Kyiv: How jugaad is helping Kyiv in its life without power

In the crowded operating room, the surgeons made the long incision down the middle of the child’s chest to reach the heart. Then the lights went out. Generators kicked on to keep life-support equipment running, and nurses and surgical assistants held flashlights over the operating table, guiding the surgeons as they snipped and cut, working to save the child’s life in almost total darkness.“So far we are coping on our own,” says Borys Todurov, director of the clinic, the Heart Institute, in Kyiv, Ukraine. “But every hour is getting harder.”Across the city, elevators are stocked with emergency supplies in case the power fails. Banks have sent messages to customers to assure them their money is safe in the event of prolonged blackouts. This is Kyiv, a modern, thriving European capital of 3.3mn people and now a war-torn city. Relatively unscathed since the spring, the city has in recent months become a target again as Russia sent waves of missiles targeting Ukraine’s energy grid. medium95931906 One popular cafe has created two menus — one featuring heated food like homemade pasta for when it has power, a second offering cold dishes like Greek yogurt with granola and applesauce when it doesn’t. At another restaurant, a chef cooked on a sidewalk grill as two young men warmed their hands over the coals. The sun sets early, before the school day is done, so children hold flashlights while waiting for their parents to arrive in total darkness to pick them up. ‘Tomorrow could be worse’Generators of all sizes rattle and roar across the city, where municipal officials estimate that 1.5mn people are still without power for more than 12 hours a day.After nine months of war, nothing is so new as to be shocking, but the attacks on power have left residents of Kyiv exasperated and exhausted. With temperatures in the city often below freezing, extended power outages are also potentially deadly, threatening health care services, raising the risk of people suffering hypothermia and leading to a rise in accidents. medium95931833Even as crews work around the clock to repair damage from the latest barrage — which temporarily knocked every nuclear power plant in the country offline — Ukrainian authorities issued urgent warnings that another wave of missiles could be on its way.“You go to bed knowing today was bad and tomorrow could be worse,” says Vlad Medyk, a 25-year-old musician. He has moved his bed away from the windows in case a Russian missile explodes nearby, and he tries to make sure his phone is fully charged before he falls asleep so he can hear an air raid alarm. As he spoke, he was busy improvising a covering from cardboard boxes to protect a new generator from the falling snow outside the music shop where he works.In late November, the skies above Kyiv thundered as 20 Russian missiles were shot down over the capital. Roughly a dozen more found a target, part of a fusillade of the more than 600 that Russia has aimed at infrastructure across Ukraine since October. The damage from the last assault has so far proved the most difficult to recover from – most residents still do not know when they will have power. medium95932006Herman Halushchenko, the country’s energy minister, says that the stability of electricity supply is “improving” every day. “If — this is key — there will be no further attacks on the power system, then in the near future, we will be able to stabilise and reduce the time of the outage,” he says.For the most vulnerable — older residents struggling to walk up darkened stairways in high-rise apartments, the sick who need urgent care, traumatised children who crave routine — the hardships can be dire. For more, it is a strange and wearing life.Improvising in the face of unpredictabilityThrough all the stress and danger, though, Kyiv residents grind on, showing up for work, caring for family, chipping in to help others in need and even allowing themselves a few indulgences. medium95932032Maryna Musat, 38, a masseuse who works in central Kyiv, says she was surprised that not a single client had cancelled recently. “We all carry on despite the darkness,” she adds. Even on the day last week when strikes were bursting in the air, a regular client managed to reach her for a booking. “So I took my bag and went to work,” she says. “It’s a bit depressing when you work in total darkness for hours, but I learned to massage with closed eyes.”In the Podil neighbourhood, the capital’s old trading district, generators were providing power to pharmacies, restaurants, health clinics, hotels and sporting goods stores as businesses seemed determined to keep their doors open.If the Molotov cocktail was the symbol of defiance for the citizen army of baristas, janitors and accountants that sprang up after Russia invaded nine months ago, the generator is now the weapon of choice on the energy front. medium95932154“Can you imagine?” Vitali Klitschko, the former boxing champion who is now the mayor of Kyiv, says in an interview in his office. “In one moment, you do not have electricity. Not just that. You do not have water. If you want to take a shower, no chance. You do not have heating.” He says it’s like being stranded on an island. “You are alone, in darkness.”Unpredictability, however, has led to improvisation. “We created this menu that says, ‘kitchen with no lights’ and ‘kitchen with generator’, so everyone will still have some food and drinks,” says Valeria Mamysheva, 20, a barista at the Bursa Hotel’s cafe. Since they were on generator power, they had to limit consumption and could not use the espresso machine. “We have tea, we have some alcohol when it is acceptable to sell it, and filtered coffee,” she says.Her smile is bright, but she confesses that she is exhausted. Despite the challenges, she does not want to leave Kyiv. “There is no place better than home, and I just realised I am going to miss it if I go somewhere,” she says. “So I decided to stay here and support the economy somehow.” medium95932101Antonina Kharchenko, 25, says she no longer tries to take the metro to work since fewer trains means jammed platforms. But her biggest problem, she says, is not having heat in her home when the power goes out. She priced generators online, but the cheapest she saw was more than $2,700. “They were sold out anyway,” she says.Ihor Mykhnenko, the 41-year-old head of fire security for the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Podil, says that improvisation could lead to new dangers. Many people have taken to using gas camping stoves in their homes, often placing them on top of electrical stoves. “When the power comes back on, the gas stoves blow up,” he says.The show must go onBut in Ukraine, risk is relative. Dmytro Balla, 21, escaped Russian occupation in Kherson, Ukraine, at the end of the summer and is one of the tens of thousands who came to the capital as a place of refuge. “It is cold, always cold,” he says. “But the air raid alarms, the lack of electricity — that is nothing after you survive Russian occupation.” medium95932227Dmytro I Ostapenko, Ukraine’s former minister of culture and arts and now the director of the National Philharmonic, says that from the moment the lights first went out earlier in November, they decided the show would go on.“This is our front line,” he says, holding a lantern as he makes his way around the darkened corridors of the stately 19th-century mansion that the philharmonic calls home.As musicians prepared to take the stage and someone fixed a broken piano string by the light of a cellphone, Ostapenko says the mission of the musicians is clear. “We work to warm the souls of people,” he says. “So that people can find comfort here in this extremely difficult time. So that people believe in themselves and believe in us.”With inputs from Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Natalia Yermak medium95932251Why Ukraine war may be giving wrong ideas to China medium95932356