REPORTAGE. “We do everything alone”: in Irpin in Ukraine, the urgency of reconstruction before a winter that could be “disastrous”

In March, the town of Irpin, in the suburbs of kyiv, was constantly bombarded, placed in heart intense fighting between Russians and Ukrainians for the capture of the capital. Almost seven months later, some neighborhoods are still in a disastrous state, gutted buildings punctuate the landscape and debris litter the streets. But the situation is changing, buildings are starting to be razed, others are being refurbished.

Irpin has even become a city under construction. Many construction sites are in progress, and the sound of tools is heard everywhere in the streets. Most often, it is the inhabitants themselves who rebuild their homes. This is the case of Dimitri, electric screwdriver in hand, who comes every weekend to help his very elderly father. He goes up to the sixth floor of this devastated building, deprived of roof and elevator, with in the houses his little “Bosch briefcase“.”the fridge was here“, he points, “it was the kitchen“, he explains while making the visit. Nothing remains of it.

In the wall, a shell left a gaping hole, and yet the father, Valéri, 86, smiles. “There’s no point in me whining, it won’t change the situation“, he says wisely. His son also tries to stay positive, he is “very proud of his dad, very optimistic, always active.“However, he fears not being able to save his father’s apartment, affected by the beginning of water damage, and threatened above all by the coming winter.

“November and December will be disastrous. Snow and rain will make it worse, I don’t know what to do, we don’t have the money to make a temporary roof.”

There is a true emergency to rebuild a screed on the building, otherwise a single winter will be enough to make it definitively uninhabitable. “Just for the works, it will cost us 22,000 euros“, explains Olena, the president of the syndicate of co-ownership for these 270 apartments.

Like all the inhabitants, Olena is forced to be housed elsewhere. She has been living with friends for seven months, “we manage“, she says. But she feels a little lonely facing the huge task of reconstruction and does not understand that the town hall of Irpin cannot help them raise the necessary funds. “We do it all, all alone“, she says, fatalistic. Nothing that undermines her determination to save her building, despite the magnitude of the task.