As the front line draws closer to the former industrial city, some shopkeepers continue to do business. Open, lit, and heated, their stores offer a strange sense of normality, like a faint pulse that continues to beat beneath the bombs and snow. Antoine Laurent went to meet them to understand the challenges faced by these few active civilians who have stayed put and the reasons that compel them to remain, despite the risks they face.
Ukrainian army vehicles are a common sight on the streets of Kramatorsk, as are Russian bombings, which are more intense here than elsewhere due to the proximity of the front line. Several times a day, Telegram groups dedicated to warning residents of danger notify them of the launch of a missile, the arrival of a Shahed-type drone, a gliding bomb, and even FPV kamikaze drones, which are now reaching some neighborhoods of the city. In discussion groups and on social media, images of burning buildings and explosions are posted by witnesses to these strikes, which affect both civilians and military personnel. Despite a mass exodus, the city is still home to around 50,000 civilians, compared with 150,000 before the invasion. These civilians are resisting and have no intention of submitting to the Russians.
The most visible sign of this presence is that many shops remain open. In Kramatorsk, you can shop at the open air market or in supermarkets, have your phone repaired, send parcels, buy a sofa, cigarettes, military equipment, and even alcohol, if you know where to go; because since July 2022, the sale of alcoholic beverages has been banned in the oblast. Managers, owners, and employees describe complex realities that are nuanced and diverse. Surprisingly, some accounts almost suggest that the business climate in this rear base of the Ukrainian army is one of disturbed normality, rather than the chaos of a hellish antechamber where rare vestiges of a peaceful world remain.
Turnover: highs…
Listening to Laryssa, owner and manager of Galantus flower shop in the east of the city, this is certainly the conclusion one might be tempted to reach. Lightheartedness, confidence, ease… the big smile and energy of the florist, who is also a yoga teacher, are so unexpected in such a context that words fail to describe them adequately. When asked about her sales since the start of the large-scale invasion, Laryssa, 49, does not hide her relief. “Things are going pretty well, despite the fact that, yes, the war is very close,” she replies, giving a generous assessment of the situation. “There are people who have stayed – the older ones, especially. The younger ones have left and want, in one way or another, to please their older relatives, so they order bouquets.”
At Galantus, our interviewee explains, it is possible to order and pay for flowers online. The family business also has a home delivery service, managed by her husband. There is no need to be there in person to send a gift. In addition, she adds, “there are a lot of guys [Editor’s note: soldiers] who come to town to rest during their leave; […] and they also buy flowers for the girls.” Flowers, our host explains, while her employee offers us coffee, “bring light, even in these sad and dark times that Ukraine is going through.”
…and stockings
Other shopkeepers clearly need this light, because not all of them are as lucky as Laryssa. To see this for yourself, just take a stroll through the old town. There we meet Natalia, 44, owner and manager of a café-bakery, which we will not name out of caution and at her request. “Daily takings have fallen—fallen a lot,” says the shopkeeper, without emotion, before continuing. “”Only a few locals still live here. With the bombings, they will leave and that will mean even fewer customers for us. Some of them used to come for coffee every morning.”
In addition, she adds, many of the remaining residents are unemployed due to the relocation, closure, or destruction of numerous businesses, which severely limits their purchasing power. “Sometimes we have to lower our prices so that people can afford to buy coffee,” Natalia points out. If her business is still going, she continues, it is “mainly thanks to the soldiers.” Indeed, there are many men in uniform at the counter. Others, coffee in hand, treat themselves to a cigarette on the doorstep.
The decline in her business’s turnover, Natalia continues, has been all the greater “since the station closed.” Located a few hundred meters away, it has not welcomed passengers since November 5. The rail link connecting Donetsk Oblast to the rest of free Ukraine has been interrupted, a decision that Ukrainian Railways justifies on “security grounds,” as reported by the Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne. Among the dangers from which the national company seeks to protect its passengers are, of course, Russian FPV drones. Now, the main roads leading to the city are also within their reach. Access to Kramatorsk remains possible, but only via secondary roads.
Supply and access to electricity: uneven additional costs
Due to the difficulties in accessing the city, Natalia explains, the cost of supplying her café has skyrocketed. “The trucks transporting the goods can be targeted. We faced this situation in September: the truck that was delivering to us was hit by a drone. We had to go to Otcheretyne [not far from Barvinkove] with our minibus to collect all the goods that were intended for us,” she says, before showing us photos taken by the driver, who fortunately survived the attack. The truck in question, she adds, was clearly a civilian vehicle: “There were even pictures of food products on the trailer.”
Because of the danger posed by drones, our host continues, it is sometimes difficult to find carriers willing to go to Kramatorsk, while those who do agree to go take the risk into account when calculating their prices. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.” As a result, it is sometimes more advantageous for Natalia to stock up herself in Dnipro, a city in the east of the country located about 4.5 hours away by car, where her daughter has settled. This reorganization of logistics, although time-consuming, is nevertheless necessary, as Natalia is also faced with another additional cost: the price of electricity. In Kramatorsk, as elsewhere in Ukraine, power cuts are a daily occurrence and sometimes last for hours. To remedy this, our interviewee explains, “we start up the generator,” but to run the necessary appliances, it consumes ”3 to 4 liters of fuel per hour,” a cost that she says she cannot pass on to the price of coffee, “otherwise no one would be able to afford it.”
Natalia’s argument is logical. However, once again, situations differ. Laryssa, for her part, manages to source supplies without difficulty or significant additional costs. However, she points out that many of the products she sells are imported. “Our suppliers are based in Kharkiv [a city located about 30 kilometers from the front line]. They receive shipments directly from the Netherlands.” In addition, she adds, her company has its “own production site and greenhouses.” Thanks to these assets, also located in Kramatorsk, Galantus manages to grow “20 to 25%” of the volume of flowers needed for its business.
Laryssa’s shop, which she refers to as a salon, is indeed well-stocked. Located about 18 km from Russian positions, it sells Inca lilies, Vanda orchids, anthuriums, and other perfectly fresh flowers that can be accompanied by greeting cards, stuffed animals, and other accessories. “In our salon, I have always kept a wide variety of flowers, including many exotic varieties […]. I think we could compete with any salon in Kyiv,” she says, not without pride, adding that she manages to overcome power cuts thanks to her generator, again without incurring significant additional costs. Locked to the railing of the porch, it can be heard humming through the door, and the lights remain on.
Recruitment under pressure
Despite their very different situations, Laryssa and Natalia agree on one thing: the difficulty of hiring staff. Because of the invasion, says Natalia, “many good workers have left the city, so we have to train those who remain. For example, we had a lot of trouble finding a barmaid. I had to learn how to make coffee properly myself. We then trained the employees based on what I had learned. We have to help people switch from one profession to another.” Natalia identifies her difficulty in recruiting as the main obstacle to the smooth running of her café. Faced with the critical situation she encountered in 2022, her husband, who had previously been a sales representative, had to lend her a hand as a cashier for a few months. “But he couldn’t stand it. He joined the Ukrainian army,” she adds, impassively. Natalia also regrets the lack of male workers, due to mobilization. While the eight people who make up her team are all women, she points out, “it’s not by choice […]. Women sometimes have to do men’s work: they even unload trucks of goods.”
As for Laryssa, the eight employees who were on her team before the invasion have all left the city. “When we posted the job offers, the applicants were either very young, between 16 and 20, or older, over 60. For our sector, this is tricky,” she explains, as being a florist requires both “sufficient maturity” to interact with customers and manage a cash register, while also being “physically demanding.” ” Laryssa, who describes the florist profession in Ukraine as “generally feminine,” managed to recruit three employees, again with no experience in the field. Like her colleague, she had to take on many responsibilities that were previously handled by her staff. Despite initial concerns, both shop owners agree that the recruitment problem has been overcome. Young women, internally displaced persons, and retirees who have returned to work are now performing satisfactorily.
In the face of danger, freedom and constraint tend to merge
For Laryssa, however, the resolution of this problem does not mean a return to normal. “It feels like we’re living in a kind of ghetto, especially since the trains no longer serve [the city],” she says, adding: “Either people stay because they work here, or this city keeps them here in some way. As a general rule, those who are not held back by anything leave. We stay because we have our production, our properties and, of course, the possibility of making a living from them: the state is not very helpful in this regard [for internally displaced persons].” The seriousness of her words contrasts sharply with her good spirits and the enchanting scent that fills the shop.
Natalia uses different words, but her perception of events is, at least in part, similar to Laryssa’s. The ”psychological situation” created by everyday events is difficult to bear, she emphasizes, without needing to give much explanation for us to understand why: the previous evening, a gliding bomb weighing several hundred kilograms fell on a building in the neighborhood. “We arrived on site at 11 p.m. and had to stay until 3 a.m. to clean up the mess, because all the windows and doors had been blown out […] even the service door!” Nearby, power lines are down and cars have lost their windshields.
The reasons why Natalia continues to work in Kramatorsk reveal more uncertainty than those put forward by her colleague. “You see what it’s like: going to Kyiv? It’s being bombed heavily. To Dnipro? Same thing, there’s bombing there too.” Moreover, leaving the city in decent conditions is clearly no easy task. With a view to relocating her business to the Kyiv region, Natalia looked into a national program to help internally displaced persons. Under this program, she explains, the state “reimburses up to 70% of the initial deposit required for a mortgage.” Although attractive, the initiative has shown its limitations: none of the banks participating in the program accepted her loan application because she lives in an area close to the front line.
In order to invest in a new home, Natalia would first have to leave her home and therefore her job; but without an income, how could she take out a mortgage? And without a home, how could she open a new business? There is the option of renting an apartment, but she believes that rents in the country’s cities are exorbitant. Furthermore, Natalia has pets: would they be accepted? These complications contribute to her indecision.
The shadow of a new exile
In order to resolve this dilemma, Natalia has set herself a limit: she will only leave Kramatorsk “if something happens to [her] home” or ”if the curfew is brought forward [it usually starts at 9 p.m.]”. “I’m at the end of my tether,” she says quietly. “I live in the center, and there’s shelling everywhere. If only I were with my husband, but I’m with my cat and my dog.” When asked about her plans for the coming months, Laryssa replies in a more cryptic tone: “As I said, we manage our own production, and we grow a lot of tulips—for February 14 and March 8 in particular. I order the bulbs from the Netherlands in March, and we receive them in September. We’ve already planted them all. So, are we making plans, aren’t we?” Despite her apparent confidence, Laryssa confides that she has asked her daughter to open a second store in Lviv, so that she can fall back on it if necessary.
Natalia, Laryssa, and their families have already fled the war twice: in 2014, when the city was occupied by Kremlin-backed separatist militias; and in 2022, when the large-scale invasion began. Natalia and her loved ones took refuge in Dobropilia, about 60 km away, then in the Odesa Oblast in the south of the country. Laryssa and her family found refuge in Uzhhorod, more than 1,400 km to the west, then in a village in the Carpathians and in Kyiv. Weary of these exhausting trials, the two women seem to have grown accustomed to the atmosphere of limbo that now reigns in their hometown.A new exile, perhaps a permanent one, now seems more difficult to accept, especially after the efforts made to keep their business running. In September 2022, Natalia recalls, “we went back to work thinking that the war would end […]. We were among the first businesses to reopen in the old town.” For her part, Laryssa says, “when the war started […] we closed the shop for only about four months; [but] we [also] had a stall at the market, and that outlet remained open: one of the girls hadn’t left, she continued to run the business.” Outside, the whiteness of the snowflakes erases the gray tones of the city here and there. Kramatorsk seems to blend into the patterns of a vast winter camouflage. A silent counterpoint to these memories, tinged with hope more vivid than today’s considerations.
Antoine Laurent is a freelance journalist. A contributor to the Swiss bimonthly Echo Magazine, the Italian media Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa, and other publications on a more ad hoc basis (Le Courrier de Genève, Linkiesta, etc.).