James Meek reports from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, a metropolis with millions of residents, now in its fourth year of war. The city is battered not only by the Russian invasion but also by internal Ukrainian issues such as rampant corruption.
“There is a Ukrainian word, *prylit* (in Russian, *prilyot*), that you constantly hear in Kharkiv. It’s a rare example of a word that not only shifted overnight from one common meaning to another but whose new use completely erased the old one. It means ‘arrival from the air’ and was previously relevant to Ukrainians only on the arrival boards at airports—a symbol of travel in an open world. Since the day the war broke out, there has been no air traffic to or from Kharkiv; but ‘arrival from the air’ can also mean the ‘impact of a military projectile.’ Three impacts on School Number 17 have left behind a bare, dusty ruin where 1,200 children once studied.
The school specialized in English instruction: among the few remnants of peacetime are cheerful wall murals, now pierced by shrapnel, depicting an idealized Britain—a red telephone box, Big Ben, and the Gherkin.” More here…
