Pictures from wartime Lviv [PHOTOS]

Friday, July 25th, the 1251st day of full-scale war. Early afternoon. The city is bustling with normal life. Suddenly, sirens begin to wail. An alarm. The piercing, monotonous sounds pierce my ears. I'm reminded of Antoni Słonimski's poem "Alarm" (written in September 1939) : "From the din and clamor/ A single sound erupts and grows,/ It circles wailingly,/ The sound of the sirens – in octaves ." From the street speakers, the message, "Citizens! Take your documents and go to shelters. Remain calm," is repeated several times. I look around and see that no one is reacting. Trams are running, shops are operating normally, restaurants are open. The war has been going on for a long time, people have gotten used to it, and besides, everyone has Telegram apps on their phones and can check which area is currently at risk of air raids, so maybe the alarm doesn't affect this district. Half an hour later, sirens announce the end of the alarm. If this scene were shown in a film without sound, no European would believe that it was filmed in a country where war is raging.

From bustling Halytsky Square, you simply enter a narrow alleyway, where mural artists have taken a liking to one of the walls. I once saw joyful, hopeful murals here. Now the theme is war. Nearly a hundred meters of the wall are dedicated to the 63-day heroic defense of the Azovstal metallurgical plant in Mariupol. To the boys (as soldiers are called in Ukraine) who fought and died there. Another scene of the tragedy: a column of bullet-riddled passenger cars in which entire families fled Mariupol. To emphasize the civilian nature and peaceful intentions of the convoy, white scarves were tied to the mirrors. The sign of surrender, clearly visible worldwide, was clearly not respected by Putin's soldiers. A little further on, white doves fly over a minefield, a symbol of hope that the war will end. The mural concludes with a drawing of the Mariupol theater with a large "dieti" sign on the square in front of the entrance. In March 2022, women and children hid in the theater's basement. When a Russian laser-guided bomb hit the theater, over three hundred people died under the rubble. Returning to Halicki Square, I notice a veteran missing his legs and one arm, who was brought in a wheelchair by another, less severely injured war veteran.

A five-minute walk and a completely different atmosphere. Staroevreyska Street. Cafés, one abreast of the other, aglow with lights. Colorful, cheerful, bustling, and laid-back. The clientele occupying the tables are mostly cheerful young people. An older musician at the piano sets the mood. It's similar on Armenian Street, which serves as a pedestrian zone with cafés on both sides of the street. Here, it's worth strolling back and forth or sitting down with a coffee in one of the café gardens and watching the strollers as if they were a fashion show. Opposite the iconic Armenian woman, a retired musician strums a guitar connected to a loudspeaker. The aroma of coffee fills the air. This atmosphere once attracted thousands of tourists, but now, who would travel to a country ravaged by war?

Saturday, the 1252nd day of the war. It's almost eleven. People are gathering in front of the garrison church (formerly the Jesuit church) with bouquets of flowers. Black clothing predominates. A guard of honor in combat uniforms forms at the end of the street. Soldiers from black vans carry the coffins to the church on their shoulders. One, two, three, four. Those gathered in front of the church kneel, bow their heads, and cross themselves. "Today, only four, yesterday, they carried twelve coffins. These are the ones whose bodies the Muscovites gave us," an acquaintance explains. Mass begins. An hour later, I watched the farewell and tribute to the heroes in the market square. First, a police car with its lights on, then several black vans of the city's ceremonial service, followed by two buses carrying families, and finally an ambulance. The convoy, passing the Latin cathedral, slowly entered the market square and stopped in front of the town hall. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, fellow wheelchair users, and passersby paid tribute to the fallen. A trumpeter played "Silence," and the convoy continued on its way to the Field of Mars, where the war cemetery has grown to several hectares since 2022. It looked like a ceremonial ritual, but such convoys in Lviv are repeated every few days. I also saw genuine emotion, not only among war veterans, stemming from the bonds of camaraderie, but also among ordinary passersby. On Sunday morning, on Łyczakowska Street, which was quiet at that hour, another black convoy appeared. It wasn't large. Two black vans and a bus. The bus's loudspeaker played the song "Pływe kacza po Tysyni," sung at military funerals since the Maidan. The babushkas sitting on their stools, selling fruit and vegetables, rose, turned to the road, knelt, and said their final goodbyes fervently until the sounds of the mournful song faded away. A fifteen-minute walk to the market square, and it was a different world again. Crowded, bustling. A few excursions, but mostly from Ukraine. Poles, who once numbered in the hundreds on any sunny weekend, can now be counted on the fingers of both hands, and Western tourists are nowhere to be seen. A friend of mine, who sold travel publications from a cart, complained three years ago that business was poor. Now he's completely disappeared, but there's no shortage of fancy cars on the streets, and expensive establishments seem to be holding up. The "paper people," as the poor who collected waste paper were once called, have reappeared. The streets are full of combat uniforms and legless invalids. The contrasts are growing.

Two weeks earlier, on July 12, during a nighttime drone raid, two tenement houses near the station were destroyed and four people were injured.

When meeting with friends, I never heard them talk about the war. At most, there was a blunt joke featuring Putin. How can one understand what war actually means in Lviv? It's probably difficult even for the average Lviv resident, let alone foreigners, who are often fed unreliable or biased information. The only thing left to do is accept that the world isn't black and white, but comes in a whole range of shades of gray.

Jacek Szwic