Documenting Life in War-Torn City

The Seversk Saga.

Prologue.

A city

that is now Ground Zero. The gateway to a huge battle

for Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

The lands of the Donetsk Republic. A city that will define what it means

to take, hold, and not surrender.

But that will come later. For now, we are here. Two

months in Seversk,

from late February to early May. This is the prologue to the Seversk

saga, to the frontline diaries of war

documentarian Klim

Poplavsky and military cameraman Viktor Kerchev.

We entered the city when it still had a few living souls left.

When those still sat in the basements who had not

left, who could not, who were afraid,

who hoped it would pass them by.

We enter the city

from the south, via the bypass.

In a few days, from this vehicle, essentially,

only its name will remain.

It will burn completely, along with Max Kremen,

who is now in the back with me,

and Zhenka Orpheus, he's driving.

Thanks to them, we got the first two

families.

Over these two months, we've recorded the evacuation of a dozen families of civilians

in dire straits: the bedridden, the blind, the sick,

the young,

those who couldn't be left behind, those who couldn't leave on their own.

That's it, we've arrived.

This is Tolya Viking.

Today I learned that his leg was blown off.

You know, Vapul, the more good, kind people they've killed, the better.

убили, это же хорошо.

We're entering the city.

On the outskirts, not a single intact building, just rows of ruined

squares, houses, former houses,

garden houses. In some places, signs still stick out for

gardening communities. Everything is twisted, everything is riddled with bullets.

Mangled bus stops with broken

awnings. All around are hundreds of garages with wide-open

doors.

Gray, all alike, like honeycombs.

Later, we'll have to hide in these cells, run between them from

garage to garage to escape the drones.

It's a horrible feeling,

feeling the air being sliced behind your back

by the rotors. It's awful to hear that hornet-like buzzing.

As a drone approaches, dive into another opening,

another set of wide-open gates.

Drone hunters from the Sixth Brigade.

They were with us.

Gusar,

Les,

Tikhiy,

Zhuk,

Viking,

Zayats,

Ambal-Angelochechek,

Maga,

Orfey,

Kremen.

Their commander was Vinni.

They watched the sky,

we watched the ground.

We recorded, filmed,

remembered.

Load up!

There's more loose ammo.

What have you got, tracers?

Yeah.

Give me the packs, if you have any.

Of course.

I'll pull out the packs now. This isn't a report,

this isn't a chronicle,

these are diaries. Without dates, without pathos,

without trying to explain what's happening.

Only what we saw. Only what remained in our memories.

The Seversk Saga is a portrait of a city, painted

by the memories of its residents. Those who stayed in basements,

moved from apartment to apartment, buried neighbors in their yards.

There she is, the little brat. Hello, Tamara!

Here’s the cross.

And Slavik buried his wife in the yard.

The diaries include testimonies from civilians such as Andrei.

He was in the city from the first day. He saw how the city became

a testing ground,

how it was erased, how weapons were tested.

Something hit here before this, before the house was wrecked.

This

landed over there,

such a massive thing,

it went straight through

two walls and got stuck in the entryway. The blast wave threw me into the

entryway headfirst.

I almost cracked my head open.

Oh, so they’re bombing—

Yes, they’re bombing, then blaming it all on Russia.

And they tell their own people—

Their own, yes. They all did right away. There was no one here.

Everyone ran for cover. Then it hit,

came through the window, a shell flew in, and exploded here,

because that side was still intact.

Over time, it was sort of washed away by wind

and rain.

He went from basement to basement, from apartment to apartment, until he got

to Sveta,

whom we never managed to convince to leave.

Where? Where am I supposed to put all this?

Within the limits of my human

capabilities, with what God has given me, I can only

help you.

Where am I supposed to put this much? Where am I supposed to

put this much?

You can't just break away, you have to tear, tear everything out from inside and leave

empty, like a sack.

We walk through dust, through fragments of other

people's stories. Beneath our feet is not just concrete,

beneath our feet are their Mondays, their lunches, their return

home.

We don't know their names or how they lived.

We only see how they died.

Later that night, in the library basement, I

will go on my phone, find an old forum, those photos from

before.

It turned out the city didn't begin with the war.

It began in 1913.

The Belgians came for dolomite. They named the station Yama.

People lived in a pit, mining stone for steel.

Then the city was renamed Seversk. Beautiful.

After the river. Though the river runs off to the side.

They had a real stadium, with running

tracks and stands. The Khimik team.

There was the Dolomitchik Palace of Culture. In 1986,

the first computer lab.

A computer lab in Seversk, in a city with no

electricity

or water.

Weddings, births, graduations.

After all, someone kissed behind those garages, where we're hiding now,

where the albums are now.

A huge number of children's belongings. Someone was leaving and coming back.

There was life in garages, apartments, basements, everywhere.

Albums, thousands of them. They're scattered across the ground,

lying on concrete, broken glass, in puddles of melted water,

not put away, not hidden,

simply abandoned,

as if memory isn't needed.

Severskaya Saga

is the voices of these people,

their lives,

their memory,

their history.

A story

about fighters

and civilians

in a city that is anything but peaceful.

We don't make things up,

we record and merely pass it on.