Ukrainians left with homes in ruins, uncertain future
Baryshivka, Ukraine, May 20 (EFE).- Nina Mikolaia, 78, was lying on her sofa when a bomb hit her home in Baryshivka, a small town in the Kyiv province.
The shelling destroyed the roof of her house, forcing her to move into her neighbor’s house, where she has been living since.
Nina’s daughters, who live in Kyiv, are trying to get their mother to move in with them in the city, but the 78 year old widow refuses to leave her town and most importantly, her field of flowers.
Before the war, Nina had grown over 1,000 red tulips in a field next to her house. The bomb that destroyed her house also destroyed the tulips.
Nina says she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her days worrying about rebuilding her house, but rather saving her flowers, which she likes to give to her friends when they come to visit her.
“I’m not repairing anything. I’m just cleaning this area because there are a lot of flowers here and I’m making room for them,” she tells Efe as she clears the field of rubble.
A few kilometers from Baryshivka lives Tania.
Before the war, the 58-year-old owned two houses on the same plot, but when the Russians came, they occupied one of her houses.
Luckily, Tania was not home when a bomb hit her farm and destroyed her houses.
When she returned, the place was a mess and everything was wrecked, she tells Efe.
Today, she lives with her mother and has no idea if and when she will be able to rebuild her house and farm.
The war is not only destroying homes like Nina’s and Tania’s, but also luxury buildings like Yuri’s.
Yuri, a rich businessman who built the Pokrovsky luxury apartment complex in Hostomel, some 50 kilometers from Kyiv, says he cannot afford to repair all the damage caused by shelling.
Out of the 1,500 apartments in the building, 30% have been destroyed, he says. EFE
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