Over the last few weeks, I've watched the front right tyre on my increasingly dilapidated Honda CRV slowly disintegrate. To all non-drivers, this isn't normal; tyres take time to wear out, but in Ukraine, normal rules cease to apply. We bit the bullet and took it to the mechanic, the one with the nervous laugh who repaired it last time things went wonky. "Come back in one hour," he said with a smile. I took this as a good sign, as he only laughs when nervous.
As luck would have it, our friend Volodya was also in the garage, and he asked if we would like to go somewhere rather than wait.
"We could go but a new pan," said Zarina sheepishly. Why sheepishly? Well, Zarina, our resident Borscht expert, had somehow turned a delicious soup-based dish into a half-inch layer of carbon-based supermaterial capable of withstanding a nuclear shockwave in the bottom of our only cooking pot.
We returned an hour later after visiting three shops and performing a mind-numbing cost/quality analysis on the merits of stainless steel versus enamelled pots. We went stainless.
I popped my head into the workshop, and the car was gone. Puzzled, I explored further. There was no sign of it, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a vehicle covered in soap suds standing alone in the dirty corner. I could only recognise it by the muddy GB sticker on the back. Confession time: I've never washed my car since buying it, and after two years on Ukrainian frontlines, it looked a little worse for wear.
"But, but.." I stammered as they went to work on it. Undeterred, they spent the next two hours restoring it to factory condition, inside and out. I am now the proud owner of a brand-new, sixteen-year-old Honda CRV - the total cost, including repairs, was £13.50.
Last week, our friend Olga, who runs a grocery store close to the river, told us of an old man who now lives alone in a shelled-out shoe factory. Her store, damaged by shellfire on four occasions and flooded when the Russians blew the dam, is also her base for distributing hot meals for the elderly trapped by the shelling. Olga knows a thing or two about bad conditions.
We drove to the river area of the city, navigating rows of 'dragon's teeth', white, triangular-shaped concrete obstacles designed to block Russian tanks. The deserted streets echoed with the sounds of nearby artillery strikes as the car crunched forward over layers of fallen debris and broken glass. We pulled up outside the remnants of a once grand building, now blackened and broken by repeated shell strikes.
Silhouetted in an archway leading to a battle-scarred and devastated interior courtyard stood Victor. Leaning heavily on his walking stick, Victor's blinking, nervous eyes scanned the street as we approached, and his weather-beaten, unshaven face gave no clue to his age. Wrapped in multiple layers of worn-out clothing against the bitter winds funnelled from the Dnipro River, Victor cut one of the loneliest figures I had ever seen.
Moving at a snail's pace, Victor led the way and stumbling over fallen masonry, we entered the abandoned shoe factory. Devoid of electricity and lighting, the gloom deepened as we inched further into the bowels of the damp ruins. Using only the torch on an iPhone, we navigated a warren of corridors made even more surreal by the jumping, unnatural shadows cast by the artificial light.
We eventually stopped, and Victor fumbled with the handle of a vast wooden door. Using all his effort, he pushed, and the hinges creaked as the door opened to reveal an inky, deep blackness. Zarina shone her light, but that, too, struggled to penetrate the wall of darkness. We stood for a few moments while our eyes adjusted. Outside, shells detonated, and the echoes of the explosions filtered through the walls into Victor's terrifying home.
Gradually, our vision returned, and we could make out what appeared to be a platform in the middle of the room - constructed, we think, of boxes and old tables. On top of the platform was what I can only describe as Victor's nest. It was a small mountain of cardboard, curtains, and blankets all formed into an igloo shape with a dark, unwelcoming hole for Victor to enter.
Kherson, it seems, never fails to shock, but Victor's home, his life and what it had become has marked a new low benchmark in what we have witnessed. The longer we stay, the more grotesque and desperate the stories become.
Last week, we had a R.U.R (Rapid Unscheduled Redesign) event at our apartment. We had left at 10 am to meet a soldier who had recently returned from fighting on the occupied left bank for an interview. As we shook hands, we heard a rocket fly overhead and, a few seconds later, the accompanying explosion. Being Kherson, we thought little of it.
On the way back, Zarina received a call telling her there had been an explosion near our favourite cafe, the Verona. We raced to the cafe, only to be met with baffled stares. "Not here," we were told, "try in the communal areas by your place."
We arrived home to a scene of mayhem. Blast debris lay strewn over the whole of the garden area. Blown out by the explosive force, people's clothes hung billowing in the broken, splintered trees and shards of glass and insulating material littered every square metre.
"I was in my apartment with my mother when the rocket hit us," a shaking neighbour told us, "we both survived uninjured."
We both looked up at the lady's apartment and realised it was directly opposite us and only 15m away. Our eyes switched to our place, and we registered the shattered windows and shrapnel holes in the balcony.
Upstairs, we found the explosion had taken out all but one tiny kitchen window and most of those on the balcony. The rocket had embedded chunks of shrapnel in the living room and kitchen walls, and had we been there, then quite obviously, you wouldn't be reading this now.
The following day, like a well-oiled machine, the men designated to patch the aftermath of incoming strikes arrived to board up our former windows. One of the workmen, fresh from cutting a piece of chipboard to board up the kitchen window, held it up, smiled and said, "Ukrainian glass."
On a darker note, the last two nights here in Ukraine have seen massive Russian drone and missile strikes over the whole of the country. Infrastructure and power generation facilities have been extremely hard hit, and Ukrainian air defence stocks are dwindling. Unless allies provide urgent replenishment of air defence ammunition, subsequent attacks will be more costly and deadly.
After the week we'd had, I turned on the radio to catch up on how the world was reporting the latest mass attacks on Ukraine. My heart sank when I realised that our diminutive Prime Minister wasn't making a statement condemning Russia's latest murderous attacks. No, he had loftier affairs of state to consider; in this case, the colour of the flag on the latest iteration of the England squad football shirt. I'm so proud he has gotten his priorities straight on this issue, and I'll be sure to pass on his concerns to all of my Ukrainian friends and colleagues here in Kherson. Thank you so much, Rishi Sunak; you truly are a giant amongst minnows.
Thank you, Paul. You bring it all alive. Thank you so much.
It is sad. I am concerned the orcs are targeting you two. Thank you Paul and Zarina too.