Avdiivka. Your home is where your heart is

The home of each of us is not only walls and a roof, it is a place of permanent residence, a quiet harbour, the native hearth where a person feels protected. Our home is the family nest, the domestic fire, the reliable rear in which the history of a family and even of whole generations is made. We say "My home is my castle", meaning the settled way of life and family traditions, a father's admonition and a mother's blessing. We hurry home after work, study and holidays, knowing that within our own walls we are loved and understood. The residents of front-line Avdiivka have a special attitude to their home, one suffered through and lived out in losses and partings.

 

Avdiivka, 15 Vorobiov Street. A long-suffering building

Let the residents of other towns not take offence, but nowhere do people love their town the way the residents of Avdiivka love theirs. The photograph of building No. 15 on Vorobiov Street went round every domestic news outlet. During the period of active fighting the corner nine-storey block was damaged by shelling from heavy artillery.

 

The wind roams through the shattered windows and rustles the torn-off profile.

 

The history of this building of white silicate brick began with difficulties. Its construction was frozen in the early 1990s. On the southern attic facade, the date "1992" in red brick hides under the paint; the walls were raised, but the unfinished high-rise was not put into service. Rising property prices and the closeness of the long-term construction site to the regional centre spurred the resumption of the building work, and in 2008 happy new residents moved into 144 flats. The building stands on the southern side of Avdiivka; 5.5 km separate it from Donetsk airport, 2.7 km from the hot spot of the "Industrial Zone", and 4 km from the Yasynuvata junction.

 

In the inner yard you can hear the roar of an angle grinder and the talk of residents who have come back to their native penates, because your home is where your heart is and where you are awaited.

 

The small-family block next door was called "the colouring book" for the many colours of its panels.

 

Avdiivka. 20 Molodizhna Street

On the wall of the nine-storey building smashed by shells, in 2016 the Australian artist Guido van Helten painted the portrait of Maryna Marchenko, a teacher of Ukrainian, whose husband was severely wounded 20 metres from this building.

A woman's face peers with pain in the direction of Donetsk. The mural, four storeys high, has become a symbol of the war in the east of Ukraine and the embodiment of the bitterness of the residents of the front-line zone.

 

The mural "Portrait of a Teacher"

When the fighting began Maryna Hryhorivna stayed in the town and went on teaching at school. She was forced to leave her home after a direct hit by a shell. Together with her husband they put in new windows so as to save at least somehow the things that had survived.

 

Sadly, the budget funds are not enough for repairs and compensation, and the residents restore their homes on their own.

 

People are ready to come back and repair their houses with their own hands, if only peace would come sooner to their native land.

 

The administrative building of the Avdiivka coke plant with traces of shelling

Many flats, especially on the ground floors, still stand with boarded-up windows, and when the lights will come on in them nobody knows.

 

Vorobiov Street practically borders the front line.

 

Until 2014 - the Olimpiiets sports club

The church of St Mary Magdalene

At the edge of a field disfigured by blast craters, warning signs about the mined area have been put up.

 

Before the war Avdiivka was linked to Donetsk by a tram line. Now the tram branch is not in use and is overgrown with grass.

During the shelling the residents left their homes, taking the barest necessities with them. Looters were at work in the abandoned houses and flats. The wrongdoers carried off belongings and metal items, leaving rubbish and junk behind. When the people of Avdiivka began to return to their home town, the ownerless dwellings, service rooms and attics had to be inspected. With the help of law enforcement the residents examined the buildings, closed the entrances to the basements and the attic, installed door phones and protective grilles. These measures helped people feel more secure.

 

A holy image on the wall of a high-rise

A plate certifying the building's technical condition as safe

The people of Avdiivka are setting their lives in order again, adapting to the dreadful situation of an armed conflict.

An abandoned children's playground 

A fountain that no longer works

It is hard to imagine, but the rumble of cannonade in Avdiivka has become ordinary, and over several years even the little ones know what weapon is firing and at what distance. In Avdiivka they live in expectation of peace.

Avdiivka. A public garden