The Russians bombed a care home in Sumy. Older people were separated and evacuated — memories, pictures and a bit of romance remained. Photos from a care home

Five in the evening of September 27, 2024. Six old people are sitting on alert for the 4th hour in a row in the transit center in Sumy. They are waiting for the ambulances to come and take them to care homes in the Khmelnytskyi region. Five of them are in wheelchairs. They do not walk and do not speak well. Only one old lady is walking, her name is Valentyna. She is over 80. She constantly tries to tell something about herself, but complains that she is completely deaf. She takes a long time to take out sweets from the pocket of her robe and gives them to the nurses — thanking them for taking care of her. Men in wheelchairs look at everyone with empty eyes. They say itʼs scary to go to a new place. One of them holds an empty detergent bottle close to him. This is to go to the toilet on the way. All six old women lived in a geriatric home in Sumy until recently. And on September 19, a Russian controlled aerial bomb hit it — it hit the top, 5th floor of the residential building and exploded behind the care home. One 78-year-old woman died, 12 people were injured. The care home, which consists of 221 people, most of whom are in their eighties, will be accommodated in five similar homes across the country. The journalist of The Reckoning Project Hanna Mamonova visited the transit center, and later she visit the destroyed case home. Its employees told her the stories of former wards and showed what was left after them. A lot of vivid memories, care, pain and a little romance in the Babel report.

1

The Sumy care home looks like a grandmotherʼs house: there are woven napkins, and tablecloths with roses on the bedside tables, and carpets on the walls. Liana stretch up from the floor. Pink and white begonias bloom on the windowsills. Soft toys, childrenʼs drawings, postcards — those that the residents of the care home received from their visitors — lie in the old womenʼs rooms like decorations. They are abandoned, under a layer of dust and glass.

After the shelling, the rescuers carried the residents of the care home in their arms. People were taken to hospitals and transit centers, and from there — to care homes in Sumy, Kyiv and Khmelnytskyi regions. No one returned for their belongings. Now, in the broken building, the nurses put them in bags and send them to the new addresses of the owners.

The guided aerial bomb hit the care home on September 19 at about half past four in the evening. The workers were already going home, the residents of the boarding house were resting. The air raid alert was declared a few hours before — they even forgot to think about it. Due to the fact that there are constant air raid alarms in Sumy, and it is difficult for the elderly to go down to the shelter, there was almost no reaction to the sirens in the care home. The bomb hit the 5th floor of the residential building and exploded behind the care home in a ditch. People standing at the bus stop remembered the fireball, the explosion, and the plume of smoke.

"If we had an explosion, there would be a mass grave. If it didnʼt hit us, itʼs unknown... [what would be then]," says Olha Borschenko, who works as a psychologist in the care home.

Across the street there is a regional hospital for adults, a regional childrenʼs hospital, cardiology and diagnostic centers. This is a medical town on the outskirts of Sumy.

The care home was opened in 1989. The average age of its residents is over eighty. Although there were also those who were called young here — they are 60-70 years old. All of them are in poor health and have disabilities. More than two-thirds of people are sedentary and inactive. No more than twenty people could go to the store or for a walk on their own. The vast majority had no relatives (except for nephews and cousins, great-grandchildren). There were old people from the occupied territories — Chasiv Yar, Bakhmut, Luhansk — in the care home. They are from villages in the Sumy region, where peopleʼs houses were bombed.

Olha mentions 92-year-old Borys Romanovych Bondarenko from Luhansk. Ten years ago, the eighty-year-old grandfather left his home in the occupied city, and settled in a care home in Sumy. But he did not live like most people from the regional budget, but rented a room for his pension. Because of this, he could not go with everyone to other institutions. After the shelling, he also was in the transit center. He watched as his former roommates were taken in small groups to Kyiv or Khmelnytskyi region. He went out to say goodbye to everyone. Borys Romanovych stayed in the transit center alone, and in the end one of the churches gave him shelter.

“We had people with a difficult fate, you wouldnʼt wish that on yourself. But during the war, you donʼt know what awaits you in the future. Children of old women are dying, some have gone abroad and cannot return to their relatives,” Borschenko says.

The psychologist says that the main thing is that people stopped being lonely and felt supported in the care home. A couple recently formed — the old man is in his eighties, and the old lady is a little over sixty years old.

"He gave her perfumes, dresses, and he opened doors [for her]. They were moved together to a care home in the Sumy region," Olha says.

Olha Borshchenko came to work at the care home as a psychologist eight days before the full-scale invasion. She promised herself not to get close to anyone, but she couldnʼt. She takes us through broken rooms and tells the stories of those who lived there. Her voice is almost inaudible. On the lower floors it is muffled by the noise of the generator, and on the upper floors — by the wind. Unbelievable drafts in the care home. The windows are broken. Volunteers cover them with tape and plywood. The care home consists of three buildings connected to each other. The guided aerial bomb hit one of them, and the roof was blown off all of them.

Borschenko was in her office during the shelling. The impact knocked her to the floor, and glass and plaster fell on top of her. On the 5th floor, where the bomb hit, nurse Raisa Kutsenko was cleaning the floor. During the impact, she fell to the floor and covered her head with her hands from the glass. She went out into the corridor, staggering, and started shouting if everyone stayed alive.

“The 1st thought is about people. There were 24 people on the floor, 8 — lying down. While we recovered, the rescuers ran up. They ordered to leave the building, not to carry people out, cause they will do it themselves,” says Kutsenko.

The workers remember that the rescuers were afraid of a second blow.

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Residentsʼ rooms are painted in different colours. Two men lived in the purple one. The beds are made, and a walking stick is lying on a bed. Its owner was carried away in his arms, and there was no other things to worry about. The sanitary worker sweeps the glass from under the beds. She sees us photographing an open closet of old-fashioned shirts and jackets. She come and close [it].

"Itʼs like you looked into my closet," she says.

Nurse Kutsenko says that she worked in the care home for 24 years. She went to people like home, and they were waiting for her. In the summer, she brought vegetables from the garden, and in the winter — preservation.

“We were a family, but now there is no family. Fate scattered people across the country. And we will probably never meet again,” says Kutsenko.

The psychologist takes us to a room with yellow walls. Three men lived in it. Mykola Nefyodov is one of them. His ex-wife Iryna visited him in the care home. She was with him on the day of the explosion. She just shaved him, and went to the bathroom to pour water, and there she fainted. When she recovered, she immediately started calling Mykola, and he called her.

“Two women went to see their ex-husbands. Such upbringing in people, they could not but visit,” says the psychologist.

Serhiy Boyko lived in the room with Nefyodov. He is not yet sixty years old, but he suffered four strokes in his youth. His sister visited him every week. She forced [him] to move. The man was leaning on a walker. It is a miracle that he survived the shelling. A fragment of the guided aerial bomb crashed into the wall next to his bed, bounced into the closet and fell to the floor. A piece of metal was found under the nurseʼs bed.

Carpets on the walls and a tablecloth with roses catch the eye in a room with pink wallpaper. Medicines, hand cream and the book "Joy High to Heaven" are on the table. A photo is stuck out of the book. Olha recognizes who is on it — the youngest resident of the boarding house, 36-year-old Maya. She has multiple sclerosis. The disease appeared suddenly, against the background of stress, when she broke up with her husband. Prior to that, the woman worked as a primary school teacher and raised her daughter. Now the child is in a boarding school. She also has health problems. Maya keeps in touch with her. Olha took Maya and 20 other residents of the Sumy care home to the same institution in Kyiv. They also had a "strike", but not as strong as in Sumy. The windows in the assembly hall were broke out.

“This is not our first shelling either. In 2022, there were two explosions nearby, windows in the administrative building were broke out, but peopleʼs rooms were not affected. All year 2023 and until September 19 of this year, we had quiet,” recalls Olha.

In many rooms of the Sumy care home, the walls are decorated with paintings. They were drawn by its residents — 80-year-old Anatoliy Osypenko and 56-year-old Andriy Balabanov.

“They spent all their fortunes on paintings. They drew by numbers. Itʼs art therapy for them. Andriy drew especially a lot,” says Olha.

Paintings in Andriyʼs room hang from the ceiling to the floor. There are a canvas, brushes, a magnifying glass and open palettes with paints on the table. They [paints] are withered. Most likely, he sat down to paint and then the shelling happened.

Olha stops on the stairs in front of the destroyed 5th floor. He is afraid to go further — the stairs are covered with bricks. The psychologist says that Varvara Stepanivna Samoilenko, the oldest resident of the boarding house, lived there. She will be 100 years old this December. After the explosion on September 19, the old woman was taken home by her grandson Ivan, and now she will live with him. She had been in the care home for two years, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

During the shelling, Varvara Stepanivnaʼs head was cut and stitches were applied. And 78-year-old Lidia Oleksandrivna Kanko died before her eyes. She is the only resident who did not survive the shelling. They were roommates and were resting on their beds at the time of the impact. Fragments of glass, roof and the guided aerial bombs fell on the women. Lidia Oleksandrivnaʼs hand was torn off. She died in hospital.

“Four of them lived in a room. Old ladies said that Lida was screaming so much, but they couldnʼt get close. Of all four, only Lidia Oleksandrivna was able to walk. The old lady was good, kind person,” says Olha.

Near the assembly hall, the organizer of cultural and recreational activities Iryna Savchenko weaves a camouflage net for the military. This was supposed to be the 138th grid made by the residents of the care home, starting in 2022. The workers bought materials for it with their own money.

"The first time we wove bows — it was difficult for old ladies to make knots, their fingers hurt. But recently they began to weave [it] in a different way. And they became so quick, it became easy for them. Only a few people did not understand that the war was going on. So everyone saw everything," says Savchenko.

Savchenko talks about the care home and breaks down crying incessantly. She remembers how before the shelling they sang, read poems, and organized concerts. Her husband — a musician — came to play the piano and bayan. Those who could — danced. Savchenko came to the care home 35 years ago — in the first year of its operation.

“People call me, they want to come back [here]. Mykola just called, he was reading poems. He says that heʼs in Kyiv and asked me ʼWhen I could go home?ʼ No one wanted to leave [this place],”says Savchenko.

Borschenko says that everyone wants to return, and thatʼs natural.

“There are people who have lived with us for 10-15 years. Now they found themselves in new places, and strangers are everywhere. Imagine how it is to rebuild your life when you are 80-90 years old? We sent buses to care homes in the Sumy region immediately after the shelling. And people asked: ʼWill we return to the heating season?ʼ,” says the psychologist.

3

No one will return to the care home in the coming years. At best, it will be transferred to another city, far from the Russian border. The minimum distance should be 50 kilometers, but now it is only 30 kilometers.

The 50-kilometer rule appeared in 2023, when the government adopted a corresponding resolution, says the director of the social policy department of the Regional Military Administration (RMA) Lyudmila Musiyaka. Since then, the Sumy RMA has been looking for a place to resettle people. However, there are few geriatric homes in Ukraine. No matter where we turned, these were care homes in other regions, and offering only 20-30 places, but we needed up to 200. They also said, like, hereʼs your placement, just renovate it. We calculated, the amount exceeded UAH 100 million. Now 45 people have been evacuated to the Khmelnytskyi region and Kyiv. Others were placed in institutions in the Sumy region, crowding out people.

“In Sumy, they will close down the building temporarily. It will definitely be needed [later]. There are no fewer lonely people because of the war. The need for such institutions will be greater in the future,” says Musiyaka.

This is the 3rd resettled care home, and two more need to be evacuated from the Sumy region. But their residents also refuse. They say “we have no shelling, leave us alone”. Residents of the geriatric home also refused to evacuate. The last time they were interviewed was two weeks before the shelling, on September 4.

Musiyaka finds one explanation why the Russians targeted the geriatric home. It is called "For Veterans of War and Labor". Opposite the hospital with the same name, where old people were treated.

"The Russians donʼt care what means all of this for people who are well into their eighties. There were no military ones anywhere near here, and such names are from Soviet times," she says.

4

At the transit center in Sumy, a week after the shelling, leaning on a walker, "Petrivna" very slowly walks out into the corridor. She screams: "People, donʼt leave me!" After the explosion, her grandson took her home, but soon he brought her back. Psychologist Olha hugs Petrivna and says that no one leaves her. The woman does not give up. She lies down with his body on a walker and begs to be taken to the Khmelnytskyi region together with everyone. Olha tries to persuade her to calm down.

“People were stressed when they were transferred from room to room. And here you donʼt know where to go [further]. Remains of health have been taken away [by moving],” says one of the nurses. She approaches the men from behind and sprays perfume on them. She makes sure that there is no unpleasant smell.

Evacuation ambulances take away six people. In a few hours, two more medical evacuation car arrive and load the same amount of people. Nurses escort everyone of them. They were hugging, saying goodbye and crying. They know that they will not see each other again.