Slavyansk. Landscape after the battle

On the way to Slavyansk, in front of the checkpoint, where Ukrainian flags are now fluttering, there are a string of cars. Cars with a red cross are traveling and with the inscription "Humanitarian Assistance" - they carry medicines and products to the city left by the "militias". Yesterday, this road was empty and resembled the way to Silent Hill. And just like in the horror of the same name, with the onset of twilight, the siren began to howl here. She does not howl again, because Nobody will bomb Slavyansk.

The burned cars and tires are scattered across the city. I look around: everywhere defeated houses and shops. Many buildings are badly damaged, although not so much as to compare Slavyansk with Tskhinval.

A crowd gathered near a large supermarket: they get water here. People run after the car that is lucky with humanitarian help.

- Hurry, soon! - The woman screams, adjusting her friend with empty bags.

The area in front of the City Council, the entrance to which is still littered with bags of sand, filled several thousand people. The perimeter was occupied by the fighters of the Ukrainian army and the National Guard. Two guys in uniform come out of the City Council. I ask them if they are satisfied with the fact that after two months of hostilities they took Slavyansk.

- Are we satisfied? - one of them grins. - Not the same word.

“We were here two months ago,” says the second. And gloomily adds: - Captivity.

Around the City Council, cars loaded with bags with potatoes, onions, bread and sausage lined up. In the air, it smells very much.

What are you shooting? That's when we were bombed, we had to shoot!

Several hundred people are pushing in line to get bread. Everyone is trying to break forward and get his loaf first. They did not see bread here for four days.

- What are you shooting? That's when we were bombed, we had to shoot! - the woman shouts to me.

“Are you kidding me?” - supports her different. - We are hungry here ...

“Yes, you cry, a woman,” someone from the crowd says to a grandmother who pulls his hands to a guy who gives the bread in tears. - Go away, don't disgrace!

- Standed up, you look at them. On the window dressing, or what? As if they didn’t eat how much, ”a man passing by on a bicycle comments.

The guy who gives bread is literally blows a crowd.

- Column, two steps ago! He screams. The crowd does not move.

- Go away, well, please! - the guy prays.

Near the car where they distribute sausage, a woman arranges a hysteria:

- Do not take off us! Do not take off!

The other, breaking forward, laments:

- At first they shot at us, and now they feed!

A man in a cap with the inscription "USA" is trying to pacify her.

- What are you yelling, they will not give anything to you now. What kind of people? At first you have been striking against gas here, and now, are you standing against sausage? - he notes.

Suddenly, one of the women standing in line for sausage faints. She breaks her face, but, wiping the blood with a cloak, quickly rises, grabs her bag, stuffs some bags into it and moves on to the car with the humanitarian.

Looking at starving, inexpressed, intimidated people terribly and painful. In mid -April, I was in this very square and watched how women wear food to militants who recently occupied the building of the city council, and how they argue about what they want to live in Russia. The young guy who walked around the square with a stroller was well remembered, not afraid of people with machine guns. He was worried that due to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, plants in Slavyansk would close, as they are closely tied to the Russian market. The guy sincerely hoped that Russia would annex Donbass and here, in Slavyansk, salaries would immediately increase and new jobs would appear. I would have to talk to him now, after hundreds of peaceful people died from bullets and artillery shells, and thousands left their homes.

She breaks her face, but, wiping blood, quickly moves to the car with the humanitarian.

Then, in April, there were people inspired by hope in the square. Now I see here disappointment and shame. Some are ashamed of the fact that they are forced to push in line in order to seize at least some food. Others are ashamed of their dirty hair and clothes.

“But this is not your fault,” the visitor reassures the woman.

- No, ours. We ourselves are to blame for the fact that all this happened, ”she states sadly.

Many of those who went to the square for humanitarian aid once performed at pro-Russian rallies and supported the "militias".

- You wanted to Russia, but you see what you got? And you are not ashamed? - one woman turns to another.

- Are you sure that we wanted to Russia? - she answers, almost crying. - We just wanted a normal salary, that's all. They wanted to live better.

A local resident tells me how she drew water from the pool and loaded the phone from a gasoline generator, which was put on the street. Her friend, a young girl, when a shell rupture, tear off her hand, and the mother of another friend died.

- But everyone became so kind and rallied! She continues with enthusiasm. - We baked pies and carried home, helped each other. It has never happened before. And now we are just happy because they don’t shoot and that we were able to finally sleep at night.

Together with Slavic, the separatists left neighboring Kramatorsk. But there is no glee there.

At the entrance to the city are empty checkpoints with the symbols of the Donetsk People's Republic. In the city itself - not a single soul and absolute silence. Occasionally, the sound of a short automatic queue is spreading over empty streets: somewhere nearby there are still shootings with partisans. People hid, carefully peek out into the street from the windows. They are still waiting and afraid of something.

Now a huge territory-from Slavyansk to the very approaches to Gorlovka-has turned into such a silent hill, where ghosts of shooting sounds and bursting shells, ghosts of random deaths hover. Only with the onset of dusk here does not howl Siren.