The New York of Ukraine, the cultural tomb of the writer Victoria Amelina

“It happened in the afternoon, around three or four. We felt like the noise of thunder”, recalls Valentin Taranov, 85, in the small Ukrainian town of New York (Donetsk region, in the east). Afterwards, “it was all dust and rubble”, he adds, racing towards the site attacked in May in an effort to show that he is fit. Seconds later, before him, the silence punctuated by some background detonations accompanies the rubble of the stalls, the stage, the luxurious hall, the stairs, the façade… The effects of that thunder that Taranov describes, a Russian bomb, does not they ignored no corner of the House of Culture.

It is in this mess that represents culture as yet another victim of war, where the late writer Victoria Amelina dreamed of consolidating a literary festival that she herself had founded in the punished eastern Ukraine. But that event died in its infancy, it only lived through one edition. It was held in October 2021, four months before the great invasion of Russian President Vladimir Putin began. In the current situation, there is nothing to foresee a second date in the short term. That military coup by the Kremlin last year further worsened the climate of violence and death in this eastern region of Donetsk, the scene since 2014 of an armed insurrection of separatists promoted from Moscow.

Starting in 1951, the Soviet authorities renamed New York (frequently transcribed as Niu York) Novhorodske (new city) for a few decades, but the town regained its name in 2021. The origin of the name of this industrial enclave, which had about 10,000 inhabitants until last year, is located in the emigration on horseback of the 19th and 20th centuries to the United States of local workers, explains the journalist Natalia Gumeniuk, a friend of the writer.

Facade of the House of Culture during the celebration of the literary festival organized in October 2021 by the writer Victoria Amelina, who died on July 1 after a Russian attack. Luis de Vega / Ivan Chernichkin

In an incomprehensible and painful paradox of war, a few weeks after the destruction of the cultural center, a colonial-style building from the middle of the last century, it was Victoria Amelina herself who died in early July after the explosion of a missile launched by the Kremlin troops. “I will remember her young, beautiful, ambitious…”, says Ludmila (she prefers not to give her last name), 58 years old and manager of the Family Club establishment. This place is located 200 meters from the cultural center and became the canteen for the participants and attendees of the festival. “I want to send a message to the family for what Victoria did for New York and for her children. We do not have many people in Ukraine who are so patriotic and who fight to educate children, ”she emphasizes, still wrapped in pain and disbelief. She then launches a poisoned dart of irony imitating the three days that, according to Putin, it was going to take to take Kiev: “They were going to liberate us in three days and they have liberated the cultural center, the sports center and other areas of the city.”

Gumeniuk, who spoke with EL PAÍS after Amelina’s death, also insists on the author’s commitment. “Before the invasion, in a few more or less peaceful months, Victoria founded a literature festival there and her magazine is run by the kids there,” he said. “Victoria was a person very close to the hearts of those young people,” she emphasizes. “The first time she came to New York to present one of her books, she was at school, in kindergarten…she gave herself completely to the cause”, recalls Ludmila.

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The writer, originally from the west of the country, had chosen this small town to organize the festival because it is where her husband and family come from. New York is one of the populations of Donbas, the eastern part of Ukraine, shaken by high unemployment, a degraded environment, intermittent water supply and at the gates of the zone occupied by the Russians from where they attack these towns, described the reporter Katerina Sergatskova in a report published in Zaborona at the end of 2021. Between garden areas, the colonial aspect of the bombed cultural center and the surrounding buildings inherited the characteristic brick used by German settlers, many Mennonite Protestants, who arrived from the middle of the century XIX. Most were later exiled to Siberia by the Soviet authorities.

Hall of the House of Culture, bombed last May by the Russians and where the writer Victoria Amelina, who died on July 1 after a Russian attack, organized a literary festival in 2021. Luis de Vega / Ivan Chernichkin

Now, New York appears almost deserted because it is located close to the combat zone and is the target of Russian missiles with some frequency. Three days before the visit of this special envoy, at the end of July, a bombardment killed four residents. In May and June of last year, the phenol factory, an essential economic engine, was bombed. The train station depends on it. Also the House of Culture, where Amelina celebrated the literature festival, belongs to that company, owned by one of the great Ukrainian magnates, Rinat Ajmetov.

Several police officers have something to eat at one of the tables in the Family Club. While they put on their bulletproof vests to go outside again, one of them, Vitali, tells that they have a list of 50 minors who remain in the town and who have to be evacuated. Uncertainty floats in the conversation about those kids whom Amelina had supported with her cultural initiative.

Valentin Taranov, 85, explains in front of the House of Culture how the Russians bombed this building last May where the writer Victoria Amelina, who died on July 1 after a Russian attack, organized a festival in 2021 literary. LOUIS DE VEGA

At the beginning of the Donbas war, Russian fighters came to have New York under their control for three months, which is administratively dependent on neighboring Toretsk. The population, which is nestled in the great front that surrounds the disputed town of Bakhmut, is a continuous festival of detonations. Some come from Ukrainian positions, others come from the Russian side. Despite everything, Valentin Taranov, the neighbor who described the attack, tries to take the positive side of the visit. “Here we have internet, and internet in the air too”, he points out, referring to Wi-Fi.

Man will never forget that unfortunate afternoon when the enemy destroyed the theater. “I was at the window of my house, which was ripped out and hit my arm when it was opened by the explosion. In my room and in other rooms the windows also jumped out. Everything was destruction and smoke. Everything was shaking, the ground, my legs, my hands… We ran outside and people were shouting: ‘they have destroyed the club, they have destroyed the club!’ After checking the damage, they returned to the apartment and “the dust was gone”. “Our dog got under the bed and then couldn’t get out because the hole was so small. When everything calmed down we had to pick her up to free him. He was crying. I would like them to see it, the dog crying, trembling and seeking to protect itself between us, ”he explains without stopping gesturing.

“With this festival, I wanted to say that the real Donetsk region is very beautiful, delicate, touching and stubborn, vulnerable and strong at the same time,” the writer commented during the contest, as published by Zaborona. “The fairest thing would be to be able to celebrate the festival again and have it bear the name of Victoria Amelina”, yearns for Ludmila, sitting at one of the tables of the Family Club. “I’m sure we’ll end up having a cultural center named after her,” she adds. Between the coming and going of the uniformed men to ask for food and drinks, one of them, who knew the writer, concludes: “We are in shock.”

Theater of the House of Culture, bombed last May by the Russians and where the writer Victoria Amelina, who died on July 1 after a Russian attack, organized a literary festival in 2021. Luis de Vega / Ivan Chernichkin

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