Putin Met With Prigozhin Days After Failed Mutiny, Kremlin Says

of AV Fomin Botanical Garden It is one of the oldest in Ukraine. Almost for two centuries he has stood in the center of the capital Kiev.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, garden staff were encouraged to leave Kiev or work remotely. But soon after, seasonal work and garden maintenance needs arose, so volunteers organized on social media and came to help.

“This botanical garden is the pearl of Kiev, a green jewel in the city center,” Belemets said on a recent morning. She added that it’s important to keep it beautiful. “Not only for us, but for this city and country.”

Volunteers perform simple garden tasks such as digging, gathering branches, and watering. At one point, about 20 people volunteered each week. More recently, that number has dwindled as many have returned to full-time work.

Yet new faces emerge all the time. As Beremetz spoke, two women arrived and were led into the bush by long-time volunteers. They quickly set to work, one of the women draping a brown leather handbag over her shoulder and tugging at a branch of a low bush.

Svetlana Sitko, 62, has been volunteering at the gardens since April 2022. At the time, the terror caused by Russian forces in the Kiev suburbs, including Bucha, had just become apparent after an unsuccessful attempt to capture the capital.

“After Bucha, after Kiev, we had to do something,” Sitko sighed. She pointed to her own chest and said: We wanted to do something for people in this city. ”

Her hands in blue gardening gloves made animated gestures as she spoke of the orchards of pears, apple trees, blackberries, blueberries, currants and honeysuckle she and her husband had planted in their villa outside Kiev. .

Sitko, a former child psychologist, said that when she leaves the garden, she changes out of her purple leggings and dirty shoes and heads for another wartime volunteer job: making camouflage nets for snipers. .

Her husband, Yuri, was tending flowers nearby. He is a true gardening enthusiast, she continued. Although they have been married for 36 years, they were born on February 24, four years apart. This is the same day Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year.

Last May, she said, a soldier came to her yard with his wife and small child in his arms. He told her that he had a few hours of free time and wanted to see her “beautiful things” with her family.

“I definitely believe that they on the front lines need this very much,” she said. “They will come back when the war is over.”

Finding beauty in the garden is “important to the heart and the eye,” she added.

Daria Mitiuk contributed to the report.