DONETSK, RUSSIAN-CONTROLLED UKRAINE (Reuters) -Tamara Pozdnyakova woke up on June 30 in her apartment in Donetsk to a flurry of missed calls. Did she know that the shopping centre, home to her clothing store, had been hit by missile strikes, her friends asked.
By the time Pozdnyakova rushed over, fire had consumed the entire market. Luckily for her, the metal shutters over her shop windows had saved her stock from the blaze, but the store itself suffered damage.
Donetsk, a city in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine, was hit by the heaviest missile attack in more than a year at the end of last month, killing one person and injuring three. Dozens of shopkeepers lost their businesses, Pozdnyakova among them.
Hers is a story of perseverance. The shop, Little Italy, was destroyed twice previously, back when Pozdnyakova lived in her hometown Avdiivka, a smaller city to Donetsk’s north.
Each time, she has rebuilt. A tattoo on her right forearm reads, in English, “Never give up”.
Through the years of conflict in eastern Ukraine, beginning in 2014, Little Italy was more than a store – it was, she says, a “psychological place” for everyone in the community, a refuge in times of hardship.
“Everyone came not just to the store, but more just to talk to me,” she says, sitting in the remains of her shop, electric cables dangling dangerously from the damaged ceiling.
Pozdnyakova left Avdiivka in 2022, the year Russian President Vladimir Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine. She stayed for a few years in Europe and then in Russia. Drawn back by memories of home, she broke down during a recent visit to Avdiivka to claim government compensation for her destroyed apartment.
“Everything is very sad,” she says, pulling up videos of her former kitchen, the cupboards ripped open and the windows shattered.
Set up now in Donetsk, Pozdnyakova remains a hopeful person despite her loss. A few hours after the attack, local men had gathered to begin clearing rubble, the sounds of their electric drills filling the market’s alleyways.
“There is no such thing as everything being lost again and you being left alone,” says Pozdnyakova. “There are people around me, and people are a resource.”
(Reporting by Reuters in Donetsk; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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