The pandemic’s toll on Lviv

The centre in Lviv is usually a bustling place, full of locals and tourists. Photo: Jorge Láscar (CC) www.flickr.com

I suggested we should observe the situation, but the following day I changed my mind, thus returning the advance payment.

After that things changed pretty rapidly. The following day we received notification that our kids’ school would be closing within two days. The school was going to begin teaching remotely. Gatherings were prohibited, public transport was brought to a halt and most shops were closed. Cultural institutions and a majority of shops were forced to shut their doors, followed by restaurants and cafés, and then, finally, churches. One of the restaurant owners decided to close his business before there was a decision made by the authorities. “If it even saves one life – it is worth it,” he said. Today, we know that one of his premises – a jazz club – did not survive the crisis and it will not re-open after the pandemic.

Homeward bound

From today’s perspective all these measures seem logical, yet every one of these restrictions was a blow. On Thursday we decided to postpone for a week a movie we were planning on seeing. Little did we know that the next day all cinemas would be closed for several months. On the fora dedicated to tour guides, there were discussions on whether to return advance payments and postpone scheduled tours. Some ridiculed the threat, while others encouraged visitors to come: “I urge the desperate to join the tourist traffic in the direction of Ukraine. But not in groups larger than four busses at a time because only gatherings up to 200 people are legal in Lviv” (Maria Pyż, “A remedy to the panic is a trip to Lviv”). Someone wrote that he was surprised that his group which had scheduled for the first week of May suddenly cancelled.

The situation really illustrated who feels at home and where. My daughter, who studies in Warsaw, returned to Lviv on the day they announced the first restrictions. Meanwhile, a few friends, who have been living in Ukraine for many years, returned to Poland on the first day of the quarantine. Massive queues were forming in Korczowa, on the border with those attempting to enter Ukraine – trucks, busses and cars were forced to wait dozens of hours to cross. A majority of the returnees were Ukrainians working in Europe. Their most popular destinations were from Poland and Italy, which made them frequent targets for accusations that they were bringing the virus back home. We can imagine how this is somehow similar to how lepers were treated in the Middle Ages.

One of the first people in Ukraine who got infected brought the virus from Italy. After her return, she took an active part in social activities – participating in demonstrations, and meeting the village leader. Once it was confirmed she had the virus, she shared videos of herself on social media begging for her neighbours not to set fire to her home.

The following weeks put any doubts and discussions to rest. Everything was closed, including borders. Lviv was emptying out. It also became more beautiful. Spring had arrived earlier than usual. At first we were happy that we would have more time for reading books, watching TV shows, taking walks and anything else that had eluded us in normal times. It turned out there was much to do in the house, especially watching over the kids. Schools shifted most of their responsibilities to parents, and classes were rare or only consistent of homework. Older teachers did not always cope with the internet and new technologies. Children, on the other hand, quickly learnt how to disturb lessons and write assessments online with the aid of aunts and uncles.

Highest infection rates

Ukrainians, from the very beginning, did not take the virus seriously. Only 10 per cent stayed at home after the first easing of restrictions in early May. Thirty-seven per cent left their homes multiple times a day. They did not care about social distancing, or properly wearing face masks. They gathered in small clusters on trams discussing the current situation.

Lvivians have much in common with Italians. They enjoy the company of others and have active social lives. They cannot live without coffee and gossip, and they gladly start conversations with strangers. This is maybe why we have the highest rates of infection in Ukraine. The Lviv region, with a population of 2.5 million people, has the most confirmed cases in the country (almost 9,000 by early August), more than the larger Kyiv region (above 7,000). After the closure of parks, pedestrians would warn each other about the location of police patrols, as fines for violating the quarantine were between 17,000 and 34,000 hryvnia (522-1044 euros). There were jokes about how it was easier for sober pedestrians to get fined than drunk drivers. It did not, however, discourage people from walking and fines were really a deterrent than something to be actually enforced.

Companies were quick to adapt to the new set of circumstances by releasing dedicated products. Soon socks appeared on the market that had “stay at home” or “wash your hands” written on them. Other motifs drawn on the socks were toilet paper and buckwheat (basic necessities in Ukraine), or even pairs of socks depicting the national bard, Taras Shevchenko, in a face mask asking “Have you already written your testament?” (Shevchenko’s Testament is one of his most famous poems).

The pandemic has revealed the dire situation of the Ukrainian health sector, which was already an open secret. Facing a disaster, state run hospitals, lacking basic supplies, began to beg for help and additional funding. Ukrainians, who are accustomed to corruption in hospitals where every procedure has its price, were reluctant to answer the call. They pointed out the previous greed and irregularities in how hospitals functioned. At the same time, it was the doctors and nurses who would sacrifice themselves the most, working in difficult conditions with untrusting patients – who sometimes had to wait two weeks before receiving test results. Some doctors would pay the ultimate price – like the head of the Army Hospital in Lviv, Ivan Hayda, or the head of the rescue service in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ihor Kovaliuk. A friend of mine who was a doctor also died, after intubating an infected patient during an operation.

Disinformation

During the first weeks of the quarantine there were also many reports of scams occurring. Many were connected to the trade of disinfectants and face masks, which suddenly disappeared from pharmacies. Later these would return to the market at twice the price. Headlines in the newspaper illustrated the seriousness of the situation: “Armed robbery on a car transporting face masks. 10,000 were stolen”; “Italian police have arrested a Ukrainian woman selling face masks on the street in Milano”. The price for a face mask on the black market would reach 90 hryvnia (2.70 euros) a piece. Before the pandemic they were priced at 8 hryvnia (25 euro cents) and now just five hryvnia (15 euro cents). The same price change affected disinfectant products. The police even shut down an illegal factory making such products and falsely labelling them as “German” cleaning products.

The amount of false information circulating around the virus was incredible. For example, towns were sprayed with a toxic substance from helicopters; hospitals would only accept coronavirus patients while others would die at home; and pensioners would get a benefit from the state if they only stated the number on their credit card. These misgivings were often created and spread by specific people, sometimes the same ones who disseminate Russian propaganda. A few people were arrested for spreading these falsehoods.

A unique centre for disinformation was the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, whose leaders would deny the risks and were calling for participation in their services. The former patriarch of the Kyiv Orthodox Church, Filaret, blamed the coronavirus pandemic on homosexuals. He claimed that Holy Communion, shared among the parishioners with the same spoon, was incapable of becoming infected. In the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Patriarch Pavel, known for his passion for glamour, also claimed that the best protection against the virus was faith. Frequent visits to the church and walking the Way of the Cross would offer even better protection. Unfortunately, almost all of the monks at the Kyiv monastery became infected with coronavirus. Police cut it off from the world for an entire month and Pavel ended up in hospital. From there he asked his faithful for more generous financial contributions because of the situation.

Another outbreak was in the Pochayiv Lavra in Volhynia, an important pilgrimage destination. Authorities were forced to cut off access to the town and monastery. The head of the Pochayiv Lavra, Volodymyr, supported a statement of the Moldovan Orthodox Church which blamed the authorities for working with Bill Gates, who they claimed was responsible for spreading the virus in order to insert microchips into people alongside the vaccination and to control them via 5G technology. Volodymyr noted: “This statement is relevant to the highest degree and is in tune with the largest challenges of modernity with which the Orthodox Church faces.”

There were also rather funny situations when the clergies of different faiths would drive around their parishes with cars, trucks or even helicopters trickling holy water on the surroundings, while chanting prayers against the disease. There were rebellious clergy who would break the quarantine by letting in parishioners through the back door, praying at night or even openly during the day. The deputy mayor of Dnipro found a strange way to punish such clergyman by digging a deep ditch in front of the entrance to the church. He proclaimed that he had a vision the night before that there would be a water pipe failure and an unexploded bomb in that ditch.

Waiting for a spark

The longer we were stuck at home, the more uncertainty and frustration grew in society. Conspiracy theories were abundant with people exclaiming: “I don’t know anyone infected – so the virus cannot be real.” These notions were enhanced because of the low trust Ukrainians have for their authorities. It was said that they would prolong the quarantine in order to steal more, get rich on taxes, raise slaves who would work for a bowl of soup, and so that pawn shops and banks could get rich. Other ideas included the destruction of small businesses, the introduction of anti-Ukrainian legislation that would destroy the nation or topple the government. There were even rumours that doctors were infecting themselves to get compensation and that oligarchs had secured respirators for themselves because they did not count on the national health service.

The authorities did not do much to strengthen trust in them. During the pandemic the minister of health changed twice, with as many as six central headquarters responsible for combatting the virus. Journalists discovered that in Koncha-Zaspa, an upscale neighbourhood close to Kyiv, restaurants were open during the quarantine. Of course, only “their own” were let inside. One member of parliament claimed that he was just using a trail behind the restaurant, where he walked with another MP keeping a distance of two metres, while naturally discussing the current state affairs. Someone else who broke the quarantine rules was President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who went to a café with his co-workers while his wife was in hospital with COVID-19. They all received a fine of 17,000 hryvnia (522 euros) with the exception of Zelenskyy. Lawyers are still struggling with the question if it is possible to fine the president. The Supreme Court is still investigating the case.

We tour guides, like many others, have been forced to live different lives. Some of us live off our savings and others aim at developing new skills or hoping the crisis will be over soon. Others have a second source of income and can sleep safely. Some even organise tours for their colleagues. It is not all about the money, of course. Yet for the majority of us, tour guiding is not only a job but a way of life and self-realisation, a way of charging our batteries before the off season hits.

In the words of one of my closest friends: “I am under the impression that I am on a holiday ‘at my own expense’, like in a different reality which I don’t know when it will end … Some of my thoughts are about changing my way of life, even though I have worked in this profession for 18 years. I am a person that can work only with something which brings me joy, so I hope for a situation that will affect me. I am waiting for a spark. I have no time at all as I can finally do the things I was unable to earlier. I read, cook, return to the profession I was educated to do, embroidery, fashion and sewing. I hope that I can return to music and maybe write something, or not. In the summer I go to the countryside for fruit and berries. Honestly – I am happy.”

In the first two months of the pandemic in Lviv there were some 800 cases of COVID-19. After two months, the quarantine was slowly lifted. It was removed slower in Lviv than other regions because the infection rates were higher here. During this time there were more than 6,000 infections. The real number is unknown as there have only been 17,000 tests carried out for one million people.

Paradoxically the streets are full with open beer gardens and restaurants. Beauty parlours, spas and gyms are also frequently attended and you can go for a walk in the park. Public transport is loaded with passengers to the brim. Foreign travel destinations have been replaced by the Black Sea coast, as Ukrainians are not allowed into most other countries, while many others have already spent the money they were saving for summer holidays. Nonetheless, we want to be happy. But still, we cannot go to the cinema!

Translated by Daniel Gleichgewicht

Katarzyna Łoza is a tour guide based in the city of Lviv. She is also a blogger, photographer and writer. She maintains the online Polish-language portal www.lwow.info.

coronavirus, COVID-19, Lviv, Ukraine