Dmytro Gorbanov, 33
Dmytro Gorbanov
Age: 33
Downtown Los Angeles
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
I’m from Izium, Ukraine and have been living in the US since 2015. All my childhood friends from Izium are still there. I still keep in touch with them. I went to college and graduate school in Kharkiv. Then I moved to Kyiv for work. While there I received an invitation to go work in New York. I’ve now been in L.A. for almost three months.
Izium in recent years has been in economic decline, but nonetheless there’s a certain comfort. It’s a small town surrounded by nature. You can always go enjoy the outdoors. I used to get on my bike, ride to the beautiful Donetsk River, and then ride on a path along the river. We used to go foraging for mushrooms and fishing. It’s a town where you can live not in front of a computer or television, but instead go for walks. We played soccer every single day when I was a kid. We always had something fun to do.
I look at pictures from Izium now, and it’s all bombed out. The center of the city has been hit really hard. The train station has been destroyed. A school and a new hospital were hit. I don’t know why they are attacking Izium. There have never been any military bases there. I saw a picture of a bomb that landed in Izium but did not explode. It was just sitting in the middle of the street, this 500 kilogram bomb.
On the first day of the bombings, people stayed in their homes. Then it became clear that things were getting much worse. At that point people went to hide in bomb shelters. My parents helped re-open one of the bomb shelters in town. But these bomb shelters are totally unequipped, there are no amenities there. They’re not in ruins, because they were built in Soviet times with very thick walls. But they haven’t been maintained. My dad wrote to me and said that they are sleeping on concrete floors. It’s a miracle that there are generators.
The Russians have taken control of half of the city. At first, the attacks only took place at night, from airplanes. Then they moved on to artillery. As I understand, for the last several days the bombings and skirmishes have continued non-stop both night and day. The residents don’t even leave the bomb shelters. How do they prepare food? The bomb shelters are not heated, so they are cold. My dad wrote that they have jackets, comforters, but still. This time of year the snow has probably started to melt, so it’s probably damp. It’s very easy to get sick in these conditions and develop pneumonia. And then there’s COVID.
About a year ago, Russian politicians started writing articles about how Ukraine as a nation does not exist, that it was invented by Lenin, that we are not an independent country. Then Putin started saying the same thing, so I was afraid something would start. But I didn’t think they would bomb our cities, residential neighborhoods. I was worried about eastern Ukraine, because at least half of the people there had a pro-Russian attitude. I was worried that they would accept the Russian troops. But they didn’t, because it’s their land.
The war, however terrible it is, has united the Ukrainian people such that when the war ends, it will be a different country, hopefully less corrupt. I understand that there will be a lot of ways to steal when the rebuilding starts, but with the way our people have united, the way they are helping each other, I think that it will not happen in a big way.
When the war started, I didn’t sleep or eat for two days. I tried to convince my parents to leave, but they didn’t want to. Every few minutes, I checked different sources of information. Then I started going to protests and joined groups here in L.A. that are trying to help in all sorts of ways. This helps to distract yourself. At work they told me I can take time off. I’m also constantly trying to reach my parents, but I’m not getting through.
