Olena Ninadovska was inside Ukraine’s greatest printing home when the Russian missile hit. She was working within the binding division. It was 10.20am. Two colleagues – Tetaina Khrapina and Olha Kurasova – stood subsequent to her. The ladies have been working a row of book-sewing machines. One other worker, Sveta Arestova, had simply stepped away to take a phone name.
The S-300 missile got here by the roof. There was no warning. It immediately killed Ninadovksa and the others at her workstation. Arestova was injured however survived. The blast flipped over a 10-tonne book-ending machine, killing Svitlana Ryzhenko, who was sitting on the finish of the meeting line. Two extra employees died at an adjoining desk. One other, Roman Stroyhi, was killed by shards from a guillotine machine.
Seven individuals died within the assault on 23 Could on the Issue Druk printing home in Kharkiv. Twenty-one have been injured. 9 stay in hospital. Two are in intensive care. The agency’s common director, Tetiana Hryniuk, mentioned the strike occurred on a sunny Thursday on one of many greatest printing complexes in Europe. Kharkiv, the second metropolis after Kyiv, is Ukraine’s publishing hub.
On the time Hryniuk was in a neighbouring constructing. “I noticed smoke and hearth. These close to the epicentre stood no likelihood,” she mentioned. “My reminiscences are fragmentary. All people was in shock. I keep in mind bandaging someone with a T-shirt.” Hryniuk mentioned she recognized Stroyhi and Ryzhenko when their our bodies have been pulled from the wreckage. However 5 individuals, together with Ninadovska, have been so badly burned they have been unrecognisable.
“You couldn’t inform if it was a person or a lady. We wanted DNA assessments,” she mentioned. Their stays have been launched final week. What did she say to her useless colleagues’ relations? “We hugged and cried collectively,” she replied. Posting on Fb, Anna Gyn paid tribute to Ninadovska, her murdered pal. “I all the time adored the odor of books. Now, in all probability, they’ll all the time remind me of ashes and blood,” Gyn wrote.
Hryniuk mentioned she didn’t know if the Russian army had intentionally focused her office or had tried to hit a practice restore workshop subsequent door. Three extra S-300 missiles fell on the identical time. One crashed on to an previous railway line; one other landed subsequent to a fringe wall. No matter Moscow’s intentions, the consequence, Hryniuk mentioned, was the identical: “They destroyed Ukrainian historical past and tradition.”
In occupied areas, the Kremlin has forbidden the Ukrainian language, eliminated books from faculties and imposed a patriotic pro-Russian curriculum. Statues of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko have been torn down. Vladimir Putin insists Ukraine doesn’t exist. Its land, he says, is part of “historic Russia”.
The strike on the manufacturing facility worn out 50,000 books. Amongst them have been works of youngsters’s literature and Ukrainian faculty textbooks – 40% of them have been printed by Issue Druk – as a result of be despatched to school rooms for the brand new September educational 12 months. Additionally destroyed have been younger grownup novels and bestsellers. They included a Ukrainian translation of The Marriage Portrait, a historic novel about an Italian duchess by Maggie O’Farrell.
“For me it’s so symbolic. They burned books, just like the Nazis did 80 years in the past. We now have so many historic examples of Russia making an attempt to kill off Ukrainian tradition,” mentioned Oleksiy Sobol, the top of the pre-press division. The Russian empire banned Ukrainian-language texts from the seventeenth century onwards, with follow-up edicts. Below Stalin, within the Nineteen Thirties, Ukrainian poets and writers have been shot – a era often known as the “executed renaissance”.
Since 2022, Russia has erased 172 libraries and almost 2m books, in accordance with the Ukrainian E book Institute. Final week employees cleared rubble from Issue Druk’s shattered 4,000 sq metre complicated. Rain fell. Charred books have been piled in sodden yellow heaps. There was particles all over the place: twisted sheet metallic from the roof, tossed-around air flow tubes, and charred printing presses. Blood was seen on plastic door curtains.
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Additionally misplaced was the complete first print run of Phrases and Bullets, a group of interviews concerning the battle with Ukrainian writers together with Victoria Amelina. It was as a result of be printed this week. Amelina, a novelist and poet, was killed in June 2023 by a Russian missile strike on the japanese metropolis of Kramatorsk. She was sitting in a pizza restaurant. A battle crimes researcher, Amelina ceaselessly referenced the executed renaissance in her work.
“The cycle of horror continues,” mentioned Emma Shercliff, Amelina’s literary agent in London. “That is but extra proof that one other era of writers and cultural producers are being systematically focused and eradicated.” Yuliya Orlova, the chief government of Vivat, considered one of Ukraine’s main publishers, mentioned Moscow needed to “erase who we’re”. Vivat’s titles have been printed at Issue Druk. Work would proceed with manufacturing moved to different printers, she mentioned.
Emily Finer, who heads a analysis group engaged on Ukrainian youngsters’s literature on the College of St Andrews, known as the assault a tragedy. “The precedence given to publishing trauma-informed youngsters’s books in wartime Ukraine is unprecedented,” she mentioned. “Over 120 image books in Ukrainian have been printed since 2022 to assist youngsters address their wartime experiences now and sooner or later.”
The strike befell per week earlier than the Arsenal e-book competition, Kyiv’s greatest literary occasion. Most of the destroyed books have been as a result of be offered there. This 12 months hundreds queued to get in. Burnt copies of Issue Druk titles have been exhibited underneath the slogan: “Books destroyed by Russia. Help bookish Kharkiv – purchase books!” The Vivat stall was packed. Gross sales have been brisk. Clients expressed help for an business underneath hearth.
“The message to Russia is: ‘Fuck off. We are going to purchase extra books now,’” mentioned Mykyta Lazarenko, a inventive director. He mentioned the temper amongst Ukrainians was considered one of indignant defiance, just like that proven by New Yorkers after 9/11. One other buyer, Ihor Vynokurov, held up a bag of nonfiction titles. “We need to present the world our tradition is actual and essential. Thirty years in the past we had principally Russian-language books. Now we learn Ukrainian ones,” he mentioned.
A day after the strike, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy toured the Issue Druk web site. He mentioned it demonstrated that Russia was “at battle with humanity and all features of regular life”. The Howard G Buffett Basis, in the meantime, final week pledged €5.1m (£4.3m) to revive the printing home. “They will destroy books however not Ukrainian resilience and dedication,” mentioned Buffett, the son of the billionaire US investor Warren Buffett.
Hryniuk was assured the work might be accomplished in six months. For now, although, Kharkiv has misplaced a big a part of its printing assets, which can make it tough to print textbooks and different books. Three years in the past, Issue Druk produced greater than 1,000,000 books a 12 months. In February 2022, when Russian troopers tried unsuccessfully to grab the town, it closed for 4 months. Final 12 months it made 420,000 titles. Now it prints none.
Hryniuk mentioned she was nonetheless optimistic concerning the future. “We now have one,” she mentioned. She dismissed Russian claims that Issue Druk had produced drones. “We’ve had a whole lot of journalists right here. They’ve even checked out the bathroom. It’s laughable.” She added: “Historical past reveals that each 100 years somebody tries to extinguish Ukraine. Regardless of this we feature on dwelling. We would take into account this an atypical stage of growth.”
