In 2022 Russia’s invasion divided the life of many Ukrainian cities into “before” and “after”. Berdyansk is one of them. A quiet and cosy Sea of Azov resort of 115,000 inhabitants was invaded by Russian troops on the third day of the full-scale war. In the following few months almost half of the city residents fled life under Russian occupation, leaving behind their homes, jobs, family ties and… the community. The NGO ‘There is a Time’ is committed to preserve the precious human capital of Berdyansk. Thanks to EU support, it managed to keep united the community members no matter how far they were displaced and helped them to overcome their painful experiences.
“My family has lived under Russian occupation for four months,” says Svitlana, 38, a kindergarten teacher from Berdyansk. “At work we were preparing food for the people of Mariupol, but then Russian soldiers forbade us to continue. The director of our kindergarten came down to the side of the occupiers, taking over my personal files. She knew I stood for Ukraine. We were scared to walk in the street in order not to be caught by Russian soldiers. On 13 June, the four of us – myself, my husband and two children – headed for Zaporizhzhia, and later I moved with my children to Poland.”
Another woman, Dasha, 36, recalls: “My mother-in-law, an elderly woman, lived in a village about 100 km away from Berdyansk. On the second day of the war, my daughter, my husband and I headed to the village to pick her up. There, Chechen soldiers entered every house, ransacked it, and controlled the residents. They also entered our house, pointing weapons. My 10-year-old daughter told me ‘I don’t want to die’, and this was when I took the decision. A few days later we set off for a long journey towards Ukraine-controlled territories. My husband remained to fight, while my daughter and I drove to Poland and then to Austria.”
Hundreds of thousands of people – like Svitlana and Dasha – fled the occupied regions of Ukraine after the start of the full-scale war. However, unlike other refugees, Svitlana and Dasha have been maintaining close ties to hundreds of other residents of their home city. “We all feel a common pain. People who have never endured occupation do not feel this pain, they cannot understand it,” says Daryna, 27, deputy of the Berdyansk City Council. “This is precisely about the Berdyansk community. I fled the occupation to Pavlohrad (Dnipropetrovsk region), and to me meeting anyone from Berdyansk is very special.”
A local NGO ‘There is a Time’ understood the importance of preserving the human capital of the Berdyansk community, which will be crucial for city’s reconstruction after de-occupation. Moreover, it wished to continue the fruitful work with the residents that it had started before the war. Born in 2015 as an anti-café, ‘There is a Time’ rapidly grew into one of the favourite social spaces for the residents of Berdyansk, combining social business activities, such as children’s birthday parties, creative master classes or lectures, with non-profit events – environmental initiatives, work with orphans, literary readings, etc. “The event space anti-café has formed our first initiative group which implemented various initiatives, and so, in 2020 we registered an NGO under the same name,” explains Kyrylo Pelivanov, head of the organisation.
“With the declaration of Ukraine’s independence, Berdyansk, like other cities of the country, had the pro-European drive. After the occupation, the feeling of freedom, respect for an individual, the values of humanism – all this was erased. Russians are deliberately eliminating every European trait of the Ukrainian cities.”
Even as they were getting on the evacuation bus to Lviv, Kyrylo and his wife Kseniya already had a clear intention to preserve the Berdyansk community built over the years, no matter how far its members were scattered. Kseniya’s ideas received financial support from the European Endowment for Democracy, and in 2022 the NGO launched a new project – ‘We are Berdyansk’. “The main idea is to preserve and create new social ties between people who perceive themselves as members of the Berdyansk community,” explains Kseniya. “We are talking about internally displaced people, refugees who find themselves in other countries, as well as about those remaining in Berdyansk.”
Two blocks of activities were organised: psychological support and creative practices; 290 online individual consultations and 64 online group meetings with a psychologist helped hundreds of participants to cope with and survive crisis situations caused by the war, bringing hope and motivation to move on. The sessions revealed painful experiences of women whose family members were held hostage by Russian soldiers, people who survived Russian captivity and torture. The group meetings raised and discussed many common challenges and fears, such as risks during rocket fire, loss of home, rupture of family and social ties. People with similar life experiences had less difficulty to understand each other, to open up and to accept advice, which rendered psychological support groups particularly helpful. Daryna recalls: “I turned to psychological aid several times. My city was hit by a strong missile, the explosion shattered windows in my house. It was hard to cope with. Thanks to the psychological meetings, we analysed these moments, and looked for ways to overcome the anxieties.”
The second block offered creative support to the Berdyansk community members, engaging them in painting, mind mapping, prose and poem writing, poster creation and even a documentary theatre. In total, 47 group meetings (23 online and 24 presential) brought together over 200 unique participants. “I took part in painting classes,” says Dasha. “Initially, I felt despair because I didn’t want to remember the traumatic memories about my city: missiles, people running and buying medicine and food, people with terror in their eyes, a dull and windy February day… However, during the process of painting, I started to feel better. I remembered that I also had good memories: my first date, a walk on the beach, dancing in the park… One by one, I pulled them out, and they replaced the negative memories fixed in my mind. I realised how much I loved my city. These moments give me the inspiration to live with the hope that one day we can return.”
The results of the creative workshop – paintings, posters, objects, recordings produced by the participants – were useful not only for self-therapy. They have become a rich and engaging resource to explain Berdyansk to others. Thus, in July and August 2023, the NGO ‘There is a Time’ organised an exhibition in the City Palace of Culture of Lviv, entitled ‘Every time I remember home, its walls become stronger’. Over 400 visitors had a chance to see Berdyansk in photos and paintings, to touch the sand of its beaches, to hear ‘My February 24th‘ stories narrated by the people of Berdyansk.
The success of the Lviv exhibition spurred numerous pop-up exhibitions organised by community members in other places where they had been displaced to continue communication and dialogue about the temporarily occupied Ukrainian cities. From November 2023 to June 2024, 20 pop-up exhibitions in 14 cities of Ukraine, in the city of Sarpsborg in Norway and in town of Hinterbrühl in Austria hosted around 5,000 visitors. Similar events have been planned in Bulgaria and in the Netherlands.
“Such initiatives are important for Ukraine and for its people,” Daryna is convinced. “Thanks to the project, it was possible to unite people in such a difficult time. Despite the fact that we have no city to go to the NGO ‘There is a Time’ has managed to create the feeling of home. It would be great if every city had a community like ours.”
“Civic engagement and volunteer initiatives gain particular importance in the war time,” concludes Kyrylo, head of the NGO. “We are witnessing today how citizen networks help Ukrainians to solve problems which the state cannot solve as quickly and as efficiently Any military conflict undermines democratic foundations, and it is our role – the role of civil society organisations – to give tangible support to public institutions for preserving the democratic assets of the Ukrainian society.”
This initiative of the NGO ‘There is a Time’ was funded by the European Union through the European Endowment for Democracy.
Author: Volha Prokharava