Europe

The devastated city of Borodyanka

Borodyanka is a residential town northwest of Kyiv from the days of the former Soviet Union. A row of apartment blocks blackened by bombing with collapsed walls line the main road. It is about an hour’s drive from Kyiv. With nowhere else to go, many elderly continue to live in the heavily damaged apartments.

Once a week, a market opens in the central square of Borodyanka selling food and sundries. Volodymyr Syplyvyy, 82, lives day to day by selling potatoes. “I retired a long time ago and now I have no work, no money,” he said with dismay. “I can’t repair my damaged home.”

With the harsh winter approaching, one priority is to provide housing to give people some peace of mind. “It’s going to get colder and colder, and I am worried because the doors and windows of my house are still broken,” Olha Shyshkina, 72, a homemaker living alone said as she visited the market. “It would be nice if the country or local government would fix my home…”