issue #1 OCTOBER 10TH, UKRAINE -
An American in Lviv when the missiles hit.
It may have been a deep rumbling boom that startled me from my dreams. I can’t recall for sure. But I do know that all the electronics in the apartment were going haywire at 8:20am. I really didn’t want to get up, but the refrigerator was groaning off and on, the oven timer was beeping incessantly, and my computer was dinging each time the power flickered. That’s what finally dragged me from the bed - the fear of ruining my hard-drive. I’d heard somewhere that that can happen if the power continuously cuts out while your computer is plugged in.
I stumbled into the kitchen wiping sleep from eyes, figuring that someone was doing renovation work in the apartment building and messing with the electricity. The first important ritual of the day (making coffee) began like normal. But when I tried to turn on the water I got nothing but a piddly drop. That annoyed me. It’s customary in our building to warn the neighbors if any renovation work will affect the electricity or water, so that we can all plan around it. No-one warned me they were going to turn off the power and water. And without wifi it was disconcerting not being able to check the news - even more disconcerting during a war when the power and water are out and you can’t help but to think the worst. But whatever, I told myself, these things happen. I’ll just load up my computer bag and head downtown, work in a coffeeshop for a little while, and hopefully by the time I get home they’ll have finished and the power will be back on.
I tried to make sense of my messy morning hair (finally said screw it and put on a hat), threw on the computer bag and headed out. I stepped out of the courtyard and onto the normally chaotic street (we live downtown) and immediately sensed that something wasn’t right. The street out front is usually teeming with people at all hours - except during wartime curfew, of course (11pm - 5am). But on October 10th at nine in the morning it felt like no one was around. Again I rationalized to myself, hey, it’s fairly early on a Monday so probably not too weird, I guess.
As I walked nearer to the old city center, where all the best coffee shops are, I got an ominous sense that something was truly off. There were a lot more soldiers walking around than usual, and a lot fewer pedestrians. Anxiety kicked in - no water, no electricity or internet, maybe it really was an attack on the city? I rounded a bend and there were two electric trolleys stopped in the middle of the road, devoid of passengers. Rounded another bend and there were three electric buses also stopped in the middle of the road. I observed the few people around me were glued to their phones, or holding them up as if trying to catch a signal. (Does holding your phone at arms length even make a difference?)
Then I detected what was really making the city feel weird. There was no power anywhere at all - every store downtown was dark and silent. A few had their doors flung open to try and harness some sunlight. But most were still shuttered and had never opened that day. I knew my plan to get some work done was doomed. In fact at that point I supposed I probably wouldn’t even be able to catch a wifi signal to figure out what the hell was going on.
I decided to resort to the “holding-the-phone-at-arms-length-to-fish-for-a-signal” technique that everyone else was doing and actually snagged a few bars of free city wifi near a government building. They must have had a generator running. I didn’t really feel safe standing near a government building when I suspected we were in the middle of an air raid, but I knew it offered my only hope of obtaining some details about the situation. I pulled in just enough wifi to load up the N.Y. Times website and read that Russia was currently in the process of indiscriminately bombing cities all around the country. (Later on we would learn they were deliberately targeting power infrastructure.) I knew it was in retaliation for the explosion on Putin’s favorite bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia. What I didn’t know was how far he was willing to go to get revenge. Would he level a city? Would this be the beginning of some horrifying end that we’ve all been trying to push out of our minds for the past month or two? I felt a little panic well up in my throat. I realized the power and water may be out for a while and that I was foolishly unprepared. My wife was in Poland visiting friends and would be worried sick when she read the news and couldn’t get in touch with me. I fired off a quick message to let her know I was OK, and scrolled the Times updates as quickly as I could before I lost my signal. There was no good news. Somehow I had missed the first air raid siren in the morning. (I guess like most people living in western Ukraine right now, I’ve gotten too used to them and slept right through it.)
At that point I began to mentally reprimand myself for not preparing the “go-bag” that I’d meant to put together for so long. All my important stuff was scattered about the apartment. Passport and hard drives, work materials, valuables. It could take a few hours to get everything together and what if bombs keep falling and I don’t have that long? It also occurred to me that I didn’t have any cash and it looked like all the ATM’s were down. If I needed to offer up a hefty sum to a cab driver to get me to Poland I wouldn’t even be able to do it.
Walking home I reached the top of my street, which overlooks a small part of the city and saw a huge column of black smoke rising from behind a nearby hill. I stared in disbelief. Lviv has been hit a few times throughout the invasion, but thankfully it has been mostly spared. That fact alone is why we decided to stay. But now that sense of relative safety had been shattered. I felt like I was dreaming. It was hard to envision a Russian missile streaking out of the sky and landing right there within view of my beautiful old apartment. I took a few photos with my phone, and looked around me. Very few people were even paying attention to that terrible black smoke. Did they not realize what that was? Or what it signified? Or were they all so jaded at that point that they didn’t even care? It’s hard to know. A few people saw that I was taking a photo of something, and that alone caused them to glance up and take notice of the missile strike. Most of them just raised their eyebrows slightly and walked on. People are so funny like that.
I hurried the rest of the way home and discovered with relief that the water was working, at least temporarily. I started to fill up some backup bottles and extra pots and pans but the water was dark brown. Thick with sediment. I had never seen anything like that come out of a pipe before. I shut it off immediately to avoid damaging the plumbing. I needed to decide what to do. If bombs kept falling I would need to leave - either just to the bomb shelter, or maybe even out of the country if it got really bad. I decided that for now I should compile the little bit of camping equipment we own (portable stove and gas can, headlamp and batteries, medical kit, water filter, pocketknife), thankful in that moment that I had those bits of gear in case I had to hide out in the apartment for a while. I prepared my passport and residency documentation cards and other important paperwork. I stared dumbly at all of my wife’s valuable and sentimental belongings wondering how the hell I could ever choose what to bring if I needed to run. I thought about how many suitcases I could realistically fit into a taxi (and then a train and then a plane) and what kinds of baggage fees I might incur if I brought too much. I thought about what material possessions actually matter when it comes down to a situation like this. I didn’t come up with a good answer to that one. Heirloom jewelry, maybe?
Then I decided to tackle the issue of cash. I had none in my wallet. I scrounged some drawers and came up empty. But even a little would be better than nothing, and I knew we had a big bag of coins in a closet somewhere. One of those bags that you empty your pockets and suitcases into after traveling. I knew it was a mix of different foreign currencies, but that there were a bunch of Ukrainian coins in there. I went and grabbed it and dumped it onto the table. The smell of dusty, dirty metal filled the kitchen. I began to sort. Standing hunched over the table I separated the Costa Rican coins from the Polish coins and the British pence from the American nickels and quarters and dimes. For ten minutes or so I weeded out the tarnished old Ukrainian coins before my back started to kill me from leaning over. I realized that I was acting frantically out of panic and fear. Sit the hell down, take a deep breath, and at least be comfortable while you sort the worthless coins I told myself.
After half an hour or so I had everything separated and counted. The other currencies were dumped back into the bag and I was left with a few pounds of dingy Ukrainian change. All together about seven bucks worth. At least I could buy some drinking water and maybe a little food if there was any left when the stores reopened.
But the tedious act of sorting hundreds of coins had served another hidden purpose. I was calm again. The air raid siren had also sounded, signifying the end of immediate danger. I took stock of the stuff I’d thrown together. It was more or less all ready to be packed into a suitcase if needed. But I no longer felt like running. I decided to take my chances and walk back downtown to pick up that wifi signal again to get a news update.
Word must have gotten out about the few wifi hotspots around downtown because it was packed when I got back down there. And I couldn’t find the signal. I held my arm out and “fished” all over the grid of streets in the city center and couldn’t find anything. I definitely walked miles on my hunt. Finally I gave up and decided to head home.
When I walked in the front door I was astonished to see lights blinking in the kitchen. The fridge was humming. Even the wifi router had a little flickering green light. It wasn’t much of a signal, but it was enough to load the news. I saw that Kyiv was way worse off, and other cities to the south and east had been even more devastated. I knew that I was lucky. I knew Lviv was lucky. I was amazed by and proud of the Ukrainian utility workers who had restored power and internet so quickly to this part of the city. (As of this writing there are still large areas of the country either without power altogether, or suffering rolling blackouts.) I walked back out to the street and saw that the fire had been extinguished where the missile had landed. There was no more plume of smoke. I could still feel adrenaline leftover from the morning (it would take about 36 hours to fully subside) but I felt like I could relax for a minute. I headed back inside and flopped down on the sofa, exhausted from the hours of stress. As has happened so often for the last seven months my thoughts and concerns returned to those Ukrainians nearer to the front line, whose homes and lives have been devastated. I grieved for them. October 10th would be another day that many would never forget.
~Matthew Propert
(My name is Matthew Propert and I am an American living in Lviv, Ukraine. I have many stories to share about life here and elsewhere, and am excited to tell them. This is my first newsletter on Substack. It would mean the world to me if you wanted to subscribe and join me on this journey.)
You are such a wonderful creative, my friend! Thanks for sharing and painting a picture.
Great writing, Matt. Keep it coming.