Children’s Room at Izium

In the Donbas, the two main age groups you encounter are the soldiery, who are young to middle aged and mostly men, and older residents who have not fled the fighting, who are mostly women. There is not much in between, and children are a rare sight.

Therefore, when we visited an Evangelical church in the battered city of Izium, and were shown around its improvised premises, in use but still a building site, it was a surprise to be shown a stripped-out space, and to be told that it would become the Children’s Room.

The congregation at the usual Wednesday evening service, was anything but youthful. Some were obviously old, some, I guessed, old beyond their years; some were infirm, some had that engrained dogged determination to hang onto their own place that is the unique Ukrainian ‘spirit of the Blitz’. Part of that spirit is a quiet cheerfulness that shines through the fatigue which lines so many of their faces.

Of course, I wondered “where will the children come from?”, but I answered my own question, “from here and there, all over this city which until recently had 45 000 inhabitants”. There has got to be more than a roomful of children remaining. But the ambition to provide a room for children is also an expression of hope for the future, and determination that there will be a future and a new generation in this battered city.  It was founded in the 10thcentury as part of the ancient state of Kievan Rus, and has already survived many vicissitudes, including invasions by the Mongols, the Tatars and, more recently, the Germans.

 So, I walked out of that shell of a room convinced, and confined my questions to practical ones. “How will you heat the space?”, knowing that the fuel and power infrastructure was disrupted.

“Ah”, they replied, “we shall have a soba, in the traditional way”. A soba is a tall, tiled, solid-fuel stove, such as you see in countries from Scandinavia, through Russia to Turkey. That ambition, I thought, says it all. They will endure by continuing to be what they are, with a little help from their friends.

A 'soba' - tiled, solid flue stove with labyrinth flue (Wiki Commons)