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Destroyed more than Mariupol. How Avdeevka, wiped off the face of the earth, is being rebuilt
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.by Oleg Tyurin [REGNUM] Less than a year ago, there were battles in Avdeevka, and now there is a large construction site here. Volunteer repairmen, gathered by the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service, are working in the liberated suburb of Donetsk.  We meet the volunteers in one of the Donbass towns - here the volunteers live and rest, returning from Avdeevka. The most ordinary private house, inside - an atmosphere of coziness and warmth. It smells of freshly cooked borscht. "The initiative to start the project came from the head of the Synodal Department for Charity of the Russian Orthodox Church, Bishop Panteleimon. On March 8, 2023, the first team of builders arrived in Mariupol and began repairing the roofs. In total, 265 roofs and 43 interior work objects were restored - they worked on the "interior" during the winter: they restored ceilings, doors, walls, inserted windows, did electrical work and plumbing," foreman Anton told Regnum. Previously, the man worked as a stage technician at the Moscow Philharmonic, with which he traveled all over Russia. He liked the job, and the man did not plan to quit it, but when he learned last September that volunteers were needed in Donbass, he went to Mariupol. And he stayed to restore destroyed houses. Anton says he doesn’t feel like going home yet. "I learned everything on the spot. Sometimes people come who have never even held a hammer in their hands. We teach everything, show everything, and then the guys come back for a second or third time. There are few professional builders here," the agency's interlocutor continues. Volunteers arrived in ruined Avdeevka in October. The administration set the task of helping prepare the city for the approaching frost. They started working immediately: the local administration asked to urgently close the heating circuit of the temporary accommodation point for local residents. They repaired the walls, installed windows and laid a new roof, turning the concrete box into a cozy place to live for people who had lost everything. "In addition to the temporary housing repairs, in a month and a half we have repaired 17 roofs of private houses, and three more are in the works. We work closely with the administration: it selects houses [to be repaired], the selection criteria are the housing of people who need help, the disabled and pensioners who live there or plan to return to them," says Anton Currently, out of a population of more than 40,000, only 600 people remain in Avdeevka, for whom 250 houses are planned to be prepared in the near future. More than a hundred volunteers came to Avdeevka to help, including people of various professions and construction experience. There was even a cosmonaut. "The most unusual person who has passed through our project is a Hero of Russia, a cosmonaut. Moreover, he arrived without saying who he was, they "identified" him by chance. A very modest person, he asked very much not to mention his name in the press. Writers, an artist, a GITIS graduate also came, and now we have a teacher from Moscow State University working for us... Everyone builds, except for the builders," the foreman laughs. "It's more interesting to work here" The aid project united people of different ages, professions and even religions. Despite the fact that the volunteering was organized by the Russian Orthodox Church, the doors are open to everyone - both atheists and representatives of other faiths. There is only one condition: to sincerely want to help people in trouble. "We are all united by the desire to help. Some come to see [what is happening in Donbass] - and this is also important when you live in an ordinary world where no one talks about war and nothing is heard. Many people's perception of the world changes when they see real people who survived the war," Anton explains. His words are confirmed by one of the few construction specialists who is currently working on the project. Igor Nikolaev has worked as a carpenter in a monastery on the Solovetsky Islands for the last 11 years, and two weeks ago he came to help in Donbass. "It's hard to say what I experienced - it was very difficult. And the people are good-natured and friendly, I'm surprised they didn't become embittered. They feed the children at the facilities, they are ready to help everyone," says the interlocutor of IA Regnum. The local houses have one characteristic feature, the carpenter notes: the chimneys are not on the roof slope, but on the ridge. "Why is that? I still haven't received an answer to this question, " he says. "But it makes work more interesting this way." Nikolaev is sure that this is definitely not the last time he comes to Avdeevka, because the volunteers have a lot of work to do. Another builder working today for the benefit of Avdeevka residents is Vitaly Kovrov. Before retiring, he worked at a military plant, building submarines in Severodvinsk. Today, he is one of the old-timers, working for more than 10 months - first he restored Mariupol, now he is rebuilding the Donetsk suburb. "Avdeevka is much more destroyed [than Mariupol]. It's hard to watch, and the locals have already recovered from the shock - they need to live on. They are cheerful and smiling, and when everything is built, they thank us with tears," Vitaly shares. Builders note that they are rewarded for their selfless help - and in the most unexpected way. Sometimes solutions are found to problems that previously seemed insoluble. "We had a case: a guy came, a refugee from Kherson, worked for a long time, he had no documents - no passport, no registration, plus it was unknown where his relatives lived. Somehow, miraculously, he found a family, and now he was able to get documents and will soon go to them," says Anton. THE TEN YEAR ROAD HOME Another amazing story was shared by a correspondent of one of the federal media outlets, Yulia Andrienko. She was born in Avdeevka and came to make a report about volunteers. This is her first return to the city, which she had to leave 10 years ago at the risk of her life. In 2014, Yulia worked as a correspondent in Donetsk. Maidan broke out, and life was literally divided into "before" and "after". In May, the girl helped organize a referendum on the independence of Donbass in Avdeevka. And when the Ukrainian Armed Forces entered the city, she was forced to leave her home and move to Donetsk with her family. At that time, Andrienko could not even imagine that she would only return home ten years later, with the help of a volunteer project of the Russian Orthodox Church. "The editor sent me [information about the project] and said: listen, this is an interesting 'test case'. Avdeevka is, of course, destroyed, but I am happy that I came here at all. Ten years... Even in my dreams it was out of reach - I was walking [down the street], and it seemed to me that I would be taken prisoner. But I was even able to go into my apartment, take out an album with my black-and-white school photos and a box of Christmas tree decorations. Our stormtroopers who liberated the city accompanied me. It... brought tears to my eyes," the woman does not hide. Seeing the state of her hometown, Andriyenko herself became a volunteer. Having swapped her pen and laptop for a ladle and an apron, she works in the communal kitchen. The woman believes that this is the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Avdeevka. "I am not a great connoisseur of cooking, but I take master classes, learn to cook in conditions of lack of water on an industrial scale. Water is given after two o'clock in the afternoon, and the guys need to be fed three times a day. Our builders are some kind of superhumans for me. I traveled with them from Moscow: one runs a large IT company, three children and a successful life, but he left everything and came here," Yulia continues in an interview with IA Regnum. She does not hide the fact that at first she did not recognize her hometown: it is radically different from the Avdeevka that the journalist left in 2014. Destroyed houses, a school razed to the ground, where she once held a referendum... The woman did not even get into her apartment right away. “I didn’t even cry when I saw her: the apartment had no windows, no doors, and the guys [who accompanied her] said: ‘Sorry, but we won’t let you in first, we don’t know what surprises the Ukrainian Armed Forces have left behind,’” the woman recalls. For now, the work continues. The enemy has not yet been driven far away, it is impossible to begin large-scale restoration work with a large number of builders - it is dangerous. But Avdeevka is alive, the city is being restored and finding itself. "We will continue to restore Avdeevka, we continue to work in Mariupol. And then, I think, we will go further and restore other destroyed cities," says foreman Anton. Posted by: badanov 2024-12-11 |
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