“Key Keeper” a New Profession in Wartime Ukraine

Yevgen Yelpetyforov counts the keys to the houses given to him by friends who have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion to take care of them. "There are 19 in all," he says.

Since the start of the war, Yevgen, a 37-year-old biologist who works in gardening to make ends meet, has added another profession to his resume...a key keeper.

In recent months, he has been scouring the devastated Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, tending to the homes and plants abandoned by their owners when they fled for their lives.

"After the two cities were liberated, many of my acquaintances asked me to come to see if their homes were still intact, and if their doors and windows were still there," he told AFP.

Yevgin walks around homes and turns on lights to keep thieves out, removes broken glass, sends collectibles to owners, or does some gardening.

Soon the keys began to pile up.

Friends "began to mail it or I picked it up from a neighbor or took it from under the doormat," Yevgen explains.

Some keys are handed over with Ben or Chocolate as a gesture of gratitude as Yevgen does so generously.

Friends returning home often find a small gift from him, a bouquet of flowers or fruit, to make them feel "happy".

“If I were in their place, they would have treated me the same," Yevgen says.

These are my friends, all the keys I have are from people I know.”

But sometimes that job can be nasty, literally, as the "hardest part" is removing spoiled food from refrigerators and freezers left for weeks without electricity.

"The smell is so bad that you may pass out," Yevgen says.

So he is very grateful to someone who gave him a gas mask from the Soviet era.

Even after thorough cleaning, the apartments still need to be ventilated several times because “the smell stays for a week or two.”

In Bucha, Yevgen parks in front of a new apartment complex with most of his apartment windows smashed and charred vehicles left with only their metal frames left.

Yevgen spent time in a small apartment that was enough to water the plants.

The only sign of war was a note on the wall left by Russian soldiers saying "Sorry for the intrusion," and the door had to be changed, like most other doors on this floor.

But it seems that this "job" is not the preserve of Yevgen. Oleksandr Forman, who was an actor before the war, spent April working as a key keeper, looking after six apartments in Kyiv abandoned by his friends.

"I was lucky," he says.

I was not shot and no missiles landed near me.”

By providing this assistance, "I felt that I was fulfilling my duty to those who suffered."

Back in Erbin, Yevgen filmed some potted plants on his phone in a two-story house overlooking a school whose roof he blew up.

The video will be sent to home owners who are currently abroad.

At his next stop, workers were laying a new roof for a house with burnt walls.

He paused to pay attention to an evergreen bush that had been badly burned by the fire.

“It reminds me of the Ukrainian people," Yevgen says.

On the one hand she is burnt, and on the other she has the strength to go on living.”

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