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Romana Yaremyn shows hundreds of books stacked half way to the ceiling in the basement of the bookshop she manages in western Ukraine after being evacuated from the country’s war-torn east.
The titles rescued from Kharkiv are packed together in white parcels and fill up what was once the children’s reading room. They are only a fraction of those employed at the shop’s publishing house in the eastern city, which is under Russian attack, she claims.
“Our warehouse workers attempted to evacuate at least some of the books. They loaded up a truck and delivered everything via postal service “said the 27-year-old, who was wearing a yellow hoodie.
They began with their most recent and best-selling titles, many of which are children’s books.
With the exception of deadly air strikes near the railway last week, the western city of Lviv has remained relatively safe from war since Russia invaded two months ago.
Since the fighting began, hundreds of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have fled to or through the country’s cultural capital.
“I’m not sure how my colleagues in Kharkiv have managed to stay there,” Yaremyn said.
Those who fled and stayed with me expressed a desire to level the city to the ground.”
Authors in the military
Yaremyn stated that the bookshop quickly reopened a day after the invasion, providing shelter in the basement when the air raid sirens sounded and holding reading sessions with displaced children.
During the first wave of arrivals, parents who had left home with very little came in search of fairy tales to keep their children occupied in the bunkers.
A few parents purchased “Polinka,” a story about a girl and her grandfather written by a man who is now on the front lines and published just before the invasion.
