Valentyna Katkova, 77, doesn’t know what makes her want to cry the most: old age and illness, or living holed up in the kyiv metro to escape Russian bombs.
Like Mme Katkova, dressed in a lilac-colored coat and a knitted cap, some 200 people have taken refuge in the Syrets metro station, in the northwest of the Ukrainian capital, which Russian forces are trying to surround.
While most of these people sleep on blankets or mattresses on the floor of the platform or corridors, or even in tents, Mme Katkova and other elderly people prefer the rudimentary comfort of subway trains, each arranging its own little corner.
That of Mme Katkova consists entirely of three blue faux leather seats on which she has spread a blanket. Impossible to lie down without bending the legs. On a ledge, a bottle of water and a cup.
Eyes red with tears and voice choked with sobs, she explains living there “since February 24”, a date engraved in her memory, the day Vladimir Putin released his army on Ukraine.
His daughter, son-in-law and their two children spend their nights on the station platform. “And I, like the old people, am here. It’s because I had a stroke and a heart attack, so here I am, sleeping in the car. And the younger ones, the children are there, on the floor,” she says.
The kyiv Metro, which has some of the deepest stations in the world, now serves as an air-raid shelter for thousands of the capital’s residents.
Trains run on a single track; the other tracks accommodate stationary trains serving as makeshift accommodation for refugees.
In this station located about sixty meters deep, a semblance of life has been reconstituted. A television was installed, showing the film that day Pirates of the Caribbeans. On a sheet placed on the ground, a colored pencil drawing represents a tank with a Ukrainian flag and the following caption: “Glory to Ukraine”.
The humidity and the conditions are such that you risk catching cold. But you come anyway, because it’s more important to be alive.
Nina Piddoubna, 71, who lives in the car next to that of Mme Katkova explains that it was not easy to get used to this new environment. At first, “I felt very bad, I had a fever,” she says, her clear eyes underlined by purple pockets. Once she even fainted, but subway workers took care of her.
Olena Gusseva, a 73-year-old woman with beautiful dimples, feels a thoughtfulness she “never felt before”. “People are very welcoming and attentive to each other,” she remarks. “The depth here allows you to be [en sécurité] “, underlines M.me Guseva.
So certainly, “the humidity and the conditions are such that you risk catching cold, she admits. But you come anyway, because it is more important to be alive”.