In the Fomin park in the center of kyiv, the line lengthens to take pictures under the magnolias that have just hatched. A Ukrainian soldier authoritatively pushes his small troop – his wife and two children – under the rain of purple buds: “Smile!”
From a walk in the park to a first drink on the terrace, after 51 days of war, the inhabitants of kyiv massively took advantage on Friday of a first radiant day of spring to allow themselves a parenthesis of almost normal life.
Slaloming between strollers, scooters and bicycles, Nataliya Makrieva, 43, arm in arm with her mother, can’t believe it.
“It’s the first time we’ve been back downtown, we wanted to see how the transport works again, take in the crowds. Seeing all these people makes me feel so good,” says the vet behind her sunglasses.
Lying in the grass, tone on tone in his uniform, a soldier smokes his pipe and stares at the blue sky. It is 21°C. His two battalion comrades, twins, climbed into the flowering walnut tree.
“It’s the first time we can breathe after being sent for more than a month to Irpin and Gostomel and we came here to enjoy this beautiful day,” says one of the twins in uniform, Dmytro Tkatchenko, 40 years old, veteran of the Donbass war in 2015.
Sitting like every day on her bench in her elegant woolen headdress despite the heat, Anna Grychko, 83 years old in three months, revels in this spectacle of life.
“Today people want to forget about the war. But soon it will be bombings and sirens again and we will have to go back to hiding,” said the grandmother, switching to these words, in a fraction of a second, from smiles to tears.
After three weeks of relative calm, two Russian strikes hit military complexes around kyiv on Friday and Saturday. The Kremlin has been threatening for several days to intensify its fire on the capital.
– Spritz and terrace –
The anti-tank braces have been stowed on the side of the roads. The sandbag and concrete block checkpoints are still there, but mostly empty of soldiers.
Billboards no longer broadcast safety instructions or messages aimed at the Russian invader, or its dreaded “infiltrators”, but patriotic videos.
The toll of material losses remains limited in the city. According to the authorities, 100 buildings were destroyed or affected by Russian strikes between February 24 and March 22, the date of the last intramural air attack.
“War has many dimensions and it is not just about fighting. And kyiv of course remains in a state of war”, explains Alona Bogatchova, 34, who allows herself a first outing celebrated by a Spritz on the terrace with friends.
“But on the other hand, there is so much life here, freedoms found. It is an unprecedented situation, which has no name, which we have not yet experienced”, summarizes the young woman who rushes to finish his drink before the deadline.
In kyiv, the sale of alcohol is prohibited from 4 p.m. and the curfew remains in place from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Among the things you can now do in kyiv: have a meal delivered, go to the hairdresser, to the shopping center, take the metro, rent a bike or a scooter.
Schools, universities, most restaurants and cultural or leisure sports facilities remain closed.
And the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, on Saturday urged evacuees from kyiv – up to half of the 2.8 million population at the height of the war – not to return to the city.
But according to local media, around 50,000 return to the capital every day.