Two days in Mykolaïv, the "city of ship builders".
That's why it has wide avenues, as prince Potëmkin imagined it back in the 18th century. Here you can breathe the history of one of the larger cities of modern Ukraine, a history that dates back to the 13th century BC.
The Zaporizhzhya Cossacks passed through here, then the Russians, then at least 10 other different ethnic groups who inhabited it and helped it grow.
So many, too many people, have died because of totalitarianism, the wounds still open and told by monuments.
The front line is only 30 km away, it's scary, the alarms are going off again tonight, how anxious we feel.
It's impossible not to think about those who are hiding and dying even beyond the front line.
The destruction along the road to Kherson terrifies, and the lack of electricity is exhausting.
So, as volunteers for Operazione Colomba, we try to share a bit of serenity, spending an afternoon in the park with B., who at the age of 9 has lost his father in the war and is now a refugee here in Mykolaïv with his mother.
For fun we jump over the trenches in the park near the church.
They are open, bleeding wounds that remind us every minute that the war is there and cannot be hidden, but to us they look like huge underpasses dug into the sand on an ideal, warm summer beach.
We jump, run, and play acrobats.
Then we say goodbye to an entire family: the father is on leave this afternoon, and soon he'll be saying goodbye to his children and wife. Is it a goodbye or a farewell?
We are here, as the Colomba manifesto says: “because my life is as important as yours,” and so we too share our struggles, joys, anxieties, etc. with those in Italy.
Among the people with whom we shared today is O., who now lives in Boves, but that back in 2022 was with his family in the Luhans'k under attack.
O. recounts his memories of the darkness in the shelter, the torment of the sirens, his ears hurt by the explosions.
Then, he gives us a sweet piece of advice: "I remember the lack of light in the shelter, when there were heavy bombings, I would ask other people what their best and brightest childhood memories were, and this would help distract us from sad thoughts".
We'll try to do the same, O., thank you!
Goodnight Mykolaiv, tomorrow we'll go back to Kherson.
OPERAZIONE COLOMBA
