“Whatever happens, I’m not leaving,” says Viktor Grozdow. The 77-year-old is one of the last inhabitants of Avdiivka. Although the city in southeastern Ukraine was almost completely destroyed, the Russians continue to bomb it daily. Even so, Grozdow is determined to stay – where his wife and child are buried.
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“My soul is here,” says the old man in his apartment near the cinema. The explosions blew out all the windows, the wallpaper is in tatters, only the family photos survive. There’s a radio by the bed and the bathtub is full of canned goods and bottled oil. Volunteers bring him water and food. Grozdow has a camp stove for cooking.
60 percent of remaining residents are over 65
When the bombing started, Grozdow said he fled to the bathroom and collapsed on the floor. Now he seems to ignore the noise of war, the rumble of tanks. “I’m not afraid, I’ve found peace,” he told AFP news agency reporters.
It is already the second encounter with Grozdow. The first time, in April, the retiree fell into a crater after shopping and needed help from reporters. “I was walking down the avenue thinking about quickly going around the bomb or the crater,” he recalled. “Then I tripped and fell. I tried to get out, but the ground was loose and it slid under my weight.”
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1,719 of the 30,000 inhabitants are still in the small town 13 kilometers north of Donetsk – without water and electricity. “About 60% are over 65,” said Vitaly Barabatsch, head of the military administration. Not a single house is intact, the Russians attacked Avdiivka 30 times a day on average. “In recent months there hasn’t been a day without air or missile strikes,” says Barabatsch.
How the villagers are distracted from the war
Grozdow, however, dares to take to the streets. Leaning on his cane, he follows the paths he knows well. Grozdow is half blind, which makes hiking even more dangerous. Even before the Russian attack, life for him was difficult: Grozdov was just a baby when his mother was killed, growing up in an orphanage in Donetsk. Later he worked at the Avdiivka coke plant. His son became addicted to drugs and violent. Once he hit his father hard on the head. Since then, Grozdow has been unable to see out of one eye.
A grenade got stuck in the facade of the ground floor of the house. Grozdow’s neighbor Vitali Semin sits in the basement, carving wooden animals by torchlight. “It distracts us from the thoughts that won’t let us go: about the people, about Ukraine, why there is no peace,” says the 63-year-old.
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The only place where residents can relax
The main shelter for the last few residents is an underground shelter where volunteers offer food and hot drinks. There is also WiFi, TV and electricity for cell phones. About twenty people are there now. Most wear headphones and are busy with their smartphone or tablet.
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Pawel, 65, watches the news. One arm of his glasses broke. The shelter is the only place he can relax a little, he says. “At home, you wonder if a bomb is going to fall or not – it’s like Russian roulette. Sometimes I get desperate.” His family fled long ago, and he too would like nothing more than to leave desolate Avdiivka. But Pavel thinks he has to stay – to protect his home from looters.