Bachmut – Lajuk Myroslav (2024)

During the most intense fighting for Bakhmut at the turn of 2022 and in March 2023, writer Myroslav Lajuk and photographer Danylo Pavlov venture into areas where armed conflicts occur practically non-stop and shelling does not cease for a minute. They spend several days and nights alongside Ukrainian defenders, with infantry and air defense units, medics and military chaplains, rescuers, elderly people, and children who remain in the city despite everything. Their travels resulted in a book of reports and essays about everyday life on the front line, about why soldiers get manicures and the purpose of military nicknames, about irreparable losses, the history of Bakhmut, and the phenomenon of memory and forgetting. The first part of this book contains reports capturing the story of an air defense soldier who has just shot down a Russian bomber; a father and son fighting side by side; a Wagner mercenary – an admirer of Nabokov. In the second, essayistic part, you will find reflections on the history of Bakhmut, on continuity in Ukrainian culture, and on the inappropriateness of seeking "half-tones" here and now.