We have returned to the building with the headless official wrapped in a lace curtain. They are about to take him out when we hear some commotion. We go outside. They have caught two guys who are twenty-something. One of the insurgents has brought a bag full of cosmetics.
“They wanted to steal it. They are marauders,” he says.
The militants tell them to put their hands over their heads and kneel down on the pile of glass that fell from the shattered windows.
“You know what we do with people like you?” asks Cimmerian. The boys have tears in their eyes.
“We are not marauders. We didn’t want to take anything. We came to guard this building.” One of them can barely speak. They are told to lower their heads while the insurgents recharge their weapons.
“It is necessary. They are marauders,” says one of the locals quietly, justifying the insurgents’ behavior.
“OK. We have a different task for you,” says Cimmerian, breaking the dreadful silence. “You will take the corpse outside.”
Their job is to remove the body from the building and place it somewhere. They don’t have gloves. They struggle, but in the end they manage to move it out, carrying it on a lace curtain. They keep smelling their hands, making sure that they don’t smell like death.
Then the boys are walked further. Once again we smell the stink of decomposing corpses near the garages but no one can determine where it’s coming from. After a search we return to the bunker. On the way Cimmerian keeps talking to the detainees.
“They are not marauders,” he asserts when we get back. And he sets them free.
As promised, the insurgents gave us a ride to the city center.
Marinka and the Petrovska suburbs are quite far from the center of Donetsk, so the sounds of the fighting were barely audible in the city. On the other hand, north of Donetsk everyone got used to the shooting around the airport.
“Somebody is shooting there every day. For us it’s a daily routine,” a women living near the train station tells me. No one remembers any more that on May 26, the day after the presidential election, a huge battle took place there. This area was controlled by the Ukrainian forces the entire time. If it had been captured by the separatists, the remaining Ukrainian units would have been pushed out from the city. The Donetsk People’s Republic could then form its own air force and Russia would probably send them some planes.
But the combat zone in Donetsk started to expand, and the residents’ initial indifference was slowly melting. On July 21 the shells coming from the north were falling near the train station. The separatists’ artillery located in the city center was firing, too. The shelling began in the early morning.
“Press, pull over! Tanks are coming,” says a separatist blocking the road to the train station, when I and other journalists arrive. We are near the center. People are walking by the apartment buildings in a large group.
“Yes, we had to evacuate. Thank you, ‘volunteers,’ you are great.” A woman with a plastic bag in her hand is clearly exasperated. Like the others, she has taken only the most necessary items. They are all rushing to catch a marshrutka that will take them to a safe haven. For a while they will be living in the student dormitories in the city center.
A young fellow, Oleksij, is standing near one of the buildings. For now, he is not leaving. He believes all he needs is just to move in with some friends who live in a different neighborhood.
A huge cloud of black smoke hovers over the buildings. Just in front I see a billboard displaying a message with a little dove: “Peace to the world.” The fire is consuming the Tochmash plant that makes products for the mining and military industries. An armored personnel carrier with the flag of the “mass mobilization” is moving toward the factory. After a moment you can hear an engine roaring. A tank from battalion Vostok is advancing toward the train station. Vostok is a Ukrainian-Russian separatist unit responsible for capturing the airport in May. They suffered enormous losses.
I manage to get closer to the station. The neighborhood is practically dead. The only people you spot are those waiting for the evacuation marshrutkas or who flee on their own. Obviously, there are exceptions.
“This is my home and I won’t leave it,” an elderly man tells me at the bus stop. Another man tries to con me into giving him some money in return for super important information. In front of one building there are totally demolished cars. One of them is an old Lada, or rather, what is left of it. According to the witnesses, it was smashed by a car full of separatists who were in a big hurry.
A few militants, Western journalists, and some Donetsk residents sit in the street leading to the train station. The separatists have rifles and uncertain looks on their faces. They get animated when reinforcements pass by. Asphalt on the street has been furrowed by the treads of armored vehicles. Every now and then you can hear more explosions. After a while, a car with some militants pulls over.
“You will come with us. You will see what ‘they’ have done,” says a militant. “They” obviously means Ukrainians.
I return to the devastated Lada. The owner of the shoe shop nearby is taking his goods to the car. The militants standing next to the car don’t say a word. One of them separates from the rest and tells us to follow him. He walks us between the apartment buildings. I can see shattered windows. It is a crucial sign that the place has been shelled. Here a projectile hit a playground. What was left was a hole in the ground, shoes, sunglasses, and a pool of blood. Journalists who were standing there a little earlier claim that just a moment ago a woman’s body was taken away. According to the outraged residents who described the whole event to the journalists she didn’t even live there. She was probably going to work through the courtyards and had bad luck. Dead on the spot. A man who stood nearby was luckier. Shrapnel hit his leg. The residents dragged him to the stairwell and dressed his wound. The entire floor is covered with blood.
A group of residents stands at the playground and they curse the Ukrainians. “But the very first shell came from over there,” says one of them, pointing at the Donetsk center where separatist forces are located. Others start berating him.
“What are you talking about? What’s the difference where the first one came from, if this one obviously came from the north?”
On the other side of the street a projectile fell in front of a multistory building. A few meters from the stairwell you can see a formidable crater. Everything around has been hit by shrapnel. Two nearby cars are good for nothing. They are all perforated. A man is hanging out near a white Lanos. I ask him if the car is his.
“No. It is my daughter’s. It has been robbed,” he says. I notice an open glove compartment and a few things scattered around.
A few people have moved into the basement of the destroyed building. They have water, some food, cardboard boxes, and blankets. They are prepared to stay there a little longer. They don’t want to leave because they are afraid that belongings left in their apartments will share the fate of the white Lanos, that they will be plundered.
“As we know here, ‘What’s war for somebody is as good as it gets for somebody else,’” observes one of the women, recalling a popular Ukrainian saying.
At the Artem Street station I am pestered by an elderly drunken man. His speech is so muddled I can’t understand him. Finally he is interrupted by a man over thirty, who knows him and gets rid of him. His name is Sergey and he lives near the station.
“I had to go out because I ran out of cigarettes,” he says.