Andriiy Pochekva wears the expression of a man that can’t believe the task he has been assigned to oversee. Above our heads workmen on cherry pickers drill steel plates onto the stained-glass windows of Lviv’s 14th-century Basilica of the Assumption. “We hope that all of this won’t be needed,” Pochekva, a painter who is leading the restoration, says warily, referring to the Russian missiles that have yet to rain down on the Unesco World Heritage old town. Faded squares line the walls of art galleries and museums as artefacts are hurriedly taken away to storage. Around the corner in the statued Rynok Square, gods and goddesses are swaddled in plastic and foam, Neptune’s trident defiantly protruding from the top. None of this would survive a direct hit, but something must be done.
From a pleasant Habsburgian town full of meandering tourists, Lviv has morphed into a jittery waystation of refugees, diplomats, journalists, fighters, aid workers and rumoured saboteurs in the midst. It is a Casablanca without a Rick’s café after the government decreed a ban on booze sales. By day residents queue up to buy guns, marshal aid supplies and house the homeless, until a curfewed night descends at 10pm and all pray to hear only the peal of the church bells.
The players at Les Kurbas theatre were a few days into a production of Anthony Horowitz’s psychological thriller Mindgame when their world ended on 24th February. Half the troupe are now on the frontline or in the defence forces; the rest help the displaced. The venue, named after the avant-garde director who was executed by the Soviets at Sandarmokh, is now a shelter with refugees bedded down on the stage, the stalls, and the balcony. During air raid sirens, they retreat to the basement with the scenery and mannequins. “When the cannons are heard, the muses are silent,” remarks one of the actors. He knows first-hand the legacy of Russian occupation. He grew up in Crimea, now a repressive garrison, and trained in Kharkiv, now a ruin. “We were divided before, but now we have woken up.”
Turning down the narrow cobblestone streets I bump into a funeral—one of five that day, the military chaplain says. The father holds aloft his phone beaming out a photo of his late son in uniform, a 28-year-old sapper shelled in Mariupol. “I may be in poor health,” the old man thunders, “but I will take up arms. I appeal to Russian mothers, call your sons back from war.” In a nearby café sits a young girl who made a narrow escape from Melitopol, one of the few cities Russia now occupies. “There is barely any phone signal. My father can call me once a day if he goes to the ninth floor.” She makes a face implying that the ninth floor is the last place she wants her father to be, but radio silence would be unbearable. Some calls she no longer makes. “I speak Russian all my life. I go to Russian school. Russia is very close to us. I have friends in Moscow and when I called them about this situation, they don’t understand why we don’t agree with it.”
As the days go by the wail of the air raid sirens become daily, though many still snooze through them. US army vets teach locals how to apply tourniquets. Girl Scouts box up ammunition to send to the troops. Mothers sew bandages and camouflage nets. Breweries produce Molotov cocktails. And the flow of weapons and fighters continue, raising the stakes hour by hour for the safest city in Ukraine. One Sunday morning Russian bombers over the Black Sea fire a volley of cruise missiles obliterating a military training centre one hour away, rattling the windows next door in Nato member Poland. The air raid shelters become more populated.
Outside Lviv’s lofty art-nouveau train station a pianist plays “What a Wonderful World” to the huddled masses queuing up to board trains to the west. A young woman who escaped the Russian shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant wonders aloud if Europe will soon tire of accepting her people. An old American English teacher is heading back to Albuquerque. A Ukrainian émigré from Canada nervously waits to travel to the capital with his comrades and a suitcase of military equipment. A family of seven who spent a fortnight underground in the besieged Kyiv suburbs will now relocate to Poland where they know not a single soul. A badge on the teenage son’s camouflage jacket reads “one way.”
Outside, I spot a lone traveller: early forties, thinning hair, upright posture, and a sturdy camouflage bag. He’s waiting for a contact to take him away for a briefing and then, to war. He speaks almost too freely, and sheepishly, to be a fighter. Indeed, he has never held a gun; weeks ago, he was a pastry chef in Budapest. But he becomes more animated when speaking of Ukrainian suffering. “It should be me. Why do those people and their families have to die? Those who have so much to live for. Why?” Suddenly a large, bearded man looms up. They shake hands and disappear into the crowds. After broadcasting this exchange in a radio programme, I was contacted by a Polish American listener who said the interview inspired him to consider jumping on a flight to Ukraine’s border. “I have nothing to lose either. Perhaps I’ll see you in Lviv.”
