help and other services, because in warfare not only weapons resources are needed.
Although the soldiers on the front lines get all the attention, all ukrainians fight. The so-called war effort brings them together, mainly women, in various activities to help rebuild the country or allow it to have a future after the conflict. The work they do can range from cooking food for everyone or collecting shrapnel to clean the ground so that the town can be habitable.
Among the entire group, of about thirty people who are in the tents, a purple bicycle pedaled by Artur, an eight year old boy from the area. Although it seems that he is just trying to have fun on top of his vehicle, every day groups all the war material found on the ground to help the elderly. Among everything he is carrying are pieces of projectiles, deactivated mines or shrapnel.
Artur poses in a garden in Tsyrkuny, his hometown.
Spinning around on one of the only pieces that ties him to his childhood, he fills his hands and pockets to take them to the hopeful tents of Tsyrkuny. The town cleaning It’s not the only reason they gather everything they find. It is hoped that some of the weapons waste that is piled on top of each other will be turned into a museum to remember what one day happened there. Again, hope.
On the other hand, the proximity of Tsyrkuny to Kharkiv meant that the villagers had to hide in their houses and listen to how its streets became a battlefield after Russia besieged the capital of the region for months. The offensive on the second most populous city in the country turned its nearby villages into ghost towns where only soldiers walked.
Damage inside a building.
Like his neighbors, Artur hid during 74 days in the basement of his house with his grandmother. His parents died because of the war and he had to assume a premature responsibility. For more than two months he stayed underground in order to maintain hope. It was during those days when the village became the weapons cemetery that today tries to clean.
Currently, the streets through which he rides his bicycle are empty and transmit loneliness. Life is not felt, although there are many who fight to recover theirs. Artur no longer has time to recover his childhood, but he maintains a happy face and a lot of vitality that he dedicates to his new daily task. His new normality, which he has lived since the invasion began, is far from everything that should be for a child his age.. She tries to cling to her childhood on the purple bike seat, but she accidentally pulls away from him. The way she greets the rest is not that of a child, but that of a man. She does not salute from a distance, he shakes his hand with his neighbor’s with strength and firmness, as a private would salute his officer.
Humanitarian tents set up in the center of town.
Its wheels travel through avenues lined with houses turned into rubble and reduced to memories. Many of the orphan’s neighbors have lost their homes and are living in the humanitarian aid tents, where there are beds for those who last slept long ago. In fact, there are fewer and fewer neighbors left in the town, since, especially families with children, they fled the territory.
For this reason, Artur walks alone and bears the burden of maintaining Tsyrkuny’s innocence. He no longer has anyone to play with, and those places that were once the home of illusion are now destined for war. For example, the basketball court has become the space that houses about 300 coffins. Where the eight-year-old should see his older neighbors play, he now finds a sinister environment that he observes calmly and normally. Because Artur has normalized everything he sees, whether out of innocence or out of habit, he doesn’t shake his face when he sees said misfortune.
The Tsyrkuny basketball court, which houses 300 coffins.
This exposure to harshness increases the chances of having sequelae or psychological trauma in children who go through this situation. For this reason, the tents are prepared to care for infants with this problem. Although they are not the only ones to whom it takes its toll. Many soldiers or citizens are victims of the mark left by the war in its wake. It is very common that many of them do not stop hearing detonation noises in their head or remember without stopping images that were marked and that they broke inside. That is why the war does not end when the explosions or shots stop sounding.
Between the holes that draw the spokes of the bike, the wind is cut that does not hinder Artur’s hair, since a hat keeps him impassive. Without speaking, he moves from one side to the other in search of more material.. On his way, he crosses the building where they store everything that is distributed in the tents. Without white plastic covering its walls, the façade of the place shows the effects of shrapnel. Once inside, a hole in the ceiling caused by a Russian Hurricane missile is glimpsed. The shell is still in place after cracking the wooden floor, standing still unexploded in the center of the room. The traces left by the war can be seen in all corners of Tsyrkuny.
Artur looks for weapons material in the empty streets of Tsyrkuny.
The roads are also a witness, and they are in solitude due to the little influx of vehicles that there is. Of course, Artur’s bike clings to the asphalt and mud as if he had to share the space. It is not that there are no cars, but that the majority are either destroyed or have been destined for war. Among the rubble of the cars appears the ‘Z’ associated with the Russian symbology during the invasion, since they not only left shrapnel in their wake. In the same way that many cars allowed the inhabitants of the area to leave the war behind, even if it was not Artur’s luck.
For his part, he has to forcefully adapt to his imposed maturity, although he refuses to do so thanks to his bicycle. That is the channel that keeps it alive in a place where hope and sadness are breathed at the same time. It will be the day that he leaves his bicycle next to those destroyed cars, when he will embrace the adult life from which he flees without knowing it, but to which the war has destined him.
Artur is not the only child of the war. There are armed ones or others that move away from it. There are innocent and there are converted to little men who yearn for their happiness without knowing that they have lost it. War is not just a matter of territory. They are men and women. Fathers and mothers. Grandfathers and grandmothers. And as in the case of Artur, girls and boys.
