Sculpture of destruction

 

Oleksandr Nazaryshyn was preparing his consulting room for a busy afternoon surgery. Outside his small practice on the ground floor of a multi storey building in Irpin, just a few miles west of Kyiv, pet owners already started to queue to have their animals seen.

Together with his colleague Alina Klechanovska, a native of the nearby town of Bucha, all veterinary care they provided in this small practice was free of charge and entirely funded through donations to the Four Paws animal welfare charity and to UVMF, the Ukrainian Veterinary Medical Foundation.

Their small clinic provided predominantly preventative care including vaccinations, anti-parasitic treatments, minor surgeries and neutering procedures. For the latter, Oleksandr still used and cherished the scalpel and the needle holder of his grandfather, who also used to be a veterinary surgeon.

The service Oleksandr and Alina provided, was much appreciated by the local residents, who were mostly refugees in their own country, with very limited means of income.

Standing outside the practice, which was conveniently located right next to an excellent coffee shop, it was hard to imagine, that this neighbourhood had seen some of the worst fighting at the beginning of the war. More than 70% of the buildings had been damaged or levelled to the ground and yet, due to a well working re-building programme and helped by international funding, I found myself surrounded by well attended modern apartment blocks with a number of playgrounds and a good variety of shops. While some of the buildings still showed some signs of damage caused by shrapnel and bullets, lagged this neighbourhood completely the familiar tristesse and ennui of traditional soviet style suburbias.

It makes sense, that physical and mental healing is progressing much better in a healthy environment and this was, what was provided here, both for humans as well as for their pets.

On our way back to Kyiv, I asked Nadia, a colleague from Zaporizhzhia who was driving, to stop at a sight, that had caught my eye just next to the road when we were entering the town.

A huge pile of mangled bodies of destroyed and often burned out cars and vans, all left to the elements and by now covered with a solid layer of rust, had been left in the middle of a parking place. This was Irpin’s ‘car cemetery’.

More than any man-made sculpture, each of these cars told its own story of fear, terror and tragedy. These cars were left behind by local families that had tried to escape the advancing Russian troops at the beginning of the invasion. Most of these cars were carrying women, children, elderly people and family pets and a few hastily grasped belongings.  

 

Some of the cars were left behind when no further progress could be made, as the only bridge connecting Irpin with Kyiv had to be destroyed by the defending Ukrainian army, forcing the civilians north of the bridge to flee on foot. These were the lucky ones….

There were numerous cars, that showed signs of bullet holes and nearby explosions and one could just imagine what horrors must have happened in these vehicles when they were overtaken by the advancing Russian forces….

Some artists had tried and failed to improve this place of carnage by painting sun flowers, the probably most iconic of all Ukrainian plants, on the outside of some of the destroyed vehicles, but while the buildings in towns like Bucha and Irpin could be restored, will this never be the case for the people and the animals who lost their lives or who had to witness what human beings can do to each other, not only in the dark days at the beginning of the invasion, but also in the still ongoing conflict…..