Every morning in Irpin, Ukraine, hundreds of people wait patiently, laptops under their arms, for the opening of the municipal library to escape, for a few hours, from power and internet cuts due to Russian bombardments.
As soon as the doors open, the small crowd rushes to find a seat in the reading room or in the children's book section, which have turned into workspaces.
When the Russian army withdrew from Irpin at the end of March-beginning of April, it left behind dozens of gutted buildings and a traumatized population.
GENYA SAVILOV / AFP
Powered by its generator, the library has become an oasis in Irpin, a town near kyiv that experienced a particularly brutal and deadly occupation at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, before Russian soldiers were forced to retreat in the spring.
Students and professionals parade there to work and recharge their batteries, but there are also classrooms and psychotherapists' offices.
Freelancers rub shoulders, smoking cappuccino in hand, and college students who have come to take a course on “Ukrainian musical culture”.
heart of the city
Even Saint Nicolas -Svaty Mykolaï-, who in December brings gifts to little Ukrainians, holds an audience here, and welcomes toddlers who want to be photographed in his company.
"The library touches all aspects of people's lives,"
sums up Ievguénia Antoniouk, from the city council.
“As soon as the library reopened, we were able to give people the opportunity to charge their phones, to spend the day in the warmth to observe the reconstruction”
, she says.
When the Russian army withdrew from Irpin at the end of March-beginning of April, it left behind the corpses of hundreds of civilians, the carcasses of dozens of gutted buildings and a traumatized population.
Today, after more than ten months of war, the electricity supply there is uncertain, especially since since October and a series of military setbacks, Russia has concentrated its firepower to destroy Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Olena Tsyganenko, 75, has run the library for four decades and proudly remembers that her building once housed the only photocopier in town.
“We are in the heart of the city, on the central square, and we have always been popular
,” she says, noting, not without pride, that before the advent of the internet, the rooms
“were full of readers”.
But the library had never been so crowded as it is today.
Outside, efforts are made to repair the least damaged buildings as quickly as possible in order to make them habitable before the severe cold.
The library has largely escaped the destruction caused by the fighting, only some of its windows having been smashed.
Victoria Voskressova lived through the occupation and saw her neighbors' houses on fire.
If she came to the library on this December day, it was so that her seven-year-old daughter Maria could visit Saint Nicolas.
Change the world
"He gave us sweets, people come with their children for that, to experience something positive,"
she said.
This resilience of the population of Irpin, a "Hero" city in the eyes of the Ukrainian authorities, has also been immortalized, on one of the many charred buildings in the city, by Banksy, the famous British artist.
We see a young gymnast, neck brace and ribbon in hand, performing a rhythmic gymnastics number.
On one of the many charred buildings in the city, a work by Banksy, the famous British artist.
GENYA SAVILOV / AFP
Sergei Martyniouk, who fought in Irpin against the Russians, came to the city library to present his book, a collection entitled
“13 poems or the Battle for Irpin changed the world”.
"Irpin is recovering
," he told AFP.
According to him, the library plays a key role in giving the inhabitants this feeling of “invincibility” of the city.
Because the important thing is that the inhabitants can "work, feel normal", he summarizes.
