Kostiantynivka. Santurynivka. Newcomers had it good there.
The trip east on the intercity express is fast, comfortable, and... boring.
In the neon-lighted hi-tech railcar, everything is measured, sanitized, muted, and even the steward half-whispers when offering us coffee.
The train cuts quietly past frost-covered trees and fields, the landscape is generally the same as elsewhere in Europe, tastefully dressed passengers are focused on their iPads, iPhones, and Samsung phones, and only three soldiers quietly arguing about politics look out of place in this modern burgher atmosphere...
The trip would look more interesting from an economy class car’s berth. It would take longer, though. It would be noisier, with usual foul smell of the Ukrainian railways, and signs of destination would appear in the car well before arrival.
Here, meanwhile, when the express will make its final stop, and its doors will open with a swishing sound, one cannot help but expect to see some kind of Prague, Milan, Lyon, Lviv, or Zhmerynka at least.
Definitely, not the frontline city of Kostiantynivka...
Comfort and convenience of the intercity express is ruthlessly clashing with its destination. And that would be my only complaint to be entered in the book of complaints and suggestions offered by the Ukrainian Railways Corporation.
The route of this express that was once launched to run to the proud Donetsk terminates in the frontline zone now.
FORMER HOUSE OF CULTURE IN THE CHEMISTS’ PARK
I wonder if the occupiers have a book of complaints and suggestions too...
This fast and generally convenient train reflects peaceful life better than anything else. It was built with comfort and calm in mind.
The railcar monitor silently “counts” infrequent stops, displays ads and “inscribes” rules of conduct.
“Getting in and out of the cars is allowed only when the train is standing still.”
Myrhorod.
“It is forbidden to damage upholstery in the cars...”
Poltava.
“Embarkation and disembarkation will be allowed in all cars. The stop will last one minute.”
Lozova.
“According to paragraph 37.2 of the Passenger Transportation Rules, one may not take a seat in the car except in accordance with the number indicated on the ticket...”
And then:
“To obtain the residence permit for Slovenia, please call…”
“Bukovel invites you...”
“THE MONUMENT TO CHOCOLATE CANDY” NEAR KOSTIANTYNIVKA ZINC REFINERY
“From December 17 in all cinemas of the nation, Star Wars...”
Sloviansk.
Kramatorsk.
Druzhkivka.
Kostiantynivka.
“Welcome to the war...”
***
Anyone who will disembark at Kostiantynivka’s central station will be sure that the city lived through some fierce fighting.
Twenty-five years ago, there were 25 plants in the city. The biggest of them had 45 workshops.
It is a huge area of post-industrial Armageddon now. In some places, it is almost lunar landscape or scenes from Tim Burton’s films.
REMNANTS OF A CHEMICAL PLANT
Volodymyr Berezin, a local activist and ecologist, conducts guided tours here. He laughs when tourists attribute this destruction to the Ukrainian-Russian war that is thundering nearby.
Such amount of destruction requires orderly approach and a lot of time. Russians and their local henchmen lacked both.
The occupiers and collaborators left the city almost without a fight, there was only a firefight near the TV tower...
Abandoned factories and plants are commonplace in Ukraine, but such concentration and quantity is hardly present anywhere else. It is a real treat for photographers who like post-apocalyptic landscapes.
The Kryvy Torets River divides Kostiantynivka in half. This is essentially its axis. The plants stretched on both sides of the river and reached the city center.
No visitor will overlook the history of industrial decline now.
And it pleases Berezin. The remains of plants are already densely overgrown with grass and trees. “Here is another good example of how nature ultimately comes back,” he said. “Do you see these firs? They were once planted near plant office buildings as ornamental trees. The office is gone and no brick is left of it. The firs, meanwhile, they are beautiful!” Berezin continued.
He plans to develop his guided tours into a coherent system. The largest of them will be named “Miracles and Horrors of the Donbas.” It will involve the tourists wandering amid ruined plants for a day, and then moving to the nearby Kleban-Byk nature reserve. They will also get to know that this locality has the highest content of heavy metals in the soil anywhere in the country, and that local girls did not wear nylon stockings in the bygone industrial age, because they disintegrated on contact with the chemicals-saturated air, and then, the tourists will listen to the silence of beautiful Donetsk steppe...
“It is deep ecology, is not it?” our guide laughs.
***
Kostiantynivka’s founder was Panteleimon Nomikosov, an ethnic Greek. He named it after one of his sons.
One of the settlements within the city’s limits, now a neighborhood of it, is called Santurynivka, and local historians believe that Greeks probably had something to do with it as well, perhaps some locality in Greece inspired them, perhaps it was even the famous island of Santorini.
It was that island that the legend says emerged from a clod of dirt given to the Argonauts by god Triton.
The city’s history is rich in newcomers overall. However, they came here drawn less by its aboveground beauty and more by its underground riches. These include coal, ore, and salt. Entire colonies of Dutch, French, and other Europeans had their own exclusive salt mines in the neighboring Bakhmut.
However, the economic interest of foreigners had little aboveground impact, except for slag heaps that mark local landscapes now.
They serve as tactically important high ground in the ongoing war. Back in the difficult 1930s, hungry people dug holes and hid in them.
That is all what can be said about the foreign impact, while the land itself has been Ukrainian for ages, Berezin said.
Why?
Khortytsia Island is very close to it...
(To be continued)
