in Kharkiv, the future despite everything

This morning, Ina, an elegant woman of around 60, came to watch the ballet of backhoe loaders clearing the rubble from her building. Motionless, gazing lost in contemplation of their labor. From her apartment on the eighth floor, this former construction engineer could see the whole of Saltivka, a gigantic dormitory city built by the Soviets, northeast of Kharkiv. “Everything was green, she repeats, there were trees everywhere. » Today, all that remains of his apartment is a gaping hole.

While the war does not seem to want to end, the mayor, Ihor Terekhov, plans to rebuild the 4,500 houses and buildings destroyed since the Russian invasion. After all, wasn’t the plan for the development of London devised as early as 1943, in the midst of German bombardment? “I don’t want to remember this disaster”, confides Ina, who lived thirty years in what she describes as the “Paradise of Saltivka”, with its kindergartens and supermarkets at the foot of apartment buildings. This is where she got married, where her children took their first steps. But one day in March 2022, she had to flee her accommodation in a hurry, leaving behind her clothes, her photos, all the relics of her daily life. Today, in front of the concrete cemetery, Ina mourns her memories.