After the initial panic subsided, people opted to stay in bed and not go downstairs when they heard the morning air raid sirens.
Friday’s Russian airstrikes in Lviv at dawn made nearby buildings vibrate. The thick black smoke billowed from the airport.
The scenes from other cities in Ukraine that had horrified the world were still missing hours after the airstrikes: destroyed buildings, fleeing civilians under fire. Lviv was already returning its centuries-old position as an adapting crossroads.
Maria Parkhuts, a local waitress, said, “In the morning, it was frightening, but we must go on.” “People arrive with little, and it’s getting worse.”
Since the war started nearly a month ago the city has been a refuge and home to thousands of Ukrainians who have fled or stayed on. Foreign fighters and aid will come from the opposite direction.
Midstream is a city which, from the surface, continues to exist amid coffee shops and world heritage churches. The cobblestones are awash with food delivery cyclists carrying backpacks containing global brands. The narrow streets are lined with yellow trams that whizz through the narrow streets, telling the story of each occupation from the Cossacks to Swedes to Germans to Soviet Union.
After so many years of fighting to remove its influence, the threat of Russia’s next occupation is what the new Lviv emerged from.
Maxim Tristan (28-year-old soldier) said that Friday’s attack was “war.” It only motivates us to fight.
Young men stand on a street corner and pass around guns sights. One man stated that anything is possible if you have money, which prompted grins from the other. A range is located on the same block, where you can practice target shooting. The bull’s eye features the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Military veterans teach civilians how they shoot elsewhere in the city.
A bunker from World War II was reopened in a popular park just steps from the playground. Men are filling sandbags outside an academy of architecture. Some churches in the city have covered their stained-glass windows with sandbags to protect their statues. Others trust God with their fate.
There are over a dozen graves in the military section of main cemetery that are too old to be used for marble crosses. The earth is covered with frosted flowers. Boot tracks are used to mark the ground. There is plenty of open ground behind the graves that can be used for many more rows.
To honor the victims of the war, activists placed 109 strollers in the square in central Lviv just hours after Friday’s attack.
Tattoo artists tattoo clients with patriotic symbols. A brewery makes “Molotov cocktails.” This street poster depicts a woman wearing Ukraine’s yellow-blue colors and pointing a gun at a kneeling Putin. A young woman draws a picture of a dove in the front room at a local business.
The city has been seized by volunteerism. Local news reports that people are opening up their homes and residents are cutting up clothing to make camouflage nets for checkpoints.
Volodymyr Pekar said, “War does not only involve people who fight.”
Local businessman, 40, is behind a campaign to place yellow-and-blue banners in the surrounding countryside with slogans such as “God Save Ukraine” and “Do Not Run, Protect.” He said he was not comfortable with the profane language used in war messaging and that the religious villagers were also uncomfortable.
Pekar also used crowdfunding to raise funds for flak jackets, cigarettes, and other necessities that are most urgent for the soldiers of Ukraine.
He said, “After you fight you need to smoke.”
The estimated 200,000 refugees from Ukraine’s hardest-hit regions have fled to Lviv under the cover of bravado and slogans. They look the most nervous, as they are embraced by the city’s inhabitants and accepted into shelters and homes.
They go through aid collection points looking for boxes, scan notices and check their phones. Lviv has changed from a getaway to refuge because of their presence. Instead of promoting romantic places and local confectionaries, the official tourism website shares information about radiation alerts and bomb shelter locations.
Locals promised “warmth for your soul” Friday when they launched a series of cultural walks in Lviv for internally displaced people. The aim was to visit galleries and the medieval quarter, as well as other attractions.
At the height of the refugee crisis, thousands of people crowded the station. The station’s platforms are sometimes almost empty, waiting for the millions of people who continue to wander Ukraine looking for refuge or a new purpose.
The furniture maker was from Kyiv, the bombed capital. He had trained in air defense many years ago and was now on his way to an Army post. He stood alone on the platform, carrying a backpack and a sleeping mat. He planned to visit his family in Transcarpathia before heading east.
Further down, a young couple remained in Ukraine, despite the fact that the man (20 years old) is fighting age and cannot leave.
“I have never traveled so much in my country.” Diana Tkachenko (21), said, “Now I have to.” Their journey started last month in Kyiv, on a packed train with no idea of where it would take them.
It was horrible when they arrived in Lviv. Tkachenko stated that fellow travelers push and screamed at them. Some of them were so far east from Russian-speaking regions that they couldn’t speak Ukrainian.
The train pulled into the most Ukrainian city. It was Tkachenko’s first time visiting Lviv.
She said, “I walked a lot.” “I tried to enjoy it. It is truly beautiful. It’s safer.
She said that there were too many people, and not enough places to live. Her boyfriend and she decided to go back east, towards Kyiv.
A second train arrived as their train was about to depart.
