Mykola’s office, once an attractive tangerine-colored building across the street from the police station, serves as the invincibility center, a community center where people can warm up, see a doctor, get medicine, pick up their mail, and queue for the bus to neighboring Zaporizhzhia. 

That day the power was not working as residents started to arrive at 8 am to power their phones.

Mykola fiddled with power banks and then went outside to turn on the generator. A few moments later, the basement shelter was lit. 

It was time to go. The Russians are too lazy to shell the city early on Saturday morning, but it’s nearing 8:30 am, and they will soon begin their relentless attacks. 

Mykola dropped us off at the hotel in Zaporizhzhia and I began to chuckle. Yesterday I had been too scared to sleep there. Now, Zaporizhzhia felt like a bunker.

Liscovich resumed his duties as tour guide, unfazed by what we saw. Not me. I couldn’t follow anything he said. It was impossible to make sense of the degradation of Orikhiv and the relative calm of Zaporizhzhia.

Over lunch, a Ukrainian medic put my feelings into words: “We are living two lives.” 

Melinda Haring is a Senior Advisor at Razom for Ukraine and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. She tweets @melindaharing.Haring is also a Contributing Editor to this publication. 

All images are original and taken by author in her travels through Ukraine.