Day 5. Delivering aid today to Chernihiv’s maternity hospital showed that in war, as well as each newborn being a ‘victory, there is a woman, smiling, tired, and strong who has managed to give birth despite two years of Russian attacks on civilians. Our group also went down into the hospital’s bunker where 137 babies were birthed in 2022. It was an unforgettable and highly emotional start to our distribution of British and Essex aid.
To get to Ukraine, we drove through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Poland arriving last night. Today was the first day of distributing aid – in many ways the fruition of months of fundraising since the last Harwich Ukraine Support Project trip to Ukraine in Christmas 2023.
I started today a bit later at 9am, unlike our previous early 06.30 starts, and very quickly the volunteers of the Revival Centre, which receives the aid, the Harwich Ukraine Support Project, UK-aid, and TEECH are all busy working together.
The first van was unloaded, with colourful children’s toys being passed out in a human chain, and slid down to the basement of the centre before being piled up high. The aid will be distributed to nearby villages soon. The toys are actually from a nursery near Felsted, Essex which closed down in the pandemic – piles of cheerful pink and blue plastic which would otherwise have been wasted.
Volunteers joked the van is like a Tardis with the sheer volume of sanitary pads, toilet rolls, wipes, and boxes of clothes – all packed in Harwich – inside. Immediately after the van was unloaded, we drove to Chernihiv’s maternity hospital which was only a stone’s throw away.
While unloading dozens of carrier-cots at the huge hospital reception, a siren started to blare. At first I thought it was the mobile phone air-raid warning app, but it was physical – likely from a tall building nearby. With only one or two looks exchanged, the human chain passing the cots continued. They each weight 10kg because they are filled with goods that help a mother in her first weeks of motherhood when she has next to nothing. Later, the alarm was briefly mentioned but as we met the hospital’s director it was quickly forgotten.
The hospital deals with about 5000 births a year, and today there were 12 young mothers who we could hand-deliver the carrier cots to. Asking each time for permission to enter and film, in some rooms I saw one women cradled to one side in a private moment of reflection, their small baby also lying on the hospital bed. One mother, Kayta, who had just given birth to a baby girl called Olivia, was thrilled to have the cots’ goods for herself – particularly the chocolate! It was sobering that only one of the 12 had their partner present.
I was surprised and grateful to be asked to deliver a cot myself. Mother Aleni’s baby boy was only born on two nights ago, and had yet to be named – the same with several of the 12 babies we visited. Other parents had called their children British names Mark and Elizabeth, which we all politely complimented. It was very emotional experience. Seeing the mothers go through the contents of the cots, in the same way the volunteers I visited on Monday in Harwich had, was another profound moment. I got to deliver a cot first-hand, but it is all down to people like the Bradfield and Grantham village knitters – and all the volunteers who made each cot valuable and helpful.
Once delivered, our group – about half the volunteers – were taken on an equally emotional part of the tour. To the underground bunker of the hospital where doctors, nurses and mothers stayed for 42 days over March 2022 when Russian forces laid siege to Chernihiv at the start of the full-scale invasion.
Over 102 mothers hid in the bunker at one time – some mothers were sent out and replaced – and 137 babies including two triplets and three sets of twins were birthed in what was essentially a basement. Doctors and nurses also hid in the bunker. I also found out that other mothers were sent to the Revival Centre – giving birth and being cared for in the basement level where aid is now being temporarily stored.
During the siege, the hospital was stuck between a Russian tank and Ukrainian tank – which were only 200 metres away. So mothers were giving birth to the sounds of war – but they were secure in the steel-sealed bunker below ground. The hospital was a casualty of war mostly because the main road out of Chernihiv – of strategic importance – is only 300 metres away from the building.
With no internet or way to communicate, the bunker had a chalk board which, in the top corner, had the date of liberation next to 42 – the number of days they were in the bunker. To the side was the birthing operating room, with a birthing bath and other old, but not ancient, equipment. We all said that stepping into the bunker was like being in a history museum from WW2, not the 21st century or just two years ago.
There were stacks of cutlery and crockery with United Nations logo on them. I also discovered the bunker is being upgraded by the UN so it is nuclear-bomb proof. A chilling thought, but also in a strange way, after this morning’s events, comforting.
Lunch was no afterthought today. ‘Dr P’, 87, who runs the Revival Centre alongside his wife Dr Natalia, always takes volunteers to his favourite restaurant. It’s an Italian restaurant with a large poster from the Godfather which is also underground, again protected.
While we chose a variety of meat – turkey, beef, chicken as well as fish, and pizzas – Dr P showed us his phone. Written in Ukrainian I could only understand the image – a large missile. Through translation, Dr P explained these are the largest ever civilian missile to be used in the war. 1500 kg of explosives detonated in neighbouring Sumy oblast last night. A sobering few minutes of discussion followed, before we chatted about our day.
Right now I am sitting outside a house in the middle of Chernihiv. We have just visited 14-year-old twins, their mother and their grandmother. I was struck by how big the hugs were for regular visitors Alan, Tony, and Romeo by both children and family. Having alerted them at noon, they cooked up a storm of cakes and now the people-carrier van is being loaded with meringues and exquisite frosting on gingerbread.
The two boys, who have inherited muscular dystrophy, told me about a great poet called Taras Chevchenko and also connected me to WiFi so I could read Taras’ page. The boys go to school, which is visible from our window, and was damaged in the war. Its windows were recently replaced. They also go to the Revival Centre to have computer lessons including learning Python as well as health therapies.
I have yet to have my proper tour of the Revival Centre but already I am learning how it connects to Chernihiv which, despite being a city the size of Newcastle, feels like a community. Later today I will meet another person who the British volunteers always go and see – and have been friends with since the 2000s. Life-long aid.
