At the end of an alleyway in northern Lviv hangs a sign on the colorful railings of an orphanage that warns ‘Watch out for naughty dog in the yard’. This orphanage welcomed 20 children before the war, today there are 50 who find refuge there. Yaroslav Petryshyn, a writer and poet from Lviv, has been the administrative manager of the place for two years. “I feel a lot of compassion for the tragedy in which these children are plunged”, expresses the writer.
With the war raging, the orphanage welcomed new young people from the east. Yaroslav explains: “30 children have arrived in recent weeks, including 18 from Lysytchansk, in the Luhansk region. They were accompanied by three women. Luhansk Oblast has been a region in the grip of intense fighting since, on May 11, 2014, the majority voted for self-determination there. To manage the influx of children, some abandoned before the war and others due to the outbreak of the conflict, the center has around fifteen volunteer teachers, volunteers and a psychologist. Two teams alternate on duty from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., then from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., and two people are on watch during the night.
March 11, 2022 marked a turning point for residents and displaced people in Lviv. Russia began targeting positions in this strategic region, a rear base still preserved. Since then, each attack has triggered preventive alarm sirens, and the inhabitants must quickly take refuge, day and night, in underground shelters.
“We teach children to dress quickly, to put their coat close to the bed. At first, one of the children who had arrived from the east was terrified, he was shouting: ‘it’s war, it’s war’,” says Maria, a volunteer. The volunteers took care to place sandbags in front of the small windows that overlook the basement of the building. The risk of shelling is high and evacuation drills for children in the basement are held regularly.
In the living room reserved for teenagers, Sasha, 15, is sitting on a faded sofa. He traveled alone with his 5-year-old brother from Dnipro, constantly hit by Russian bombardments. “My mother forced us into public transport, then we took the train to Lviv”, testifies the eldest with sadness. Night falls on the orphanage. Scay, a popular music group, came to distract them. Sasha, who plays the guitar, was given a guitar pick which he holds like a lucky charm.
The pressure related to the load of his brother seems too important for the teenager. “I feel a great responsibility, but we have a roof, food, and the volunteers help us, it takes a lot of weight off me,” says Sasha.
This old post-Soviet building houses children aged 3 to 16 separated from their parents by social services, or because their single mothers remained in the east of the country in order to continue working and participating in the war effort. “Most have previous traumas related to their complicated past, notes the center’s psychologist, Vira Shpyrka. Today, they develop post-traumatic syndromes. And those traumas are visible when the city’s alerts activate. »
children divided
After the supper they share in the common kitchen, tempers flare between the children who come from all over Ukraine. They are seated on sofas wrapped in an outdated cover. Around, the walls are apple green. The Virgin Mary sits enthroned in the middle of the room like a spectator of an irreconcilable Ukraine, who listens stoically to some people shouting: “Slava Ukraini [Gloire à l’Ukraine] others “Slava Russia [Gloire à la Russie] “.
Ukrainian society is divided into two camps: pro-European and pro-Russian sympathizers. Even at the heart of this orphanage, divisions are felt. The tone rises between the children of Lviv and those of Luhansk, the separatist region in the east. Sasha confides that there are often fights between the children.
The young teenager with the face of an angel tries to excuse them: “They have been through too much, they are traumatized by the war, so to calm them down, I like to read Taras Chevtchenko to them. » The literary heritage of the famous Ukrainian writer of the 19and century is considered a foundation of the modern Ukrainian period. Sasha fled Dnipro with her brother and some Balzac books. “Later, I would like to become a history teacher, he says, to tell the truth to people and educate as many people as possible”. He knows that his future will be realized abroad. When he left his mother, she said to him: “If you leave, it’s forever, go to Oslo or Marseille. »
The children who still have their parents living in the east have no news. Parts of Ukrainian territory no longer have electricity due to Russian bombings of power stations. Sasha, who has a cell phone, makes it available to her new comrades. Andrey, 10, has not had contact with his mother since his hasty escape. On Sasha’s phone, Andrey dials a number, puts on the loudspeaker, listens attentively to his interlocutor; and starts running, in tears, towards his room. He has just learned that his house has been bombed. Her mother was seriously injured and is in hospital.
“I know that the return will be impossible”
Andrey arrived at the center on February 28 after fleeing with 17 other children. They left Lysytchansk with three escorts. Among them, Olga, a 53-year-old woman who was a teacher in a social rehabilitation center for abandoned children associated with the Lysytchansk orphanage. Her friend, with whom she exfiltrated them, warmly advises her: “Put on makeup, to hide your tears. »
Olga managed to save these young children, but she is aware that her life before is well and truly behind her. “In 2014, at the start of the war in Donbass, I only took a small bag to flee, then I came back. On the other hand, today, I know that the return will be impossible,” she said in a trembling voice. Her son and her husband remained in this region devastated by eight years of war. Since her exodus, Olga has had no news of them.
After a long night interspersed with cries of alarm sirens in warning of possible bombardments, the orphanage wakes up. The volunteers organized a surprise for these abandoned children. A troupe of artists, “People and Dolls”, which normally performs in a small theater in Lviv, moved voluntarily to give a smile for a time to the band of toddlers plunged into the hell of a war.
During the puppet show, laughter echoes through the orphanage. Cradled before by innocence, today plunged too quickly, alone, into the realities of an adult war; they can finally, the time of the puppets, see this world again with their children’s eyes.