And at a bend in the path, a man suddenly appears on the balcony of a windowless house battered by the wind. Hat lowered over an emaciated face, thin silhouette slightly covered despite the freezing cold, Yuri Ponomarienko kindly welcomes visitors.
The 54-year-old man from Bogorodychné sent his wife and daughter to Poland four days before the start of the Russian invasion in February.
Then he himself fled when the fighting began in this city, and stayed right and left in the still-preserved towns and villages of the eastern regions of Ukraine.
I felt I had to come back, I had to.
Before he returned, after the end of the battle, to Bogorodychné, where he spent most of his life. First a day here, a day there.
He finally settled there a week ago. In a house that is not his. His was shaved.
“I believe I am the first to come back to live here, although I believe there is always a mother and her son who have never left the village. I felt I had to come back, I had toYuri says.
He lives in a small room of barely five to six square meters, has built a traditional heating system with bricks, which spreads a comforting warmth. A thermometer hanging from a wire shows approximately 18 degrees.
