I haven’t been to Lugansk for 1 year and 2 months. And I came back just on the City Day…

There is no more brown smog. Kambrod looks like a town of homeless people. The East of Lugansk looks like the city center. The city center is not the city center any more. More Rubles in the pocket and there will be no Hryvnia in couple of months.

They clean streets in front of familiar, but empty shops and malls.

There are a lot of shops with second hand staff and even the central one. Talking about prices, “Pepsi” costs same as “Luganova” vodka. Scary color and taste of “dassi”, “massi”, “Cuban’s gardens”, “Springs of Abkhazia”, “USSR condensed milk” and other hard to remember products from Russian humanitarian aid that come by trucks via Izvarine under the convoy of Russian traffic police.

Billboards… Our home – our city – out republic, defended freedom – will build republic, never forget – never forgive… The most outstanding one was near the House of Trade Unions that took whole face of the building was saying – “Trade union needs you – you need the trade union”. The trolleybuses passing by with same banner: “We will build new country”…

Everything is good, everybody work and don’t drink Champaign for 180 UAH, they pray for human benefactors and their eyes sparkle when they see salami. When they talk about “Nazi” sooner or later they come to same conclusion “We need peace, anything else doesn’t matter. A lot of things don’t matter… This is how the city was yesterday. Yesterday it turned 220 years old.”

Katya Romashkina for Informator.lg.ua