Nikolaev steadfastly holds out in the fight against Russian invaders/”Focus”
I pour Morshinsky from a crispy plastic bottle into pots. I feel sorry for the water, there is not so much of it in Nikolaev.
Everyday life that turned out to be a luxury
Here they write “Water” on the shops, here people stand in line for pumps and pump rooms, here the water, the same one that flows from the tap in Kyiv, is a huge value.
But for some reason I can't bear to see drying flowers. Fuck knows why – I sincerely consider myself a thick-skinned, hardened person, and I only cried once for this full-blown … But I can't see how they dry.
We spend the night in some it’s a dispensary, and fuck knows what this word means, I just roll out a sleeping bag on the first bumpy, creaky sofa that comes across in the corridor. I am unpretentious, as unpretentious as dozens of men around me, who rash, cough, snore.
To drive, this is not a dugout, this is a real building, even with glass shaking from the exits, fuck being dissatisfied here, I sleep under the roof, this is a luxury inaccessible to thousands of our people.
Place of power
Nikolaev is beautiful, as a beautiful strange hidden city can be. Miko is now a common name, like Marik, Ha and Waha. For some reason, this city now enters into me so much that only late in the evening, breaking into this dispensary, catching all the walls, openings and doors with a machine gun, I finally understand what I feel. I'm happy here. I'm exhausted, hungry and happy.
I don't know how to put it right – here, rolling along the dusty warm streets, I feel better than in Kyiv. Much better. I don't know what makes this city the way it is (Russian artillery, or our multiple rocket launchers), but it's dangerous, yet cozy and absolutely healthy.
Nick knows why he lives. Maybe in order to close the huge forces of the Russians. Maybe in order to survive and spit on their grave. Maybe in order to water the flowers from the last Morshyn bottle. But he knows for sure.
