KHARKIV — With the onset of full-scale war, the city of Kharkiv has become an eastern bastion of Ukraine, a frontline city and a powerful hub for volunteers. The city has endured shelling for almost two years, but its spirit remains unyielding.
Following a lull in spring 2022, rockets hit the city daily during the summer of 2022. In 2023, shelling was less frequent, but resumed with brutal intensity at the year’s end.
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On the morning of December 29, Russia launched a record 22 rockets at Kharkiv — an unprecedented daily rate for the entire war. The following day, a hotel and an apartment building in the center of Samisin were hit, followed by an attack on a historic building and an adjacent café.
Residential areas were struck on January 2, resulting in three casualties: a 91-year-old woman, a retired theater actress and an ambulance driver. Despite the adversity, Kharkiv swiftly tends to its wounds, regains strength, and perseveres.
Ukrainska Pravda talked with Kharkiv residents about how their city has evolved over the past two years, how they feel about the city of 1.4 million, what motivates them and how they find resilience amid wartime.
New Year assaults
“After the second explosion on January 2, it felt like I had died. Death looks exactly like that: you stop seeing, hearing, feeling the body, understanding — everything goes out from under you. Death was knocking at the door,” says Tetyana Degteryova, a resident of Zaderzhpromya, a historical district in the heart of Kharkiv.
She and her husband were awakened at 7:30 a.m. by the sound of an explosion about a kilometer away. A rocket (later identified as likely of North Korean production) hit about 20 meters from their four-story building and exploded twice. “Six or seven minutes after the first explosion, there was a second that was much stronger than the first,” Degtereva recalls. “The gas services said that it was the second part of the rocket that detonated.”
Degtereva dismisses conspiracy theories about the attack on this area as nonsense. The blast wave blew out windows in her apartment, the roof was damaged and their car was damaged as well. Two hours after the attack, electricity and water were restored, and utility workers boarded up the windows during the day. She and her husband plan to restore the house themselves.
I want to live at home. I am annoyed by all the calls to leave.
“We don’t have the military here; it seems that this is yet another chaotic, aimless, absurd gesture by Russians to demoralize Ukrainian civilians,” Degtereva says. “People have been living in these houses since the 1940s; they survived World War II, and they cannot stand the racists.”
Degtereva first returned to her native Kharkiv from evacuation in August 2022 and returned permanently from Khmelnytskyi in August 2023. She notes a radical change in the city within a year, with the return of “their people.” Now working for a public organization and preparing for the birth of a child, she reflects on the psychological toll, saying, “After what happened on January 2, something broke in us, and we began to be afraid.”
“I want to live at home. I am annoyed by all the calls to leave, calls from my friends in Germany who say there is no point in going to rallies in support of Ukraine. There is a huge gulf between us: they don’t understand why I’m here, and I don’t understand why they’re still there.”
The spirit of Kharkiv
On the first day of spring, Yuliya Napolska plans to lay flowers at the State Administration building, where she narrowly escaped death. On March 14, she’ll visit the residential building on Freedom Street, where a loved one died. The building, like many damaged heritage sites in Kharkiv showcases the city’s post-war challenges.
One such building held the Old Ham Pub until February 24, 2022. While much of the old building was lost, remnants like a twisted sign and some furniture have been salvaged. Bartender Ivan Panasenko reflects on the pub’s resilience, stating, “Ham is not a place, but a people.” The spirit of the pub endures, he believes.
Panasenko, 23, moved to a different part of Kharkiv during the conflict but didn’t leave the city. He witnessed the ebb and flow of life as businesses reopened and people returned. Panasenko describes the psychological impact of witnessing destruction in his home district, making it challenging for him to return. The war has desensitized him to the once-frightening attacks.
Despite the hardships, he remains connected to Kharkiv and hopes to return to his neighborhood, although the emotional toll has prevented him. His experiences, from seeking shelter during drone flights to facing ruined apartments, highlight the resilience and adaptability of Kharkiv’s residents.
A visitor from Kyiv calmly explains his purpose at the pub: to inspect his ruined apartment. The scene captures the normalized yet extraordinary circumstances that have become a part of daily life in Kharkiv.
The question of rebuilding
At the “Kharkiv” hotel, where windows once looked out on to a beautiful view, there is now a void, and a tattered yellow-blue flag: remnants of the New Year’s attacks. Opposite this hotel is the once prestigious Kharkiv Palace, a five-star establishment frequented by foreign dignitaries and journalists. The aftermath of the conflict is evident — shards of glass, windows covered with plywood, and a restaurant left dormant for two months.
Entrepreneur Borys Lomako, who is co-owner of the Asian restaurant Gaga and is involved in projects like an open-air food court, reflects on Kharkiv’s transformation. He stresses that amidst the destruction, “the city’s most valuable capital is its people.” Despite the challenges, Lomako sought to reopen his restaurant quickly, leveraging funds earned from various projects during the summer.
There are still people in the city who want to live here.
The restaurateur says that restarting the business is possible, focusing on essential repairs and reopening in spring. But he hesitates to collect funds to reopen, believing “it’s more important to support those helping Kharkiv.” Lomako initiated a fundraiser for an evacuation center and a vehicle for the 92nd brigade.
Lomako has split his time between Kharkiv and Lviv during the war. While he acknowledges the economic limitations and risks, he emphasizes the importance of “signaling that Kharkiv is alive.” Despite the risks, he believes in potential long-term dividends. In a year or two, the city may become more expensive to invest in.
Reflecting on the two years of war, Lomako notes Kharkiv’s transformation and the change in its residents. He is no longer waiting “for a return to the pre-war period” and has taken a stoic approach, focusing on “daily efforts to build something meaningful.” Despite the uncertainties, he finds hope in living, loving, creating businesses and raising children amid the war.
Culture and creativity
The week of January 8 begins in Kharkiv not with coffee but with another explosion. Outside the window, black smoke billows on the horizon. The city organizes a morning roll call on social networks with the traditional question “How are you?” Fortunately, there were no casualties this time, but two were injured.
We meet with Anton Nazarek, co-founder of the music group Some People, based near the Labor Palace, a cultural hub that the Russians struck on March 2, 2022. The building’s roof is badly damaged. The pharmacy, shops and coffee shops have already been restored on the first floors.
With the beginning of the war, Some People organized a volunteer headquarters. The creative communities of Lviv and Kharkiv organized vans of humanitarian aid for Kharkiv residents and the Lviv-Kharkiv Hub.
From December 2022 to February 2023, Nazarek and his band “Tysk” toured Ukrainian and European cities. The first concert was held in Kharkiv. Despite the blackout and interruption of mobile communication, many people came. The response inspired Nazarek to return to his hometown, where he has been since the beginning of 2023.
“We saw that it is very difficult in Kharkiv, not only because there are blackouts and the front line is nearby, but also because life has stopped,” he says.
In August 2023, Some People began to build a center of modern culture in a former factory.
“We were looking for a place where we could build and hold an event right now, ” Nazarek says. “There were 300 people at the December 16 event. There were not many events with such a cool atmosphere in Kharkiv even before the full-scale war.”
“By building our center, we are saying to everyone: ‘Kharkiv is struggling, but Kharkiv is alive.’ There are still people in the city who want to live here. They understand the security risks, but the city wants to live now. For many, going to a concert or the theater is as essential to life as going to the supermarket.”
In general, it is difficult for cultural institutions in Kharkiv to work now. They are either prohibited from holding events for security reasons, or their funding has been cut.
“Unfortunately, there is no funding yet. We’re looking for it,” Nazarko says. The first events were organized with the support of USAID. The center itself is being created at the group’s own expense with the money it earns on all its projects.
We have a unique opportunity to build the Kharkiv of our dreams.
Now Nazarko sees many displaced young people on the streets of Kharkiv who moved from frontline cities. He hopes the new cultural center and similar places will help to integrate them into the life of the city. He believes culture is effective tool for such integration and support of citizens in general.
“Right now we have a unique opportunity to build the Kharkiv of our dreams: utopian, European, without the influence of Russian culture, which will revive its cultural greatness,” he says.
“I cannot imagine a better place for creativity than Kharkiv. The city has become more hardened, more united, so you understand how cool Kharkiv will be after the war.”
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At 9:30 p.m., the street lights turn off in Kharkiv. The city plunges into darkness, and you can see the stars in the sky. The last shops and bars will close in half an hour. Curfew will start at 23:00.
Due to its proximity to the Russian border, a little more than 30 kilometers away, Kharkiv is doomed to live in a high-risk zone until the end of the war.
Yet the townspeople, it seems, are used to the fact that rockets can strike them at any moment and do not consider themselves heroes.
