“We don't get 40 missiles a day anymore, but that doesn't mean it's any easier.” Life in Mykolaiv

A native Mykolaiv resident can be recognized by his water bottle

“Don't rub salt in the wound! This is the only access to water, the closest to us. And there is a huge area further away that is empty, they could have made four wells!” one of the elderly women grumbles as she tries to collect drinking water in two six-liter bottles.

Instead, a man in the middle of the line quietly replies: “It's good that there is at least some water. There is a war going on.”

Those who have never left Mykolaiv know what it's like to run around under fire for a month in search of at least some water. That's why people are more relaxed about the current problems.

Mykolaiv was left without a centralized water supply back in April 2022, when the Russian occupiers blew up a water pipeline that supplied water to the city from the Dnipro. Then they started drilling wells and setting up drinking water points. Today, there are about two hundred such points in a city of almost half a million people.

“You can recognize a native Mykolaiv resident by his water bottle. It is true. We are used to it. But now it's much more difficult with the blackouts. I'm here for the second time today. In the morning there was no water because the power was cut off. So you drive around and have to look for where the water is on,” complains Viktor, who recently drove up by car and stood at the end of the line. The human chain is moving slowly: out of six taps, only one is working.

Viktor Hlukhariev has a wife and three children. He says they run out of water quickly. That's why they have a stockpile at home, and there are always empty bottles in the car — the ones he ran with in 2022. They are already a little white with sediment and worn out. The only thing new on them is the plastic handles: the man replaced them to avoid throwing away the bottles.

For a month there was no water at all. We went around looking for it... Someone was handing it out in the yards, and everyone came running. And we bought these bottles. Where do you think they all came from?Viktor Hlukhariev, a resident of Mykolaiv

A month after the water pipeline was blown up, the centralized system did receive water, but it was salty — from the Dnipro-Bug estuary. This solved the problem with industrial water, but at the same time caused another problem: salt is actually eroding the steel pipeline, and the city's networks are rapidly collapsing. Meanwhile, a new water intake from the Southern Bug is expected to be launched no earlier than the end of 2024.

Today, Mykolaiv's roads resemble molehills, with emergency sections here and there. There are constant pipe breaks. The water utility company says that if there used to be 1-2 accidents a day, now there are 15-20. Both in-house networks and household appliances are affected.

“Now the industrial water is better than at the beginning. At least we can wash ourselves more or less. But the water caused our dishwasher and washing machine to break down. The latter was repaired, but the dishwasher did not work,” says Viktor.

While we were talking, it was the man's turn. However, he was out of luck again: due to the power outage, the pressure in the tank dropped and the water stopped flowing. He is not complaining, he is determined to find another spring. However, he admits that people are irritated nowadays:

“This morning people were fighting to get water. But just now I went into the store and people were complaining that their production had stopped.”

“The explosions in the sky made it lighter at night than during the day”

Most of the Mykolaiv residents who left at the beginning of the Great War have already returned — some immediately after the liberation of Kherson, some later. According to local authorities, the city's population is now 400,000. As opposed to 480,000 before the war.

However, the lack of jobs in the port city is noticeable: the ports are shut down, and large and medium-sized enterprises are not working. Some lost their property because of the shelling, and some moved to other regions. In fact, only micro businesses operate in Mykolaiv.

Even though the frontline has moved away from the city, alarms are heard here several times a day; Mykolaiv is often hit by missiles and drones. However, locals say that this is nothing compared to 2022 when explosions did not stop here day or night.

“Once there was such a strong blast wave that I woke up from being rocked on my bed,” recalls Viktoriia, a coffee shop seller. We managed to order coffee before the power went out.

My apartment is on the 8th floor, with windows facing Kherson and Chornobaivka. I could see everything in the palm of my hand. When something exploded in the sky, it became lighter at night than during the day.Viktoriia, a resident of Mykolaiv

She refused to leave. She went to work even under constant shelling. So when the power goes out now, it is the least of her worries. So what if the shop doesn't have a generator? But there is Aunt Olia instead.

A woman who works here as a cleaner brings an enameled kettle of boiling water into the coffee shop. “We've got it all figured out!” she laughs behind the counter.

“We remain at our combat post”

Against the backdrop of city traffic in Mykolaiv, unpatched facades and bare ruins of buildings are striking. Reconstruction here is slow.

More than 4,000 residential buildings in the city alone were damaged. More than a hundred educational institutions and more than ten healthcare facilities were also damaged.

International partners and charitable foundations are now assisting with the reconstruction. In particular, the emergency hospital has been restored.

Chief Medical Officer Oleksandr Demianov shows the trauma center and part of the main building restored by the Kazakhs. On August 1, 2022, the Russians hit this hospital with a missile, which was the only one that was treating seriously wounded at the time. Everything here was in ruins. No one was killed only by some miracle.

“It was one in the morning. It happened that there was no one on the street. A car standing near the emergency room flew 50 meters over a power line.

Our doctor on duty usually slept under the stairs. But that night his wife came to spend the night in a safe place. Both of them could not fit under those stairs and moved to another wing of the building... And an S-300 hit that place. The stairs all collapsed from the explosion,” Demianov recalls.

The chief medical officer says that at the beginning of the great war, the workload was enormous. They worked on adrenaline and emotional highs. I ask him how things are now and whether it is easier because of the lower intensity of shelling.

“It’s comparatively better. But we are now working for two regions: ours and Kherson. In this sense, it's uneasy. Look: there are already 299 people in the hospital. We only have 240 beds for them. There are 106 people in the neurosurgery department, which is not available in Kherson, and we have only 60 beds for them,” Demianov shows the records in the medical documentation.

Neurosurgery, traumatology, and urology departments in Kherson were bombed. That's why we accept the entire set of such patients. We just got into this rhythm and work in it.Oleksandr Demianov, chief physician of Mykolaiv Emergency Hospital

The doctor says that the work is still stressful: “The fact that we don't have as many shell hittings now doesn't mean it's any easier. Because if there is a hit somewhere, we have to be on the alert right away. Let's just say we're on a combat post.”

Finally, Demianov calmly adds: “You know, today we hear about Kherson, Dnipro, Kharkiv. And tomorrow we may be in their place.”

“We know what it's like to have 40 missiles coming in”

Mykolaiv has so far sheltered more than 50,000 internally displaced persons. Most of them are from Kherson, according to the regional administration. This is confirmed by one of the local maternity hospitals.

“We host a lot of people from the Kherson region. It is incredibly difficult to be there now. We experienced it ourselves for 8 months — when 40 missiles flew to Mykolaiv every day. That's why we are helping as much as we can,” Oleh Ishchenko, director of Mykolaiv Maternity Hospital No. 3, told hromadske.

“They come both for childbirth and for some complex surgical interventions. Unfortunately, many patients are neglected. During the occupation, they were not able to receive normal qualified care. We see many consequences of this,” the doctor adds.

Only a few months ago, this maternity hospital was equipped with a new shelter. Now it is nice but empty. And on the first day of the full-scale war, 700 people found themselves in a small, unequipped basement. Under fire, they performed surgeries and delivered babies there.

The director shares a story that has remained in his memory forever.

At the beginning of the invasion, the city was practically surrounded, and there were battles on the outskirts. People came to me and said: “There's a military man in the emergency room to see his wife. Can I let him through?”. I went to meet him myself. It was an officer who had obviously been somewhere on the front line for the past two weeks. He was dirty and smelled like gunpowder. Only his white teeth were visible. He was carrying a huge armful of white chrysanthemums. I took him to his wife... Unfortunately, he was killed later. But this story will stay with me forever.Oleh Ishchenko, director of Mykolaiv Maternity Hospital No. 3

Now, Ishchenko says, it's easier to work, but it's still far from comfortable, to put it mildly: “Now everything seems to be calm. However, every day we come across some difficult stories: we lose someone, we treat someone... The energy of the war has not gone away, we can feel it.”

“Did all these uncles die here?”

Marichka Kudrinska has lived in Mykolaiv for 10 years. She is an IDP from Donetsk and is now a family doctor and volunteer. She fell in love with the city, which she could not get used to, only after the full-scale invasion. Then she saw the unity of the people who were ready to defend it to the end. It was in this city that she saw her beloved off to the service, and, as it turned out later, to his last journey.

“Then I began to perceive Mykolaiv differently. I didn't think it would react like this. This is a city that voted for the Party of Regions member Boiko in the elections. So this transformation was cool. I wish it could last longer,” Marichka recalls in an interview with hromadske.

The restrictions in the city are minimal. It's just that we seem to be a little bit out of our minds. There is a full-scale war in the country, and I recently heard a conversation like this, “The water is so bad. It's not the same...” And I thought to myself: “Listen, let's be glad that there is any water at all!”Marichka Kudrinska, doctor and volunteer from Mykolaiv

It is hot in Mykolaiv. In the evening, the pedestrian streets or the embankment in the city center become a crowded place for an evening promenade. To the sound of birds singing and generators humming. Like everywhere else, life goes on here. However, the war is breaking out everywhere, and its biggest hole is gaping in the center of Mykolaiv.

“When the regional administration was hit, it was probably our most frightening visit. Because it's the worst when you come to a place where there are many victims. It took almost a week to clear the rubble and search for bodies... 37 people died then,” recalls Viktor Khaliavko, a squad commander of one of Mykolaiv's rescue units.

Today, there is an open-air exhibition of destroyed Russian hardware on the square in front of the Regional Military Administration building. It is probably a favorite place for local boys. They climb into the cabs of burnt and shelled vehicles and examine them up and down. The older ones are interested in the engine in the ZIL. It turned out that the boys were future car mechanics.

“I'm interested in what can happen to the equipment if it is hit by a shell. I can find the answers to some questions when I repair it. Maybe even for the Armed Forces,” says 17-year-old Maksym.

A little further away, a younger boy, about seven years old, stands with his grandmother in front of a poster with the faces of heroes and the inscription “Forever in the defense of the city”.

— Did all these uncles die here? — the boy asks his grandmother, looking at the portraits in front of the bombed-out building.

—No, not all of them... — the grandmother answers him. She recognized one of the defenders. Her grandson was playing with his daughter on the playground.

The text was created with the support of Mediamerezha