We stand at the customs for a long time: in front of us is a large passenger bus, and every person leaving the territory of Russia and entering the Donbass is subject to inspection.
A few hours of waiting here is the norm.
In 2014-2015, probably all actively writing Russian and foreign journalists visited the Donbass.
At first, they wrote about the shelling with horror of neophytes, then the notes became drier and shorter and slowly left the front pages.
But over the years, the shelling has not stopped: they either freeze, then resume with renewed vigor, and people continue to die ...
In the morning cannonade
Rostov fields are replaced by fields of Donbass imperceptibly.
The difference becomes visible only when "hills" are shown - rock dumps near coal mines.
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There are houses with broken glass along the road.
In Russia, seeing this, you usually grieve bitterly about the state of affairs in the outback, but here you involuntarily look at the empty black eye sockets next to the windows covered with brand new double-glazed windows.
There are few people: there is a curfew, and the locals are used to getting up very early and going to bed very early.
Finally, after tens of kilometers of small settlements, fields, black hills and mine outlines, the building becomes taller and denser.
Hello Donetsk, we haven't seen each other for a long time.
The Seversky Donets flows slowly, the trees have the first foliage, the Donbass Arena shines in the sun (the former main football stadium of Donetsk, which was damaged during the bombing in 2014, incompatible with operation).
Late in the evening in the galaktika mega-market there are long queues at the checkout counters.
It was opened after the DPR announced its secession from Ukraine.
There are all the main and familiar brands of clothing, cosmetics, products and building materials here.
Someone buys summer cottage inventory, someone meticulously looks at the flooring, choosing between tiles and laminate.
There are no empty shelves, there is a delivery service, bright advertisements are everywhere.
A completely ordinary shopping mall, like in any country in the world.
The only difference is payment only in cash (Russian rubles), in some supermarkets they accept cards of the local republican bank, money can also be cashed at ATMs (however, there is always a queue for them).
But Russian cards in Donbass are a useless piece of plastic.
There are, of course, “intermediaries” who cash out money from Russian cards for a commission (the range is large, from 2% to 10%, depending on supply and demand), but dollars or euros can be exchanged.
Inside the "Galaxy" there are no people with weapons, and reports of another shelling seem to be news from another world.
But in the morning we are awakened by the sounds of distant cannonade in the Gorlovka area.
We later learn that one local resident was injured.
The roofs of high-rise buildings shine in the bright spring sun, women walk with strollers, children go on an excursion in formation, wag the tails of a dog, and cherry blossoms under the windows in one day.
There is no special quarantine in Donetsk: cafes and restaurants, fitness clubs work (until the curfew, which starts at 23:00), shops sell local souvenirs - for example, postage stamps with the coats of arms of the region's cities, open-air concerts will be held in summer, a local drama theater preparing for the season.
Donbass do not hear
These days in Donetsk the forum "Unity of Russians: protection of rights and freedoms" is being held.
It was attended by State Duma deputies Aleksey Zhuravlev and Andrei Kozenko, journalists, social activists from organizations sympathetic to the DPR and LPR.
They talk about the humanitarian doctrine of the "Russian World", constantly quoting the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin that "we do not abandon our own people," and they propose to establish a new social and humanitarian program to support Russian-speaking organizations in Ukraine.
And everyone notes that Donbass is trying to be heard by the "outside" world: for example, the European Court of Human Rights, OSCE, PACE, UN, but "abroad" hears only the Ukrainian side of the tragedy.
Almost all those gathered here, including women, are recognized by Ukraine as "terrorists".
To get into this list, it is enough, for example, to be an employee of the DPR Ministry of Culture.
“Apparently, culture is now equated with terrorism,” one of the employees of this department jokes sadly in a conversation with me.
And again the spring sun, a feeling of carelessness, yellowing daffodils in the flower beds.
The main thing is to get home before curfew.
“We have repeatedly sought a truce, there were quite a few of them. But the truces were not long, some lasted literally several hours. The longest was announced in July last year; according to objective estimates, it lasted until about September. But this is not the final goal of the Minsk process. It is not enough to stop shooting, you need to understand how to coexist further, '' Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed DPR, says in an exclusive interview with RT. - We are ready to do what is possible so that the situation ends with a diplomatic settlement. Donbass knows what war is, what sacrifices are, what destruction is, what broken human destinies are - regardless of which side. War is pain, and there is nothing good about it. Therefore, Donbass does not want war, but is ready for any development of events. Sure,none of our people, of us, wants war. We know what it means to lose loved ones, but alas, it not only depends on us. Ukraine itself can decide on this desperate step, but Ukraine can be pushed to it. "
Scratched earth
Closer to the line of demarcation of broken glass and abandoned houses more and more.
Immediately beyond Makeyevka, the road is covered with round potholes, and the hills of dumps near the mines and plowed fields are adjacent to strange hillocks - former trenches.
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Many houses are not just abandoned, but turned into skeletons - only the skeletons of the walls remained, everything inside was destroyed by shells.
Sandbags are stacked on top of each other near the city objects - various administrative buildings, they cover the windows.
“Just a precautionary measure, and not 'everything is lost, getting ready to surrender,' they warn me sternly.
“Taking into account what we see, Ukraine is ready to go on the offensive at any moment.
Sitting and waiting would be the worst option for us, so certain elements of preparation become clear: this applies to bomb shelters and office buildings.
I now see in some Telegram channels that, they say, schools and kindergartens are being strengthened, they are being prepared, ostensibly for battles.
Look, no one is going to use schools and kindergartens for shooting fights.
Administrative buildings at some stages, if Ukraine goes on the offensive, will be involved, this is within the competence of the territorial defense headquarters, ”explains Denis Pushilin.
10 kilometers from the demarcation line - fresh trenches and people in khaki clothes and camouflage, checkpoints.
On stops and buildings of settlements, there are inscriptions: “DPR”, “We chose Russia!”, “Thank you grandfather for the Victory!”, Graffiti in the form of St. George ribbons and black-blue-red flags.
Small settlements around Gorlovka, which stand on the line of contact - the settlement of the Gagarin mine, the settlement of mine 6/7, the settlement of Zaitsevo (divided into two parts, the southern part in the unrecognized DPR, the northern one in Ukraine) - every day appear in news reports about shelling.
For Thursday, April 22, Gorlovskoe direction: “120 mm mortars - 3 times (29 min);
mortars 82 mm - 1 time (3 mines);
ATGM - 2 missiles;
RPG LNG - 1 time (3 grenades);
small arms - 1 time ".
Marina, a resident of the village of mine 6/7, meets us at the destroyed school.
She says that the ceasefire announced last summer encouraged people, “all their houses were patched up,” but shelling has resumed in the past two months.
“They shoot every day,” she says.
“When they don’t shoot, it’s already restless - as if you are waiting for something all the time”.
Several dozen people remained in the village.
Someone lives permanently, someone comes during the day to clean the house, to dig up a vegetable garden.
Marina herself and her husband are not going to leave the village.
“Tell me where?
This is where?
Everyone says: "Why don't you leave?"
We drove out.
For a month.
There was a pretty penny for soul, we rolled them, we need to live somewhere, and eat something, and we returned home, ”she explains.
She speaks about the move in the same way as people in Donetsk, Gorlovka and all other cities and towns: “These are our houses, we grew up here, we raised our children here.
And why should I go somewhere from my house, from my land, why? "
And she begins to cry: “We thought that we would come to an agreement, everything would be fine, there will come a moment that everything will work out and everything will be fine.
People who have not experienced this situation, they will not understand anything.
Believe me, guys, I don’t want anything, so “I want a car, I want something else” - nothing.
Peace.
Give me peace, we will not ask for anything else. "
Children of war
From Horlivka to Uglegorsk about 20 kilometers in a straight line.
In 2014-2015, there were fierce battles right in the city.
At first, for several months, the Ukrainian anti-terrorist operation forces stormed Uglegorsk, and in August the city came under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but in late January - early February 2015, the city returned under the control of the DPR.
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"DNR" and "Russia" - these two inscriptions on the concrete fence at the entrance to Uglegorsk are separated by a hole from the shell.
All houses are in familiar potholes.
Together with the assistants of the local children's ombudsman, Eleonora Fedorenko, we visit several orphanages.
"Pupils of the boarding school for children with disabilities, Uglegorsk"
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The first one is in Uglegorsk.
Here, in a boarding school for children with special needs, there are more than one hundred pupils aged from 6 to 17 years old.
The old building of the orphanage is grinning at the roof torn by shells.
Nearby, a new building greets us with bright green, from grassy to dark, walls.
Children pour out, to whom we pass boxes with felt-tip pens, paints, various stationery for crafts.
"Wow, blue tractor!"
- the guy hugs a box of gouache with typewriters on the cover.
The teachers tell us that all the current pupils of the boarding school are new.
Those children who were here before them left for the camp in the summer of 2014, and when Uglegorsk came under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they were sent to another boarding school, on the territory of Ukraine.
And in this boarding school then they set up a barracks.
The teachers had to flee the city early in the morning.
"Irina Maglis, head teacher of boarding school No. 6 in Uglegorsk"
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“Good people called me at five in the morning, the day after Ukraine came here.
They told me to run right now that tomorrow they would "come" for me.
And I ran at 5 am on the road to Yenakiyevo, walked, in what I jumped out, to the city itself (just over 10 km. -
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).
Then I helped in the kitchen in Gorlovka as much as I could, ”says Irina, the head teacher of the boarding school.
She was threatened with very big trouble, if she fell into the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Irina helped prepare the DPR self-determination referendum in the spring of 2014.
Now the teachers have returned and are putting their orphanage back together piece by piece.
Here is a ping-pong table - a gift from some kind people.
Here are other kind people who presented the pupils with fish, as well as live rabbits, hamsters and even parrots.
Classroom walls are freshly painted in pastel colors: peach, pink, azure.
There is brand new furniture.
And the simulators in the gym, the closet and the teacher's table in one of the classrooms are old, they were “saved”.
Up to the contact line, where there was shelling tonight, nothing at all from here.
But children do not wake up from shelling: they are used to it.
Teenagers from the Uglegorsk orphanage-boarding school still remember the pre-war time, but children from the Republican specialized children's homes in Makeyevka and Donetsk do not know peaceful life.
In each of these orphanages, there are inmates who are from one to four years old.
Some are orphans, but most are children temporarily left without parental care, often at the request of the father and mother themselves.
The head physician of a children's home in Donetsk tells me that they are quite willing to take children under guardianship or for adoption: on average, they have about 90 pupils, 20-30 of them find families every year, but many then return to their parents who manage to solve their problems, while children are in such institutions.
We say goodbye to the head physician of the orphanage in Makeyevka, go out, and I see from the side, right on the wall of the institution, an arrow somewhere to the side and the inscription: “Shelter”.
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Saur-grave
One of the popular souvenirs in the DPR is postage stamps with local symbols, monuments and landmarks.
Sometimes monuments exist only on stamps.
For example, Saur-grave, a mound in the Miners' district.
In 1943, bloody battles were fought for this height, and after the victory, a monument was erected on this mound to the memory of 23,238 soldiers and officers of the 5th Shock Army.
In 1967, the mound was crowned with an impressive monument - an obelisk, inside which there was a room of military glory.
In front of the obelisk there was a monument to a Soviet soldier, at whose feet an eternal flame was burning.
Now the bronze soldier is buried under the obelisk.
In the summer of 2014, there were fierce battles for the height between the DPR and the armed forces of Ukraine.
During one of the shellings, the obelisk collapsed, burying the statue and eternal fire under it.
We walk there along the cut stone steps past the surviving fragments of the memorial in honor of the soldiers of the infantry, tank forces, artillery and aviation - all in black holes from bullets.
At the foot of the memorial are recent graves.
The date of birth on one of the gravestones catches my eye: 1991.
The year of death is 2014.
From the statue of a soldier, only a boot remained on the surface, and a bronze palm is visible in the opening of the slabs of the collapsed obelisk.
A banner flies in the wind over the graves, a bell sways, it's very windy.
From the height of Saur-grave one can see the hills of Donbass.
On the other hand, on the horizon - Russia.
In good weather, the Sea of Azov shines there.