Po co marzyć o Charkowie?

In the 1929 russian silent movie “Fragment of an Empire” [Обломок империи], the main protagonist, a erstwhile soldier who lost his memory during the Russian civilian War, returns to his hometown of St. Petersburg after 10 years. Stepping from the train with a full beard and in a tattered old military coat, he finds his hometown changed: a large statue of Lenin greets him as he leaves the train station; the tram he rides is full of beautiful women in dresses baring their calves; clean-shaven workers laughter and enjoy themselves on their way to their shift. erstwhile he spots the Narva Arch with its six horse statues, his face lights up and he leaves the tram. He lovingly gazes up at the arch, but erstwhile he turns around his heart sinks: he is faced with a seemingly randomly constructed building ensemble rising into the sky, like a series of sea cliffs hewn into random shapes by the sea, the harsh edges of its towers and corners linked by concrete bridges advanced over the traffic on the square below. This scenery does not be in reality: other the Narva Arch is simply a long avenue and not much else.

The tall constructivist building, the first russian skyscraper and the tallest building in Europe for a while, was alternatively constructed in Kharkiv. Setting it in St. Petersburg in the movie, however, is exemplary of the ideological cultural and historical communicative of the USSR, and indeed besides today’s Russia: utilizing Ukraine and its identity as needed without caring about reality. Derzhprom [Держпром], as the building is called, was constructed in the year the movie was made, 1928, as 1 of the showcase projects of the fresh capital of the Ukrainian SSR, designed by the architects Sergei Serafimov, Samuel Kravets and Mark Felger. Despite its apparent randomness it is simply a symmetrical building but this symmetry can only be seen straight from the centre of the square in front. Derzhprom, in its extremist modernity rising to the sky, is typical of a time erstwhile Ukrainian identity and culture was flourishing in the then-capital of russian Ukraine – a legacy that lasts until today.

An intense longing

There is simply a German word Sehnsuchtsort, which virtually means a place of longing. That longing can come from secondary memory or upbringing, as well as stories of places where grandparents and parents had a blessed childhood or defining experiences. The word can besides mean a place that 1 has visited before and which for 1 contains all the ideals of this world. Thirdly, it can besides mean a place 1 dreams of visiting for the fine things 1 might find there.

One of my Sehnsuchtsorte for a good while has been Kharkiv, and sadly I have not made it there yet. Part of this fascination is surely my interest in border cities, with their sharp edges, changing loyalties and fickle identities. After all, I live in 1 myself, in Dundalk in Ireland. Kharkiv is simply a frontier town in many regards: it was founded as a border fortress between the steppe and the Crimean Khanate. The settlement sits at the banks of the Kharkiv, Lopan and Udy rivers that flow into the Siverskyi Donets watershed. From 1919 to 1934 it was the capital of the Ukrainian russian Socialist Republic and is the second city of Ukraine today. 30 kilometres from the Russian border, it has besides been a Hero City of Ukraine since February 2022, resisting constant Russian air attacks. Then there is the distance: I love taking the train. I have long cherished the thought of taking 1 of the famed Ukrainian night trains to Kharkiv, from Lviv possibly or Ivano-Frankivsk.

The fresh reality and I had a deal. Okay, I said, I agree to tolerate my forced displacement if I am allowed to pay a visit to Kharkiv at least twice a year. The first time in May, erstwhile the lilac trees bloom and there is simply a strong scent of life and joy in the air, erstwhile I can sit on my balcony, sip a glass of wine, and perceive to the screams of the jackdaws. I would watch the sun go down and imagine the planes flying towards Kharkiv Osnova airport. I utilized to know the flights by heart: this 1 is from Kyiv Boryspil and that 1 from Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen. The second time I would step off the train in Kharkiv would be in autumn, erstwhile the air smells like wet soil, burnt leaves and thick fog. This was the deal. So this May, I had a ticket too, but then…

Then the people of the planet learned the names of 2 towns in the Kharkiv region: Vovchansk and Lyptsy. Not besides many had heard of them before the Russians’ advance this spring. Knowing there are only 20 kilometres from there to Kharkiv, and knowing what the Russian artillery can sound like, I cancelled the journey of 2 full days and multiple stops. In daytime, I kept blaming myself for being the coward I was. At night, I blessed destiny and the German government for the luxury of falling asleep, certain to wake up the next morning.

A good city for me needs a fistful of clanking trams drizzled across it, and I am happy that Kharkiv has had trams on its streets since 1906. The first 12 carriages that utilized its rails were built at Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg AG in Germany. The trams of Kharkiv present have seen better days. They are so old they sometimes veer off the rails, so the inhabitants jokingly call Kharkiv the city of drifting trams. And like any good city there are urban planning decisions made in Kharkiv that are highly contested, even in wartime. In 2022, Mayor Ihor Terekhov decided that Line 26 was no longer needed and established Line 12 again in 2023, all to any harsh criticism from parts of the public. Yet despite the effort of Russia to disrupt and destruct life in Ukraine for over 2 years now, the Kharkiv trams are inactive running.

I always make sense of the planet through topography and literature, so the first places I always hit in a fresh city are the streets. I have already lined out my first excursion: from Kharkiv-Pasazhyrsʹkyy station I would take tram number 12 to Trinklera Street, from where I would walk down to Svobody (Freedom) Square to look at Derzhprom (of course) and from there walk through Shevchenko City Garden down towards the celebrated Mirror Stream Fountain. Following that, it would be time for books: I would love to visit the close “Ye” bookstore on Sumska Street, or the store of the Vivat publishing home on Kvitky-Osnov’yanenka Street. Of course, there is besides the Literature Museum on Bahaliia Street, where the staff keep the museum safe and moving throughout constant Russian attacks. Kharkiv is truly a city of books – and it even has houses built like letters.

History close and far

After the First planet War, the October Revolution and the lost War of Independence, Kharkiv emerged as the cultural centre of a renaissance of Ukrainian artistic identity. Free from the repressions against Ukrainian culture under Tsarist regulation and supported by a fresh policy from Moscow giving cultural freedoms to individual russian republics, the arts and especially literature in Ukrainian flourished. Kharkiv was at the centre of this movement, where iconoclastic writers and poets drafted slogans like “Death to Dostoyevskyism! Up with the Cultural Renaissance!” and “Away from Moscow! Go to Europe!” Due to a housing crisis in Kharkiv, writers’ collectives approached Moscow for approval to build a literary and cultural centre where writers could live and work. The result of this was that on today’s Kul’tury Street a home was built to home both minds and words. In 1929 the building was ready: 5 entrances, 5 floors, 66 apartments and even a kindergarten on the ground floor. From above, the home looked like the letter “C”, referring to the beginning of the word “Slovo” [Слово] in Ukrainian, which itself means “word”. And like Derzhprom, Slovo home inactive stands proudly today.

Artistic freedom in Kharkiv nevertheless did not last for long, at first. The phones in each flat were tapped by the NKVD who besides kept tabs on everyone surviving here, turning any residents into informants. By the end of the 1930s, Joseph Stalin reversed the policies of cultural openness, and reverted to an imperial approach of forced Russification throughout the USSR. The protagonists of the Ukrainian cultural renaissance were among the victims of the first mass execution of the large panic in 1937. More than 2 100 Ukrainian-language writers were executed and many more imprisoned and persecuted in what became known as the “Executed Renaissance” in Ukraine.

People in Kharkiv do not have the luxury of falling asleep and being certain to wake up alive in the morning, with S-300 missiles falling from the sky at night, or being attacked with a fresh kind of weapon from the northern border during the day: guided bombs. According to the city’s Mayor Ihor Terekhov, just in May 2024 Kharkiv was attacked with 37 of them, in addition to 25 missiles and 12 Shahed drones. It is hard to believe that people can inactive live there. It is hard to believe there can be 1 million people surviving there. But the fact is, any people are brave adequate not only to stay in Kharkiv, but besides to celebrate life in the frontline city. Interestingly, it was precisely this dramatic year erstwhile 2 cultural events from pre-invasion times were revived.

One of them is Dance Walking Kharkiv, an initiative of dance therapist Ancha Antonets. She started in 2014, shortly after the outbreak of the hybrid war in east Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, to elaborate on the fears and tribulations of that time. Ancha would prepare a 60-minute playlist, propose a city way and a gathering point. another dancers were expected to bring their headphones, turn on the music at the same time, start the dance and follow the route. I remember my first dance walking in 2015, erstwhile the heat of midsummer was abruptly interrupted by thunder and rainstorm. It seemed like I was dancing with the streets and the sky, with the pedestrians and the traffic lights, with the city as a surviving being. I had joined the practice of dance walking regularly for many years, and it was 1 of the things I missed most after leaving Kharkiv. This year, after a two-year break, dance walking returned. In the pictures of Oleksandr Osipov, the setting looks just like it utilized to: joyful people dancing barefoot on the sunlit Constitution Square. Only the statue of Free Ukraine wrapped in protective tissue, reminds us of the fresh reality. Fears and tribulations inactive should be elaborated, so dance can inactive happen in the streets of Kharkiv.

Embracing the future

Is it incorrect to feel curious about a place under siege in a country at war, to even feel a longing for it? I do not think so, but others might disagree. 2 years in, and there are inactive many across Europe who cannot accept the reality of a genocidal war across the border from Poland. After decades of economical safety and peace, there seems to be a mindset of simplification in the western states of the European Union, an incapability to admit duality and realize the realities of a democratic country at war – a mindset exploited by populists across the EU. For those, Ukrainians can only always be downtrodden victims, and cultural activities and open restaurants and cafes in Kharkiv and Ukraine are not seen as a essential part of resistance. Instead, they are seen as an indication that things “are not truly that bad” and that Ukrainian refugees are just scroungers exploiting the welfare system. This notion was late expressed by 1 of the , amongst others.

I for 1 hope that all the wonderful places of culture, the restaurants and cafes and shops of Kharkiv stay open; and that Russia is defeated soon. The Literary Museum offers a literary residency in Slovo House, and I hope to make it there. I do not drink anymore but after bookshops I inactive like to visit the bars erstwhile visiting for the first time. After all, most places these days will have alcohol-free beer available. 1 of the places I had on my list for a long time was Old Hem, a Hemingway-themed boozer in the centre of Kharkiv where, amongst others, the poet and author Serhiy Zhadan (who since has joined the Ukrainian Army) would execute and drink. In March 2022, a Russian rocket smashed into it, destroyed the bar and killed 2 people in a flat above it. The bar nevertheless has been re-established on Universytets’ka Street, with any of the salvaged interior in place, so I guess my (alcohol-free) beer is inactive waiting there for me.

This year, La Fęte de la Musique took place not only in Paris, Berlin and Potsdam. After a break, it was organized in Kharkiv too. Just like in the erstwhile era, multiple stages were set up all around the city, with 1 of them in Anton Derbilov Street. It utilized to bear the name of a Russian writer, now the reality is different. Trying to figure out which street this is, I opened Google Maps and realized this was a curved street with a church nearby. Suddenly, a flashback crossed my mind: I saw a private home and a yard full of busts of Lenin, Karl Marx and another russian officials. As a schoolgirl, I passed by this private collection plenty of times. So that street must be somewhere there. I have no thought if the collector inactive admires that old russian legacy. With the “fall” of the authoritative Lenin monument in autumn 2014, followed by the withdrawal of the Pushkin bust in 2024, Kharkiv showed its will to leave the russian and Russian past behind. Hence, keeping those busts would definitely mean going against the current. Still, I cannot tell what that individual cherishes: the russian past or the Ukrainian future. The best way to check is to go to Kharkiv. But the best thing I can do is follow the livestream from Anton Derbilov Street.

I utilized to know Anton back then, erstwhile he was a sculptor, an artist, a musician. Before he decided to put on a uniform and fight for Ukraine’s freedom. Anton was killed in action close Kreminna in April 2023. In May 2024, his band played a performance in the street named after him.

Now the reality of Kharkiv means resisting all minute of the day and reinventing it in a 1000 fresh ways. Culture is resistance; city landscapes are resistance; coffee shops behind broken windows are resistance. Even the blossom of a tiny Sakura tree in the backyard of my Kharkiv home is resistance.

Photo: Anna Kolomititseva

Marcel Krueger is simply a German non-fiction author and translator surviving in Ireland, who explores themes of memory, identity and migration through household past and his own existence as an emigrant. He is simply a erstwhile fellow of the German Culture Forum for Central and east Europe and in 2019 worked as the authoritative writer-in-residence of Olsztyn in northern Poland, a region to which he remains closely linked.

Anna Kolomititseva is simply a conference interpreter, translator and emerging author born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Since her forced displacement due to the Russian war of aggression in April 2022, Anna has lived in Berlin, Germany. Anna published her Kharkiv war diary in the Austrian paper Die Presse, wrote for the MdR (Central German Broadcaster), and was a writer-in-residence at the “Author’s House”, Zakynthos, Greece. Now Anna is simply a student of a British-Ukrainian creative writing program and working on a novel. Kharkiv is the biggest origin of inspiration for her work.

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