Ukraine War Day #196: Berdyansk

Dear Readers:

Today I have this sort of travelogue piece from KP, the reporter is Oleg Adamovich. Oleg writes that he never visited the Donbass region before, so this was a treat for him. Especially since the city of Berdyansk is not a horror story, unlike, say, Mariupol. This was a city that the Russian army took fairly early in the war and without any resistance, so is still intact. Adamovich paints a rather rosy picture of the town and its inhabitants.

Bardin’s car, after the bomb exploded.

Having said that, there is a dark side, unfortunately. Just yesterday we had horrific news about another Ukrainian terrorist attack, a car-bombing again, precisely in the town of Berdyansk. The attack was directed against a man named Artyom Bardin, who is called the “Commendant” of Berdyansk. I think that means he is in charge of the Allied military units stationed there. He reports to Vladimir Rogov, who heads the Military-Civilian Soviet in that portion of Zaporozhie which is controlled by the Russians. Initially Rogov reported that Bardin had perished in the bombing, but later amended his story: “Bardin is in the ICU, struggling for his life. Thank goodness he is still alive,” Rogov told the reporter. “We verified that the attack was directed specifically at him. The street where his car was parked, is rather well guarded, but it’s not a completely closed perimeter. I myself park there a lot, and I always check my car very carefully before starting it.”

Moving on to the happier story.

Oleg Adamovich: I never visited the Donbass before, nor Zaporozhie. Therefore I could not say no to the invitation to travel with a group of foreign journalists on an excursion through the liberated territories.

Today we are on the shore of the Azov Sea. Berdyansk.

This city in the liberated portion of Zaporozhie Oblast, did not suffer at all during the time of the special Operation. And, unlike Donetsk, it is not being shelled. In this famous pre-revolutionary resort town one can observe how smoothly the government is transitioning from Ukrainian to Russian.

We Are One People

The local authorities, by the way, do not spare any expenses for agitprop. There are practically no commercial billboards on the streets any more, but they have been replaced by clusters of political billboards carrying slogans such as: “Russia — Means Happiness” and “We are one people”. On just one of the town squares I counted over a dozen such placards. And at the entrance to the city stands a new poster with the Russian tricolor: “Berdyansk. Russia Forever!”

[yalensis: This must drive the Ukrainian Nationalists nuts. But all they can do is gnash their teeth and plant car bombs, they don’t have the army to re-take…]

Even the automobiles contribute to the agitprop. Every second car we see has the symbol Z taped on, or flies the Russian flag. The tiny Ukrainian flag symbol on the license plates, people have either scribbled over with magic marker, or have taped over it with the Russian tricolor.

Agitprop posters in the town square.

Everybody is trying to obtain a Russian passport. People stand in lines from the earliest hours of the morning, wishing to apply for Russian citizenship. Unfortunately, due to a poor internet, there is no online system in Berdyansk.

Snezhana Usova works in the passport office: “You have to understand that the old [Ukrainian] documents don’t work for anything any more: You can’t use them to register your car, nor purchase a flat. We accept these [old] documents from people, take their fingerprints, and then after about a month and half the new documents arrive from Russia.”

[yalensis: This leaves people in a vulnerable position for that period of time, they just turned in all the papers they had, and now they have nothing in the way of paperwork, just hoping for the Russian bureaucracy to come through eventually.]

The pensioners are complaining that Kiev will shortly stop paying their pensions. But without a Russian passport, they can’t receive a pension from Moscow either.

Alexander Saulenko is the Mayor of Berdyansk: “We have around 100,000 people living in our city. In one day we receive up to 200-250 applications for passports. Physically we just can’t keep up! I think after 6 months to a year, this will all be sorted out, and we will have been able to provide documents to everyone who wants one. We are currently in the process of opening a third passport office.”

And Russian License Plates…

The traffic police of Berdyansk have already started to issue license plates with Russian numbers. This resort town has been given the Regional code of 185. In the rest of the Zaporozhie Oblast one encounters the numbers 182 and 184.

The process is the same as in Russia: You walk into the office, fill out a form, they give you a ticket number, and you wait. For one to two hours. There is a difference though: officially you can keep your old Ukrainian license plate number, if you want to. In fact, it gets even better: You are allowed to have two license plates, one Ukrainian, one Russian. With one plate, it’s easier to cross into Ukraine; with the other, into Russia. But be aware: Anybody who doesn’t yet have a driver’s license — you’re out of luck, it’s impossible to get one now, because they are not giving driving tests any more.

A local resident switches her license plate.

The local Police Department of Berdyansk, have seen a rise in their status. They have also started to wear Russian uniforms. However, technically they report neither to Ukraine nor to Russia. Formally they are independent. A local cop talked to Oleg: “Currently around 30% of our police are old-timers who worked under the Ukrainian regime. The rest are new. I myself graduated from a Machine-Building Technical College. But this past summer I saw that they were recruiting for the police, so I went and applied. Every evening we have to attend courses. We are studying the Russian laws. There are rumors that they will send us to Russia to finish our training. And then there will be a final attestation, who passes and who doesn’t. But before any of that can even happen, there is supposed to be a referendum, then we will decide whether indeed we will be with Russia or not.”

The recruitment of cadres continues at full speed in all specialties. While he was travelling around, the reporter, Oleg, kept getting text messages from DNR Ministries: They are seeking to recruit anybody who has a legal background. In another text, somebody is looking to hire notaries…

But What About The Referendum?

Back to the Mayor’s office: Saulenko dishes that the final date for the Referendum has not yet been decided. People on the street say that the main point of the referendum is just to fix which system the city will belong to. There is even a tiny chance that people will vote to stay with the Ukraine; however, most of the people Oleg questioned, say they will vote “Yes” for Russia. Without this promised referendum, the town is still in limbo and they can’t move forward with changing the legal codex. Everybody in on pins and needles: Even the stores have stopped printing receipts, because it is not entirely clear what the tax situation is going to be in the future.

It is expected that the Kiev regime will attempt to interfere with the voting. Recently some diversionaries blew up one of the voting stations.

Education Can’t Wait

The schools can’t stay in limbo, however. Education is too important for that. September 1 rolled around, the schools opened, and already started teaching according to the Russian curriculum, along with Russian textbooks and educational materials.

School already started for these youngsters in the kindergarten.

Alina Kirilenko is the administrator of the Berdyansk Kindergarten: “Previously we had forced Ukrainization. According to the law we were only allowed to instruct in the Ukrainian language. Due to this, we weren’t even able to read some fairy tales to the children, they simply wouldn’t have understood the meaning [in translation]. We also suffered from insufficient proficiency in Ukrainian. But now the children will be allowed to communicate in whatever language is more comfortable for them. We are not going to forbid anybody from communicating in Ukrainian. We leave it for the parents to decide.”

Galina Shchadurina heads the Municipal Office for Education: “Only 12% of the schools will continue to instruct in Ukrainian. We allowed to parents themselves to vote and decide on this, which language of instruction to use. However, when we were looking through the old [Ukrainian] materials, we found some horrific stuff. For example, a stack of book reports where the children had been forced to write that Bandera and Shukhevych were heroes.”

In the liberated territories the word “incorrect” has acquired a special usage. For example, this is the diplomatic way they write about Ukrainian Nationalism: “Incorrect views, incorrect politics..” and so on.

We Need Tourists From Moscow!

If the local government is still waiting for the formality of a referendum, the local stores are not holding back: the shelves are already filled with Russian product. The reporter, Oleg, wandered in a supermarket and saw Russian vodka on the shelves!

One can still pay in [Ukainian] hryvnas, as well as rubles. The rate is 1.5 ruble to one hryvna.

There is a big problem with the local economy: Thanks to the Special Operation, the summer tourist season was a bust, and the locals are ticked off about this. They pride themselves on what they have to offer: The Azov Sea, cheap fruits, healing mud baths. Normally in August/September the beaches are crowded with people packed like sardines; but this year there is nobody.

Mayor Saulenko: “All our hopes are on next year. We are hoping that everything has settled down by then, and that we will see hoards of tourists from Moscow.”

For the time being, the locals are told to just wait and hang in there. The government is providing subsidies to businesses, and even paying the wages to private companies, if they will hire the unemployed. There is a lot of work to do, for example in the Service and Building industries. A worker can sign up to work for a private company, but his wages will be paid by the government. This is a win-win situation: the businesses get the support, and people get jobs.

This situation attracts workers even from the Ukraine-controlled territories. Every day around 1000-1500 cars cross over from Ukraine into the Russian-controlled territories. Compare this to around 200-300 cars daily in the other direction.

Ukrainians seeking to cross have it tough, though: On the Ukrainian side of the border they are egregiously robbed by the border guards. The bribes are expensive, they might be as high as 4,000 hryvnas for a woman or child. Men have to pay in [American] dollars, as much as $1000 bucks just to cross over into Russian-controlled territory. But it’s worth it for many of them: They are fleeing from conscription.