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"It hurts so much.
It's like seeing the corpse of a loved one...
And for someone, it's just a pile of bricks..."
Natalia Vyshnevetska, latest Facebook post about a fresh video from Bakhmut.
Dreams do come true. And it's hard to believe that it turned out better than anyone could have imagined. Natalia wanted an apartment, but they found a house. It was in a good neighborhood, small, two-story, renovated, and furnished: a young family had a loft-style interior. Natalia and her husband were eager to buy it. He, a seventh-generation Kyivan, had sold an apartment in the capital and had enough money. The woman happily settled down: she is in her 50s, her husband is in his 70s. Having worked all their lives, both of them have almost 100 years of work experience, they deserve good housing for their old age. There she will have her dream office, and she will not have to work 12 hours in the office, and she will have more time for her health and meditate in the sun. She will also have a kindergarten and walk along the city's rose alley, which is not far away.
They bought some furniture, paved the yard with asphalt, remodeled and refurbished the house, and moved in. It was November 2021.
It's good that dreams come true. But they are worthless if they come at the wrong time.
The first occupation: what is there to fear?
When Natalia Vyshnevetska (originally from the Pokrovsk district) came to Bakhmut for the first time as a student in 1989, she was shocked to find that the city was radically different from others in Donbas:
"Other towns were built recently, chaotically, with Khrushchevka [apartment buildings] and their younger sisters, Brezhnevkas, being built there. But Bakhmut is a city with an ancient spirit, its own history, and very well-planned, like Paris, with neighborhoods radiating from the central square. Once upon a time, famous city fairs were held in the center. The city's nobility, nobles, and merchants settled in the neighborhoods nearby. It is here, along the central streets, that most of the historic buildings are concentrated. They are so beautiful, they have preserved their old wooden doors. They are so pleasantly warm to the touch.
And although 80,000 people had lived there, everything is compact: it's easy to get to any place on foot. Plus, there is a well-developed infrastructure, good roads, many squares and parks, and a gorgeous promenade. It's a nice, cozy city – a real pearl of Donetsk Oblast. There are no others like it," she describes it. "A city of sun, silver poplars, freshly baked bread, salt, the aroma of roses and bitter herbs – with the steppe around it.”
So she stayed: she worked as a tax accountant, and in the noughties she started her own business, selling raw materials for cosmetics. Everything was going well: the business was growing, and she dreamed of traveling around the world.
Then came 2014. On April 12, separatists declared the so-called "DPR" to be in power in the city. Most of the local authorities supported the Russians: the occupiers were given the keys to the prosecutor's office, police, and city council. The mayor told pro-Ukrainian journalists: "Is a rag on the roof more important to you, or peace in the city?"
The only place where the Ukrainian flag flew was a military unit in the center of Bakhmut. There was a lot of old Soviet equipment there. And if the separatists got to it... All they had to do was change the oil and go. That's why Ukrainian Special Forces were thrown into the unit’s grounds by helicopter. The young men were under siege. Although the paratroopers mined the unit around the perimeter, the enemy stormed it several times.
Natalia and her husband Valeriy lived across the street and saw those assaults with their own eyes.
"There was a turning point in our minds," she says. "We are not young people anymore, we have lived our lives, what are we going to do, sit and cower while our children die? We decided: we can't do that. If they kill us, they will kill us. At that time, everyone in the city was shocked with horror: the separatists intimidated people with murders. Horlivka's local councilor Volodymyr Rybak, who had torn down the flag of the ‘DPR’, was kidnapped, tortured, his stomach was cut open, and he was thrown into the river alive. The body of student Yuriy Popravka, who was also tortured, was also found in the water. This was done deliberately to suppress protest moods. But we overcame this fear. We bought food, water, cigarettes, and my husband went to the military unit. I stood on the balcony and watched as the ‘DPR’ snipers lay on the roofs and looked at the Ukrainian military. Valeriy threw a package of food over the fence to the guys. Many locals did the same. Otherwise, our guys would not have survived."
The occupation of Bakhmut lasted three months, and all the paratroopers came out alive. The city was liberated by Ukrainian troops.
The volunteer organization Bakhmut Ukrainskyi, which was formed on the first day of the occupation, remained after the de-occupation.
From 2014 to 2022, Bakhmut was a frontline city. Active pro-Ukrainian residents fed the military, cared for the wounded in the hospital, and repaired army vehicles.
From Bakhmut to Artemivsk
The territory of Donetsk Oblast was once covered by the ancient Permian Sea, where huge deposits of rock salt were formed 290 million years ago. Commercial production of salt by evaporation began in 1876. Before that, the Russian Empire imported salt from abroad. At that time, the town of Bakhmut, named after the Bakhmutka River, was already 200 years old and inhabited by Ukrainians. It was founded as a guardhouse on the southern border of the Muscovy Principality, and eventually became a fortress, and then a Cossack town, a county town.
The coat of arms of Bakhmut features the alchemical sign of salt: a silver stripe in a silver circle. 70% of the salt for the entire empire was mined here. The city developed, and when the Donets Governorate was formed in 1919, Bakhmut became its center a year later! Interestingly, not only to the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in their present-day boundaries but also the Taganrog and Shakhtin districts were subordinated to it. They would later become Russian.
Later, the administrative center moved to Donetsk (then Stalino). The locals rejoiced: they had been spared industrialization. They saw that where factories and mines were being built, where industry was developing, all the land was being torn up and nature was being destroyed. The towns there become similar to each other. Bakhmut has preserved itself. But it lost its name: In 1924, it was renamed Artemivsk. The reason was the death in a train accident of Fedir Serheiev-Artem, "Comrade Artem," a well-known Bolshevik from Donbas. Nine cities were named in his honor, not to mention streets, squares, and factories.
The historical name of Bakhmut was restored only in 2016 during the decommunization process. The current occupation authorities now call the city Artemivsk. Or rather, its ruins.
Bakhmut was also known for the Artemivske champagne, since kilometer-long underground adits were formed there after the extraction of alabaster. It was a whole underground town, where the temperature is always the same at 12-14 degrees. In Soviet times, a champagne factory appeared there, which produced 25 million bottles a year!
Cossack spirit
"When Catherine the Great disbanded the Zaporozhian Sich, Ukrainians settled what is now Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. My ancestors plowed the wild steppe, and built towns and villages. This is all the land of indigenous Ukrainians. My mother told me that 200 years later, in the days of industrialization, people from Russia with a criminal record began to be brought to these territories.
They lived in settlements that they could not leave. They built factories and worked in mines. And so they slowly settled down here, had children. They hated everything Ukrainian. In 2014, 80% of separatists and 20% of pro-Ukrainian residents lived in mining towns. In Bakhmut, it's the opposite," Natalia recalls. "There are no mines in the city, and salt, not coal, has been mined here for centuries. There are no chemical plants or large metallurgical enterprises. No one was brought here. There are more Ukrainians here from ancestors, the Cossack spirit is here. A hundred years ago, people here spoke Ukrainian and wore embroidered shirts."
It is noteworthy that it was over Bakhmut in the fall of 1917 that the Ukrainian blue and yellow flag was raised for the first time in Donbas.
After the full-scale invasion, the Russians destroyed Bakhmut like no other city.
"Even under the Nazis in World War II, the city did not suffer so much, although there were very heavy battles. But today's Nazis have destroyed everything. They have a special hatred for Bakhmut. It is because of this great support for Ukraine. Since 2014, every second car in our town has a Ukrainian flag or trident," says Vyshnevetska.
With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the volunteers stepped up their activities. Natalia devoted 90% of her time to this:
"For more than a month, residents of the city provided food for the 54th Brigade, border guards, troops, and other units stationed in Bakhmut. They received almost no help from the center, because everything went to Kyiv. Everyone realized that if the capital fell, it would be the end. That's why we were buying everything for the military by hook or by crook, from cereal to drones.
Under fire, elderly women carried what they had at home to the soldiers—half a kilo of rice and half a kilo of sugar: ‘Give it to the boys’. And now they are called ‘awaiters’. Wherever you look, there are people waiting for their time. But there were more patriots in Bakhmut than in the entire Donetsk Oblast, I can tell you. A lot of local patriots were defending Ukraine and died for it.
Whole life burned down
Natalia lived in Bakhmut for almost 30 years. In 2022, she lost her entire life, although she did not die.
Her apartment, which she did not sell in time, the house she bought with her husband, her mother's and brother's homes with disabilities burned down. The warehouses where she stored her products burned down. Her mother died in April. She was buried in Bakhmut, but now there is no cemetery there either. It's destroyed. And this is the worst thing for her.
"I worked day and night with my husband to get what we had. We managed to take out the fridge, TV and washing machine, some of the goods. This was after it became clear about Bucha and Irpin, how the locals, especially the volunteers, were abused. So we left everything behind, and the military was allowed into all the rooms, even into my brother's house.
We believed that Bakhmut was an unbreakable fortress, that no one would surrender it. The military said: 'There will be a lend-lease in the fall, so leave now, and in November you will be home. And in November, it was already scary to enter the city, you could go to get a refrigerator and lose your head," the Bakhmut resident recalls the summer of 2022.
She settled with her family in Poltava Oblast. The last time she was in Bakhmut was in early July. She wanted to take the photo albums from the apartment, but the soldiers were sleeping. She did not want to wake them up. "I'll come back ten more times or ask them to send them by Nova Poshta," I thought. The windows overlooked the military unit, where equipment was still being repaired: armored personnel carriers and tanks. A teenager, who was recruited by the enemy, directed two Iskander missiles there.
The windows in Natalia's house were smashed, and she changed her mind about asking the soldiers to send her those albums: what if another one came and they got hurt? No albums are worth a human life. Now she has no photos of herself under the age of forty, only those stored in her phone's memory.
Gradually, the looters cleaned out the entire apartment and the entire city. And then the enemy moved in.
"We watched our Bakhmut being burned online. Like crazy people, we didn't sleep a single night, constantly monitoring social media. We saw how the destruction was advancing street by street, closer and closer. And it so happened that our house was the last to be destroyed.
Two years have passed, and it should have been accepted that there is no home. But still, when I see videos from Bakhmut, it physically hurts me. I can't watch it: I get upset, I don't sleep well, my blood pressure jumps. My health and nervous system are ruined. Every town and village already has a cemetery of Bakhmut residents. People are dying like flies," Natalia's voice falls silent.
When she sees humanitarian aid being distributed somewhere, she barely recognizes her fellow Bakhmut residents. The young, blooming, vigorous people are now black. They have aged decades.
We all lost not only real estate, we lost the graves of our loved ones, we lost friends, we lost our lives. Young people are quicker to restore social ties and build new ones, but for pensioners, it is almost impossible. My friend lives in Khmelnytskyi, and she doesn't communicate with anyone. She says: "I'm not going to go knock on the door of my neighbors: let's get to know each other.”
The city is people
Natalia suffers the most from the fact that she cannot visit her parents' graves or put up a monument:
"It just kills me. I was uprooted. We have been living in Lubny for three years, and this is not our home, we cannot integrate, it doesn't work. We live with Bakhmut on our minds and that's it. I miss my friends very much, they are all scattered around the world. I believe that a city is about people. I miss my fellow [Bakhmut residents] with whom I was friends, lived, and worked. But I hope that we will see each other again.
We were bombed, but that’s okay. There was nothing left of Dresden, and yet it was rebuilt. Bakhmut will be rebuilt too, and I will return."
This article is part of the project "Destroyed but Unconquered," in which we tell the stories of cities that were destroyed to the ground and occupied by Russia during the full-scale invasion.