Treno di evacuazione dalla città di Pokrovsk (fotografo Konstiantyn Liberov)

Source: Konstiantyn Liberov on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/C_anJwZIYZt)

>If someone had told us a year ago anyone of us would have to shoot the evacuation of people from Pokrovsk town, we would not have believed it.

>This publication is unlikely to meet journalistic standards, because it is impossible to write impartially about Pokrovsk (a city that, in two years of full-scale war, has actually become my hometown). At least for us. For these very reasons, we put off this trip for so long, because what you don’t see with your own eyes doesn’t seem to be happening in reality.

>But it is not so. The enemy is already 9 km from Pokrovsk. The sounds of explosions coming from the front line every hour break the silence of the deserted city. Empty, because the townspeople and residents of the region leave the city almost every day.

>A free evacuation train from Ukrzaliznytsia takes out several hundred people every day. The station is full of people. Huge bags and boxes that hold a lifetime, animal carriers, huge teddy bears. People take away things that are dear to them, things that will remind them of home, to which they may not soon be able to return.

>It is painful for everyone, but there is a certain category of people whose stories are especially heartbreaking. They are usually different from others at the station. They behave a little more confidently, they have less things with them than others. These are people who have already been through it. Someone – in 2014 in Donetsk. Someone – in the 2022 in Bakhmut. They were already packing their whole life into several packages. They were already fleeing from the Russians and their “liberation”, but they caught up with them here as well.

>Someone in this train, who is not from Pokrovsk itself, but from the region, has already lost his home to a Russian shelling. Someone has already lost loved ones. Everyone is taken care of in the train. Food, hygiene kits are distributed, doctors are working and elderly people who suffer from heart problems due to stress are quickly assisted.

>The unknown lies ahead for everyone. Even for those whose relatives are waiting for them in other cities. It is impossible to prepare a person for this. It is impossible to explain to a small child why he and his mother are going, and his father is staying. It is impossible to reassure an 80-year-old lady, who was born, grew up, fell in love, worked, built a family and all her life in one city, that she will not have the opportunity to peacefully live out her old age in this city. It hurts too much.

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