The war in my country continues and today is already the 269th day.
I continue to sleep in the corridor, I continue writing every day, thinking, dreaming about the end of this hell.
With winter arrival, the situation becomes more complicated. A person is very fragile and vulnerable to his environment, so we constantly take care to make ourselves comfortable.
Many are already used to restrictions during the war and are ready to have certain inconveniences. For example, I am.
And there are those who at any opportunity will make noise about their comfort is suffering and they don’t have something.
I am glad every morning I got enough sleep and I am alive. I am glad I can continue writшing and working on the things I like, I am glad for my cats and morning fresh air walks.
In today’s blog, I will talk about some observations around me. Regular war notes.
Turning off the light in Ukraine
This has become a new reality for the majority of Ukraine’s population. So ordinary and so necessary – light, electricity.
People are so used to revolutionary inventions that when the light disappears, it immediately becomes a cause for nervousness, the comfort mentioned above is greatly disturbed.
My house has been shut down regularly since the very beginning of autumn, when the first hits on energy facilities were made. Then our city became one of the first targets for the aggressor’s missiles. I’m used to it and I just started doing things that don’t require electricity: I did go for a walk outside, went to the store making purchases, I did bike training or housework, reading, resting while lying down, or picking up the phone and continuing working on it.
I prepared to turn off the power and purchased the necessary equipment to be able typing on my phone using a PC keyboard. I will write about this separately.
In general, turning off the electricity is no longer a problem for me and I’ll take it easy. For me, this is more of a challenge to adaptation than a significant reason for nervousness or dissatisfaction.
Life goes on even without electricity. A person can easily live without electricity
Of course, not everyone around is as adapted as I am. In local chat rooms angry comments regularly appear about the fact “these emergency power outages have already taken place”, “how to continue living”, “oh what should I do with my child, give me light”, etc. There is a lot of noise. I want to understand these people, but I can’t.
The lights go out all over the country, absolutely all consumers of Ukraine suffer. Massive missile strikes have caused great damage and continue to destroy our lives.
Mobile communication and Internet in Ukraine
Almost everything works on electricity. Therefore, problems with the Internet and mobile communication are a logical continuation of emergency power outages.
I am also ready for this.
I’m ready for a situation where I don’t have a connection.
I have a phone, batteries, enough equipment to work on the phone, writing texts there. As a last resort, there are always classic tools of a writer – paper and pencil (pen). I have a lot of this good at hand.
Well, I’ll sit without the network for several hours (it happened more than once this year), it’s no big deal. I am ready to live like this for a week or a month…
For example, now I am typing a text through the keyboard on the phone, because the Internet disappeared along with the light (the photo shows the Ukrainian version of this text, which was captured on a camera).
And the photo below is a document on the computer that does not want to be saved because there is no Internet (it was a few minutes before the lights were turned off).
Now what? Nothing!
I can work, I can write – this is enough to thank life and enjoy this day
I am ready to tolerate anything, except with the muscovites. Anything to have nothing to do with russia and its underdeveloped inhabitants.
Water
Together with the electricity, the water is turned off, because everything depends on the electric pumps. One or more districts in my city are constantly without water. And not only because there is no light, but because communal services are working on repairing the areas where the accident happened. Most communications were created in ussr times, so these accidents happen almost every day.
Personally, I always have at least 60 liters of drinking water in stock and at least 100 liters of technical water for household purposes. This has been enough so far, the water in my area disappears for a maximum of two days.
Warm
It’s +12℃ outside today (that’s about 54℉) and it’s no big deal that the central heating batteries that go into every apartment in high-rise buildings are cold today. It’s +20℃ (that’s 68℉) directly in my apartment, I dress warmly and almost always wear a scarf around my neck and warm socks.
But many people do not like it, everyone has their own vision of the problem, and even now, when there is no significant cold, dissatisfaction is already starting in local chats and social networks. Many people do not understand that everything is connected with each other.
Heat is primarily the work of pumps working on electricity. And if there is no light, then there will be no heating either, the pumps simply can’t work and give water to the houses.
I can’t even imagine what would happen when the frosts come. Although I personally prepare for this in advance, I have several interesting options.
Heating is an essential factor of survival. A person is really very vulnerable to low temperatures and can even die from hypothermia. Therefore, there is enough noise in local chat rooms when the batteries get cold. Although there have been no frosts yet, dissatisfaction is steadily growing with each subsequent notification of another heating shutdown.
Attack on cars
In recent weeks, attacks on cars in our region have become more frequent. Reports glass in the cabin was broken or acid was poured almost every day several times. I cannot explain these cases in any way, I am simply stating the facts.
People are going crazy, but what pushes them to do this and who exactly these people are is unclear. Three months ago this was not the case at all.
Management measures
Dissatisfaction of the population certainly cannot go unnoticed, because there are active residents who are directly starting to address the local authority. The latter has no way out, how to answer something. For example, the mayor of one of the regional centers, Ivano-Frankivsk, suggested preparing for a difficult winter and looking for houses in the villages, where it would be easier to survive this winter because of cold, lack of water and electricity in the big city.
The reaction did not take long. People are not just not ready for this, they first of all for some reason accuse officials of inadequacy and inaction. Although, in my opinion,
the village has the best chance of survival if the lights are turned off for a long time.
Because there is the most important thing – the oven. Heat is the basis for survival, and the oven in the house means life. Unfortunately, not everyone realizes this and starts getting nervous and fussing ahead of time instead of looking for solutions to this issue in their personal conditions.
As an example, I will give the text under the post of the mayor’s appeal regarding moving to the village:
“We live in a village (admittedly in the Odesa region), sometimes there is no light for almost a day. A small child is in the house, so we have to heat the stove almost all day to keep warm, because the first snow fell today. Hot water is only in the boiler, but the stove saves, because you can put a pot of water on it and heat it without using gas, which is also not cheap, by the way. Despite the fact that our government, without any hesitation, sends electricity abroad, which it promised not to send, in order to winterize its own residents normally. And it would be fine if this money went to support the army [Ukrainian – 3B], develop the infrastructure or at least restore it, but it goes into the pockets. And we have to tolerate it, because war, as always, everyone tries to “understand”, because if you shout that it’s not normal, then they will attack their own, “it’s war in the yard, some people don’t even have that”. Well, ok, they don’t have, and what’s next? In some countries, people live in cardboard boxes, so should I move now too? Why should people understand and deny themselves elementary needs when someone is just filling their own pockets at this time? Let them not export, or export less, as it was said, and not our dick for a stick, but everything is taken abroad. We have bread for 25 hryvnias [~0.5 dollar], and 45 million tons of wheat go to Ethiopia. Think about your own? You have to, you just have to fill your pockets.”
This text touches on several modern society issues in Ukraine. I will not comment at all, for now it is enough that I paid attention to it and showed it to others. But I would like to discuss these topics in more detail, stay tuned for future blog entries.
Notes from the Ukrainian front
Well.
Civilians in the rear somehow survive, although they have not yet understood that the difficulties are just beginning. And they are already whining and ringing all the bells, as if the end of the world had happened.
What about our military?
They are well done and my big thanks for their indomitability and thirst for victory. Thank you for every day that I have to do my job in peace.
I will quote a part of my military acquaintances’ posts on Facebook, today is his birthday. Just look at the crazy difference in the joys of a person from the rear and the military in Ukraine:
“From time to time I am surprised by the number of abnormal things that have become the norm. Example:
Arriving in a new village, rejoice when you find an empty house with whole windows/walls. If there is a stove – remarkably.
Wake up to the fact that mice are running over you.
Do not change clothes for weeks.
Not seeing loved ones.
To live where the windows are always boarded up.
Read articles about yourself in well-known world media.
Hate.”
Succinctly. Aptly. Understandably.
Resume
Even on the 269th day of the war in Ukraine, many people still do not understand what war is, how terrible it is and how merciless it is to our whining about comfort.
Our country suffers greatly from enemy attacks, but does not give up.
I am glad that I am just alive.
I am warming up with cats and tea with bergamot.
Every word I publish online warms me.
I am ready for difficulties, for fierce winter, for trials.
For the 269th day in a row, I dream of a peaceful sky above my head and all of Ukraine.
And this dream will surely become a reality.
