It seems like a lifetime ago that Donetsk was the principal city of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. Now the capital of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, there is little evidence of a ceasefire here. The shelling is less intense than it has been but the hostilities continue. In a series of interviews with residents, a picture emerges of a city of contrasts.

Night at the opera

“This is sabotage. What the enemies have done here, the saboteurs. They handed out fake invitations to make this happen; to ruin the concert (by pro-Moscow singer Iosif Kobson),” a woman whispers, gesturing towards an unruly crowd in front of the doors of the Donetsk National Opera and Ballet theatre.

At that moment several dozen people push past the guards and enter the building, ignoring demands to show their invites. An old woman is kicked in the back and falls over, striking her head on the ground. Theatre staff call for back up and a few minutes later, fighters from the Oplot battalion arrive and take control.

The crowd were hoping to see Kobson, a Russian singing star performing to show his support for separatist Donetsk. Tickets to his concert weren’t for sale: invitations were handed out instead. But fliers were also distributed on the streets and there were rumours that admission would be free. In the end, though, only those with invites were allowed in.

One of the men who succeeded in breaking into the building comes up to me and asks me not to film, saying neither the uninvited crowd not the theatre staff were at all to blame for the chaos. It was the “organisers” fault and those who were “stupid enough to advertise it”.

“None of those who live in the basements are here,” he adds quietly. “They don’t go to concerts. It would be better if you went to (talk to) them.”

He is referring to seven basements in Donetsk run by a group of volunteers known as Responsible Citizens.



While inside the opera house Kobson speaks of a Donbass that won’t be “brought to its knees” and sings a duet with the “prime minister” of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, outside the volunteers are distributing heaters and clothes, unloading water and collecting lists of medicines for civilians injured during the shelling.



A woman takes shelter with her child in the basement of the 21st hospital of Donetsk’s Oktyabrsk district. Photograph: Tass / Barcroft Media

‘Has the war ended?’



“Civilian Shelter. No entry with weapons!” The sign hangs over the entrance to one of the factory air-raid shelters in the Kiev area of Donetsk. People who have lost their houses in the conflict live here, along with some whose houses are still standing but could be destroyed at any moment.



There are 10-15 permanent residents, but when the bombardment begins 200-300 people squeeze in.

As far as safety is concerned, this air-raid shelter is one of the best. But living here is a torment. It’s always wet and gloomy. Sounds echo around a seemingly infinite basement, which is divided into small squares. When it rains, part of the basement floods. Residents bail out the water with plastic bottles cut in half.

“In the summer we took our mattresses, bedding and clothes out onto the street to dry. Now, whether we take it out or not, it still stays wet,” says one.

Normally, only one small area is heated. The little room is stuffed full of bunk beds and shelves. In the corner, there’s a table. Electricity – check. Water – imported. Nowhere to prepare food.

Those who live close by have it good. While its quiet they can run home, wash, and eat something hot.

When the volunteers lower down plastic bottles of drinking water, Aunt Nina, an old woman who has lived here for several months with a disabled child, asks quietly:

“Has the war ended?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“You don’t know when it will end? What are they saying up there?”

“They’re not saying anything up there. No one knows for sure.”

I don’t want to tell her that up at ground level Donetsk is seething with rumours that Ukrainian soldiers are preparing an assault on the city from four different directions; or that the rest of Ukraine is sure that, after the elections, the unrecognised republics will start fighting again in an attempt to seize new territory.

Aunt Nina doesn’t know anything about the elections either.

“We simply don’t have television and they don’t bring us papers,” she says.



Another woman descends into the basement, another “lucky one”. Her home is close to the shelter but it’s not possible to live there: it’s in an area that is under constant bombardment.

“Nina, I brought baked potatoes! It was just dreadful going home. The last few days have been somehow quiet.”

The silence is hard for people used to living under constant fire. The longer it lasts, the more dreadful will be the thing that breaks it.

School Number 106



“Tonight they fired on Petrovka again,” says Marina, one of the volunteers, referring to a residential district of Donetsk that has borne much of the shelling.

A house destroyed during an artillery attack by the Ukrainian army in Donetsk’s Petrovsky district. Photograph: Pochuyev Mikhail/Itar-Tass Photo/Corbis

There is not a street in Petrovka that has been left untouched by the war: streets are littered with burnt-out homes, bashed in roofs, smashed windows and the broken fragments of walls and fences.

Several dozen people live permanently in a basement in the grounds of School Number 106.

The first time I visited this shelter it was summer. It was freezing in the basement even then. Now, it’s even colder. It’s impossible to heat it because there’s no electricity.

Then the school itself was still in one piece. Now the roof has caved in and the windows and doors have been blown out. In the yard, there’s not one wall unmarked by shrapnel.

The school steward also lives in the basement. Her house is still standing but because of the shelling the windows are constantly blowing out and cracks have appeared in the walls.

Five-year-old Sasha says that water has finally been brought to her house: her mother Sveta can now heat up water for her and her one-year-old sister, Liza. A (big) bottle of water also stands in the bombed-out school. You can go there to wash.

Marina and fellow volunteer Dima unload clothes from their boot. They are asked to bring food and water next time.



Ukrainian women buy clothes at the city centre market in Donetsk. Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

Aid for sale



After the bomb-damaged suburbs, the centre of Donetsk with its wide boulevards and intact shop windows, its stores and offices (now closed), its pavements littered with rustling autumn leaves, looks like a stage set. The Donetsk People’s Republic is gradually kitting out its officials with suits, airy offices and beautiful secretaries who offer their guests tea in small, light china cups. The shelves of the supermarkets are half empty but in a few cafes in the centre of town you can even order oysters.

A crowd of young women stand outside the Donbass Arena stadium. They are mothers who have come to exchange coupons for aid parcels from the charitable Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, set up by Ukraine’s richest man. The parcels, which contains baby food, formula and nappies, are distributed monthly.

But not everyone succeeds in getting one. Someone may be given one out of turn, someone gets one without a coupon and someone else is turned away because they have run out. A security guard bars the way to the distribution point but the young mothers are ready to break through.

“I am from (the suburb of) Makiivka,” says Galya, her face smeared with angry tears. “I have seven children. Se-ven. Even the flour has run out at home. Any more of this and we are going to starve. I came here with the last of my money.”

Galya’s husband is a miner. He is still working but he hasn’t been paid for several months.

“In (central) Donetsk, it’s still all right. They’re still paying out child benefit. But where we live, in the suburbs, there’s absolutely nothing.”

Galya says that the rebel leader, Zakharchenko, came to Makiivka recently on a pre-election visit. It was only because of his visit that humanitarian aid started to be distributed there too, she says.

“Everyone knows that aid is being traded in the shops and the markets. Everyone can see it … Russian rice, Russian stew on the shelves. Why does no one do anything (about it)?” asks Natasha, another of the mothers.



Natasha lives alone with two children. A few weeks ago, her son broke his leg. “I told him: don’t get upset. You don’t have anything to go to school in anyway, only a pair of light trainers, so just take it easy and stay at home.”

Natasha and Galya stood in line for aid from 8am until 3pm, then spat and left.

Armed rebels stand guards during the inauguration of Alexander Zakharchenko as new head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/EPA

Life and death



“Don’t ask. I don’t know why I didn’t leave,” says Marina, the volunteer. “I understood as early as June than I couldn’t leave. I found other people like me who couldn’t leave either. We realised we had to do something if we weren’t to go out of our minds.”

At first, Marina evacuated children with cerebral palsy. Later, she saw how many hungry people there were in the city and started to deliver food. And so the Responsible Citizens society emerged.

“We only help civilians, as a matter of principle,” says Marina. “We never bring anything to those who have taken up arms. Not for one side or the other.”

What do you need the most?



“Heat. Food. Medicine. Not to mention security.”

What will winter be like?

“Winter will be the ultimate test for all the people living here in a state of what I would call dehumanisation. What will they be like in the spring? What state will they be in, what values and desires will they have? Winter here will literally be a question of life and death.”

Dima says that housing is the most acute problem. “To heat the basements through is impossible,” she says. “The most you can do is raise the temperature to three or four degrees. We have got about two weeks until the hard frosts set in.”

Frost is expected in Donetsk on Monday, when a low of -7C is forecast.



This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on Novaya Gazeta, Translated by Cameron Johnston

