A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A KHARKIV CITIZEN

Oleksii Zeniakin is the Deputy Head of International Protocol and Cooperation with Foreign Missions at the International Cooperation Department of the Kharkiv City Council. He is also Chairman and founder of The Kharkiv-Oxford Association. Prior to working for the City Council, he was a lecturer in English at the National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, a secretary of the Department of the English Philology, and language certification trainer for English Pearson Courses at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.

The work of international relations at all levels of Ukraine’s society is a vital part of the country’s struggle to defend its independence. Oleksii’s work involves arranging events and meetings with foreign delegations, running joint programmes with Kharkiv’s twin cities such as Albuquerque (USA) and Leeds, as well as developing partnerships with Stockholm, Tokyo, and Oxford. Interpretation and translation are part of the job; Oleksii speaks English and German alongside Ukrainian and Russian.

His daily routine and that of all his fellow citizens is heavily marked by war, especially now with the current heavy bombardment. On waking, the first thing he does is check the Telegram app on his smartphone for air raid alerts and reports of overnight bombardments and other attacks. When the Russians were only 10-20 km distant and there was constant shelling, he and his friends checked in via Telegram with each other every morning to see who was still alive – “it was like taking a macabre school register”.

Oleksii has a two-bedroom flat in a Soviet-era nine storey “panel-house” (a block of flats built from prefabricated concrete panels) which is 40 mins by bus and metro (Underground) from his office in the City centre. Quite matter of factly Oleksii mentions the advantages of a panel-house in wartime; it “rides” the pressure wave of nearby explosions, swaying and twisting but not breaking unless hit directly.

Like most Soviet-era buildings his block is heated by a central district heating system and the room temperature is controlled centrally. During Russia’s attacks on energy sources last winter, there were times with no power which meant no light, no heat, no water nor sanitation. It is currently 3degC below zero – mild for Kharkiv. This winter the City is better prepared with back-up systems to switch in when energy nodes are hit.

Oleksii’s breakfast is usually hot porridge oats with fruit and nuts and tea to drink. When there are power outages he has sandwiches.


He lives close to a bus stop which is equipped with a “safe bus shelter” – a reinforced concrete shelter which protects people waiting for the bus from shrapnel. If there is an air raid alert on his phone he waits for the bus in the concrete shelter, if not then at the normal bus stop. The Russian border is only distant about 30 seconds to a minute’s flight time for a missile, so in some cases the air raid alert comes after the explosion.

The whole City transport system is free of charge to passengers. On the bus, Oleksii watches the City Council workers busy on the streets and in the parks. Symbols of the City’s resilience, defiance, and courage, they risk their lives to get the simplest of tasks done. In the first days of the invasion Kharkiv’s streets were deserted and the city seemed dead; then after a couple of days the rubbish collection lorries re-appeared to collect the bins against a soundscape of rocket, shell, and machine-gun fire. “Then we knew we were going to live, not just survive, when we saw the City itself living” says Oleksii.

Concerts, exhibitions and school classes are held on the underground metro stations, and they are decorated for Christmas.

On the train, Oleksii checks emails and the day’s agenda then walks the last few yards of his journey past what he calls the City’s scar – the burnt out carcass of the 18^th century Municipal Building where he used to work – to his temporary office.

Much of the work is correspondence and online meetings. If he is in the office lunch is a packed lunch heated up in the office microwave.

When a foreign delegation arrives, he may spend 2- 3 days out of the office accompanying its members around the city including on visits to the suburb of Northern Saltivka, wrecked in the fighting of 2022 and now looking like “hell on earth”. Recent visitors to Kharkiv have been the directors of the Swedish National Archives and National Museum and he has also met the Mayor of Leeds and ambassadors from Great Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Sweden. Nearly all visitors arrive by train; the safest mode of travel to the City.

Oleksii finishes work at 6pm but may stay for an hour or so catching up or working on his dissertation on methods of foreign language teaching in Germany. He has had several papers on linguistics published and mentions wryly that under heavy shelling people look for a distraction – in some cases planting flowers for spring, in his case, writing a PhD dissertation.

Even children become socialised to war; for Oleksii one of the most terrible things is to listen to young children explaining how to distinguish between machine-gun fire and missile and shell strikes.

Street lights go out at 9:30pm, and there is a curfew from 11pm to 5am. Oleksii prefers to stay at home in the evening and watch entertaining videos on Facebook and Tiktok and English language films. He is currently reading Orwell’s Animal Farm. He has dinner between 7.30 and 8pm, usually hot soup, salad, and yoghurt.

Before going to bed, he checks his phone for air raid alerts and follows the “two walls from the window” rule which is drummed into everyone. A close explosion will blow windows in and send lethal and disfiguring shards of glass through a room. People try to find a secure area in their flats where they can sleep safely; unfortunately, some get used to living under bombardment, but Kharkiv people are unbreakable, they are doing their best to restore their native City.