'This Suffering United Us': Underground Shelter In Liberated Izyum Falls Quiet Again

Andriy Pleshan, 60, views the destruction near his cellar in Izyum, in eastern Ukraine, on January 2. The 70-square-meter cellar where he continues to live also provided sanctuary during World War II.

Pleshan greets a neighbor near one of Izyum's war-scarred residential buildings.

Once home to 45,000 residents, the town was liberated by Ukrainian soldiers in September after being occupied by Russian forces.



 

An empty coffin lies where a body was exhumed in Izyum on January 2.

The discovery of a mass burial site and the corpses of torture victims made Izyum a byword for the alleged atrocities committed under Russian occupation.

A few days after the war started, Nyka, a 2-month-old baby, and her parents moved into the crowded cellar, which is adorned with religious icons and a portrait of Ukraine's national poet, Taras Shevchenko.

"I became her godfather," says Pleshan, proudly. He remembers being the only one who could soothe the baby to sleep while explosions boomed overhead.
 

The terrified residents barely left their underground home during the first month of the war as intense Russian shelling left much of the city in ruins.
 

Pleshan displays a hat from a Russian tank crew, one of the many remnants from the war that litters the landscape. 

Residents lived in fear of the Russian soldiers, who regularly came to search those sheltering in the cellars. "We could have been killed at any time," Pleshan recalls, pouring a glass of his own homemade alcohol. "This suffering united us."

After sheltering so many people, only Pleshan now remains in the cellar, along with his dogs and cats.

He misses the company of Nyka and her parents, who left for Kursk, a city in Russia not far from the Ukrainian border.

"The parents feared for the health of the little one, who never saw the light of day," Pleshan says.

He has spoken to them since on the telephone. "I told them I wanted to see them again soon, and they promised to come back in the spring," he says.

Pleshan's dog lies next to a Christmas tree inside the cellar where they live.

"Before, we lived well in Izyum," says Pleshan. "It was a pretty town, where we hunted, fished, collected mushrooms. Now, whenever there is an unexpected noise, we wonder what is going on. Men, children, animals -- everyone is afraid."