With its pink walls, the store offers a bit of everything, from cheese to cigarettes to shampoo. One of the few establishments still open in Chassiv Iar, near the front line in Ukraine, it is a lifeline for locals.
Chassiv Iar is about ten kilometers west of Bakhmout, the epicenter of fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the east of the country. The city, heavily bombarded, could be the next to fall if Bakhmout were to be taken by Moscow.
Inside, saleswoman Lilia, 49, serves a stream of customers despite the sounds of gunfire coming from both sides of the front. In Chassiv Iar, the inhabitants have neither running water, nor gas, nor electricity.
They receive basic foodstuffs and bottled water as humanitarian aid, but “the most popular product is water”, says Artem, the store manager.
Most of the customers are elderly people, bundled up in thick coats on a snowy day, and shopping parsimoniously.
“Do you have 10 hryvnia (25 euro cents) cottage cheese bars? How much are Romachka chocolate candies (chamomile in Ukrainian)? How much are the cheapest ones?” asks an elderly woman wearing a headscarf and a heavy coat.
“The grocery store in our village was destroyed by the bombardments, so I have to come here,” explains a man.
“This is the last grocery store in Chassiv Iar. I come from a long way, from the Canal Zone,” said one woman, referring to a heavily bombed part of the city.
Store manager Artem estimates that there are no more than 500 residents left in the town, mostly elderly people who have no family elsewhere.
He helps customers who don’t have cash by taking their bank card and PIN to a nearby town with an ATM to withdraw cash.
He also goes to a pharmacy to buy their medicine, without charging them for the time he spends doing so.
“Those who profit from war are not very good people,” he says.
“People have to help each other. Before the war, maybe we didn’t talk to each other. Since the start of the war, we’ve all been friendlier,” adds the manager.
Lilia agrees: “We help our fellow citizens and we smile at each other. They thank us and it’s very nice to hear that”.
Artem estimates that 70% of his customers are Ukrainian soldiers, who come with guns on their backs.
One of them puts down a heavy box of ammunition while shopping.
“I buy pies, water, sausages and lighters here,” says another soldier, smoking outside with a woolen cap on his head, complaining that boxes of lighters are overpriced at 90 hryvnias (2.25 euros).
Some soldiers go out to pay online using the army internet. They then show a confirmation message.
Artem knocks on the counter talking about his hatred of the war, which destroyed his apartment in town. “You were born here, you studied here, you met your love here, and the war takes you and tears everything apart,” he says.
This 30-year-old man, dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants, tends to the shop owned by his aunt, who has moved out of town. He spends the night in another city and leaves as soon as the store closes at 3 p.m.
“It’s scary. There were several knocks in front of the store,” says Artem.
Groomed hair, pink lipstick and earrings, the cashier Lilia, she lives nearby: “First of all, I don’t have any money (to leave). And then, the house, it’s is home”.
Artem and his assistant Oleksiï bring a tray of fried potatoes, sold for 20 hryvnia (0.50 euro cents), which they have collected from a nearby village.
The supplier refused to come to Chassiv Iar and Artyom had to stop his car on the way because of the shelling.
Many delivery people “are afraid to come here”, he explains, after several of their vehicles were damaged.
“Not everyone wants to lose their life in a few minutes,” he says.
31/03/2023 11:51:48 – Tchassiv Iar (Ukraine) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP