Letter from Kyiv: The messed-up day-to-day of living under Putinās cruel air war
People have absorbed violence and terror into their lives. Somehow, they keep going ā quietly rescuing, evacuating, replacing, mending, adapting ā¦ and sometimes saving tiny
People have absorbed violence and terror into their lives. Somehow, they keep going ā quietly rescuing, evacuating, replacing, mending, adapting ā¦ and sometimes saving tiny animals It was a glorious balmy night, and I was walking home from dinner. Iād just eaten fried red mullet from the Black Sea on a pavement terrace, listening to the cries of the last swifts as darkness crept over the city. A couple of blocks from where I was staying, there was a curious sight: a couple and their dog were standing over a hedgehog, which was standing seemingly irresolute in the road.
I wasnāt sure the couple were doing the right thing by shining their phone torches at the poor creature, but their intentions were clear enough: they were trying to protect it and chivvy it out of the way of the traffic. As a car bore down, I flung myself into the street, like a latter-day Roberta from The Railway Children, and waved my arms to get the driver to stop.
At the same time, the coupleās dog gave an encouraging bark to the tiny animal, which scuttled across to the opposite pavement, and into the safety of a yard. Everything always feels heightened in Kyiv, and I was apt to overthink into this moment many metaphors of escape, protection and destruction. Hedgehogs, by the way, are a surprisingly common sight in Kyiv. So too are the āhedgehogsā made from metal beams welded together in a three-dimensional star-shape, a highly effective obstruction for tanks.
(The other favoured tank obstructors are known as ādragonās teethā, because of their resemblance to monstrous molars rising from the ground.) Continue reading...
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