I’ve arrived safely in Zaporizhzhia. I’m taking a few days to help and catch up with some friends and then hopefully I will be able to engage in some volunteer work and talk to interesting people. I am likely to be in Ukraine until early November and my current plan is to post twice a week.
This blog now has 220 subscribers – thank you! – a number that’s growing daily, so I’m not just talking to my friends and existing supporters any more. But I’ve decided to continue the informal tone, as that is presumably what is attracting people. There are plenty of journalists writing professionally about Ukraine; I’m a self-supporting freelance editor which means that I can donate any proceeds from this blog to grassroots Ukrainian causes, and simply write my own unfiltered impressions. I also plan to stay in the east (or south) as much as possible, because there’s so much more to the country than Kyiv, and the greatest need is over here, but Westerners get much less information about it.
Longstanding readers will remember my friend Maria, who helped Mariupol teenagers to escape the occupied territories/deportation to Russia and now continues to support them until they are independent; and Veta, who joined the army in spring 2023 and has now completed training and is on active duty.
It so happened that Veta unexpectedly had 24 hours in Zaporizhzhia as her unit is on rotation – moving from somewhere to somewhere in accordance with military secrecy. She’s obviously thriving as a soldier. Except what does that mean? It’s not about happiness, it’s about being in a position to do something you believe is essential, to the best of your abilities. A purpose.
We drank Zhivchik (a pee-coloured but oddly compulsive soft drink with a mildly disturbing talking apple or pear on the bottle - the taste of Ukrainian childhood, I’m told) and Maria got out a game – Donbass Monopoly. In the West it wouldn’t be possible to produce a game like this because of copyright issues (also you would get sued off the planet by the person whose image you were using) but people are less concerned with that in Eastern Europe.
As you might expect, it’s like normal Monopoly, but with locations in Donbass, the traditional coalmining area encompassing most of the currently occupied east of Ukraine, plus a small area that remains free. The guy in the centre is Rinat Akhmetov, the most famous local, in Masha’s words, ’bandit-oligarch-monopolist’ who got his start in the lawless 90s after the fall of the Soviet Union. The game money - which has no currency name but everyone refers to as dollars - has images of him looking increasingly dodgy as the notes get more valuable.
The properties are local retail chains, energy companies, TV stations, universities, train stations and sports facilities. The most expensive – on the square occupied by Mayfair in the UK and Boardwalk in the US – is Shakhtar Donetsk, the immensely popular local football club, which Akmetov owns. You can also buy Azovstal steelworks, Kramatorsk railway station or the cult supermarket chain ATB. Yes, there is a ‘cult supermarket chain’ here. I don’t understand this either. It’s basically Tesco.
Chance cards have various colourful scenarios, for example:
· Your rival has posted online a video of an intimate nature which involves you. Forfeit [$]200.
· One night in a car park, junkies broke your car window and stole $300.
· Shakhtar Donetsk are playing Dynamo [Kyiv]. You’ve set up a beer stand near the Donbass Arena. Profit: $500.
City Treasury cards:
· The state has nationalised your bank. Just as well your money is in an offshore account. Receive $1,000.
· You grassed up your friend who bribed someone in order to receive a tender. The state is grateful! You receive $500 for the denunciation.
· Someone offers to buy your vote for $400 at an election. You can either take the money or not be a mercenary swine.
It’s discretionary whether you take the bribes or become a mercenary swine. I said, ‘It’s just a game, of course I’m taking the bribe!’ and lost badly. Possibly there is a message in this; probably not.
There’s also a ‘lottery’, which involves throwing dice and hopefully getting to advance on the board
Kramatorsk railway station is known in the West for being the site of one of Russia’s most reported war crimes of 2022, a massacre of civilians waiting for an evacuation train. Azovstal, now completely ruined, has achieved legendary status as the place where the Azov battalion held out until 10 May 2022 (many of them still remain in Russian captivity or have died there) and Shakhtar Donetsk have relocated to Kyiv. Maria fled from Donetsk city in 2014, and then had to abandon her home in Mariupol in 2022. Veta fled Avdiivka (near Donetsk) in 2015, fled Mariupol after enduring a few weeks of the siege in spring 2022, and went back to the war today at 5 a.m. But the game of Monopoly was fun, and Maria won convincingly.
Be careful out there, looking forward to reading yr impressions.
Once again I am pondering the almost impossible task of how to psychologically survive without normalising the war. How to avoid shifting the paradigm, at the same time without succumbing to hopelessness. Your friends are awesome, and so are you!