The City of Rivers and the Hum of the Shahed: A Report from Mykolaiv, which the Russians Failed to Capture

Half a million Mykolaiv residents live to the sound of air raids and explosions, open cafes, and go out to the streets every day to fetch water. LEGO models of the future are growing next to the buildings destroyed by Russian missiles, and volunteers and artists are bringing the ancient architecture back to life. LIGA.net's report is about Mykolaiv, which refuses to let itself go.

"I wake up to explosions, it buzzes and buzzes, buzzes and buzzes somewhere above the house. I'm tired of thinking every night that this is the last one." In Mykolaiv, it's 15 minutes to the commandant's office, and the two guys are talking to each other in a hurry to get home. The asphalt has not yet cooled from the August heat – Mykolaiv is considered one of the hottest cities in Ukraine.

At seven in the morning, the city is already alive, and people board trolleybuses with the inscription "Mykolaiv is a city on the wave" and hurry about their business. In 2023, the city resumed renting scooters, and it became clear: Mykolaiv had finally revived a bit after a year of military turmoil.

A living symbol of Mykolaiv

Vitalii Kim, the head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, is dressed in black despite the scorching summer sun; he is smoking a cigarette near the broken-down OVA building. He doesn't look like he does in the legendary meme: there, Kim sits with his feet in colorful socks on the table and talks on the phone. This photo was taken in early March 2022, when Russian troops were trying to surround and storm the city.

Kim and I are standing near the destroyed building. Near its facade are metal structures with banners with portraits of fallen soldiers. This is a temporary memorial made by Mykolaiv volunteers until a full-fledged memorial complex is built in the city on the territory of the oldest cemetery, an eighteenth-century necropolis.

"It happened at about 8:46 a.m. on March 29, 2022," Kim points to the hole from a Russian missile that gaped in the former OVA building, "and 37 people died. Two days before that, our team began to periodically leave the OVA, where we had been living and working almost continuously since the start of the full-scale. on March 27, we held a meeting in another location for the first time, and on March 29, we moved it from 8:00 to 9:00. This decision saved the lives of most people... Now, due to the lack of a permanent building, the OVA is working on wheels.

Prior to the full-scale invasion, 1.1 million people lived in Mykolaiv region, and 470,000 in Mykolaiv itself. In March 2022, there were less than 600,000 in the region and about 180,000 in the city. Today, the number has recovered almost to pre-war levels, but the composition has changed: about 150,000 IDPs live here (50,000 of them in Mykolaiv, mostly from Kherson region).

"We have less shelling now than in Odesa or Kyiv," says Kim. "The main threat is drones. My wife returned to the city at the end of 2022, and many other people followed her."

New restaurants, fountains, and even nightclubs are opening here, with curfew restrictions.

"Mykolaiv is a leader in Ukraine in terms of the pace of recovery," says the head of the UIA. "Out of 17,500 damaged facilities, more than seven thousand have been repaired, which is 42%. Despite the closed ports, the budget is being replenished: one of the relocated enterprises brought the city 80 million hryvnias in taxes. Small businesses are also actively working, including those started by IDPs from scratch with grants and subsidies. Mykolaiv's main problems now include a lack of money in the budget, a shortage of labor resources due to mobilization, and water issues. Mykolaiv still lacks a centralized drinking water supply due to the water pipeline destroyed by the Russians during the war. The city receives only technical water from the Southern Bug River, which is unfit for consumption without additional treatment. The problem should be solved by the fall."

Kim was born and raised in Mykolaiv, worked in Kyiv for several years, but returned home. For him, Mykolaiv means people with a special character and "southern temperament." Among Vitalii's favorite places are the Eighth Pier (a modern public space on the site of the former river station, popular for its views and cultural events – LIGA.net), the temporarily occupied Kinburn Spit, and the rapids of the Southern Bug River.

"Mykolaiv is my home," he says. "Our people are a bit strict, but they know how to joke and relax. This is our special vibe. I dream of a large embankment from Pier 8 to the BAM (as the locals call Fleet Boulevard – LIGA.net). I hope to return to this project after the war. For now, I wish Mykolaiv resilience and a cool mind. We are a frontline region and we must remain united.

Mykolaiv: a port city looking for itself

In the city center, a group of children stopped to rest in a park. Wearing panama hats and carrying colorful backpacks, they stand in a column, two by two, holding hands; a counselor or school teacher explains something to them. In the coffee shop where we meet with the Mykolaiv journalist, an old man is cradling a baby until a young pregnant woman joins them. Then they leave to go about their business. For a city 60 kilometers from the front line, Mykolaiv has a lot of children. Kateryna Sereda, the editor-in-chief of MikVisti, and I start talking about Mykolaiv.

Kateryna has been working in journalism since 2013, starting at MikVista. She had the opportunity to live in Lviv and Kyiv, but decided to stay in her native Mykolaiv.

"In Lviv or Kyiv, I realized that this is not mine," she says. "Here, in Mykolaiv, everything is mine, everything is native. We will protest and quarrel, but we will do everything to improve our city."

"In 2022-2023, Mykolaiv was actually a military city, the base of several brigades. Many people, especially those with children, left. Our family was among them. When the front line moved back, people started coming back," Kateryna says. In 2022, she was managing the media remotely, and MikVisti merged with other media outlets and worked from basements. The newsroom building survived a blast wave that smashed the windows.

The journalist calls Mykolaiv a city of rivers with great potential for shipping and yachting. However, over the past 30 years, she believes, it has lost its identity.

"Historically, Mykolaiv was a closed city created for the construction of the Russian fleet," says the journalist. "After the collapse of the USSR, the large shipbuilding enterprises, giants that employed tens of thousands of citizens, began to decline. This led to mass unemployment, and the city turned into a center of small-scale trade, spontaneous markets and kiosks.

In the 2010s, Mykolaiv was hopeful about the development of port infrastructure: international investors, including Qataris, entered the Olvia port. But a full-scale war halted maritime traffic, ports were closed, and economic life slowed down dramatically.

However, the war has left deep problems. One of them is water – for three years now, the taps have been filled with only technical water, yellow and with an unpleasant odor. People go to the wells every day for drinking water – it has become a part of everyday life. The townspeople carry drinking water in eggplants, order delivery or carry it in carts. Water supply networks are constantly bursting.

"Shipyards are not actually working," the journalist says, "Port operators have moved their operations to the Danube and Odesa.

Despite the difficulties, Kateryna says, Mykolaiv has its own charms: a yacht club, river trams, and a unique Museum of Shipbuilding and Fleet. The river and proximity to water are what Mykolaiv residents who have moved to other cities miss the most.

"The main wish is that Mykolaiv finds its identity and develops as a city with a livable infrastructure: recreation, quality education, spaces for children and adults," says MikVisti's editor-in-chief. "But for this, first of all, we need victory and an end to the war.

Eight missiles at the Mykolaiv zoo

Mykolaiv Zoo is the largest in Ukraine. In 2026, it will celebrate its 125th anniversary, and now it is home to more than 4,000 animals of 500 different species.

Right on the grounds, a few meters from the enclosures, fragments of Russian missiles are sticking out of the ground. The first one fell here on the fourth day of the full-scale invasion, followed by seven more. The animals were miraculously unharmed, and the defused wreckage was left in plain sight as a reminder to everyone who comes here. The animals experienced the Russian shelling in different ways. Some hid and shivered, while others stopped eating. It was especially difficult for predators and ungulates, which react sharply to loud sounds. Over time, they got used to it, but during the strikes, anxiety is still felt in their enclosures.

Director Volodymyr Topchiy's office has a large aquarium, shelves with animal figures, and a poster with the words: "Even if you're surrounded by hyenas, that's no reason to stop being a lion."

"This is now the third war in the history of our zoo," says Volodymyr, "Three of our employees were killed at the front. This is the biggest and most painful challenge for us today. Nothing else can be compared to it."

Volodymyr has been running the zoo for 23 years. Back in October 2021, he began preparing for a possible war: he stocked up on feed, dried fruits, and cereals. When the invasion became a reality, the suppliers were in the occupied territories, and the food was quickly running out. The director appealed to the townspeople and farmers, and people brought everything they could: bread, apples, eggs, honey, milk. In the first year of the full-scale invasion, the zoo actually fed the city until they were able to organize new supplies from abroad. After the Russians blew up the water intake, there was no water in the taps at all. Later, aid began to arrive from abroad.

The main thing now, says the director, is to preserve the staff and the lives of the animals. Volodymyr says that this is complicated by the fact that state zoos – there are seven in Ukraine – are not subordinated to any ministry, meaning that no one is responsible for them.

"This causes a lot of problems, including financial ones," explains the zoo director. "90% of the staff receives the minimum wage of less than 8,000 hryvnias. People work eight to nine hours a day, but it's impossible to live on that kind of money in our country. This is a huge injustice.

Some of the men of the team went to the front, and 12 specialists were booked as critical. Nowadays, the zoo is mainly staffed by women and men of retirement age.

Today, the director is busy with everyday tasks, without which the life of the menagerie is impossible. For example, cleaning the large ponds where waterfowl, fish and turtles live. It takes three weeks to drain the water, two months to remove the silt and repair the bottom, and another month to fill the pond again. The last time it was cleaned was two years ago, but now the water in Mykolaiv is technical, without chlorination, and it blooms faster in the heat.

"The zoo needs ten cubic meters of water per day," says Volodymyr Topchiy. "We used to transport water from Odesa and Kropyvnytskyi in tankers. Later, we made two wells, and now we use groundwater – it is hard, not potable, but we purify it with special installations. The electricity was also often turned off, and this threatens to kill the fish in the aquariums. We have diesel generators, including one donated by the Prague Zoo, which literally saves these fish.

Before the war, the zoo received about 125 thousand visitors every year. Now there are fewer of them, especially after the massive attacks, but locals, IDPs, and military personnel with their families come every day.

For more than 15 years, animal-assisted therapy programs for children with disabilities, including Down syndrome and cerebral palsy, have been operating here. Under the supervision of specialists, children communicate with animals, feed them and take part in their care. This helps them develop fine motor skills.

In March 2022, when the fighting was going on near the city, the director of the Mykolaiv Zoo received a phone call: "Would you like to talk to a Voice of America correspondent from Washington?" He simply told them what was happening: about the zoo, about the war, about the need for support.

"The interview was posted on Facebook, and unexpectedly it got more than 600,000 views," Volodymyr recalls. "There I asked people to make a request: "Buy a ticket online. It will help the zoo survive."

After that, transfers started coming in from all over the world – from Israel, America, Spain, Australia. People just wanted to help. At the same time, the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums created a special fund to support Ukrainian zoos and raised 2.5 million euros. These funds were distributed among the zoos of Ukraine, and the Mykolaiv Zoo still uses them to continue its work.

"We dream of returning this beauty to the city"

The Mykolaiv sign is shot through on both sides. It is kept in the courtyard of the DOF, the former House of Naval Officers in Mykolaiv, as a constant reminder of the first days of the invasion. During the war, this building became both a volunteer headquarters and a cultural and educational space.

DOF is the oldest cultural center in the city. Founded in 1820 by Black Sea Fleet officer Oleksandr Greig and built in 1824 by German-born architect Theodor Wunsch in the style of strict classicism, it has been a place where Mykolaiv's cultural elite has been formed for decades. Balls, concerts, family evenings, clubs, music schools, and a library were held here. In those days, it was called the House of Flagships and Captains.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, the building was turned into a regular House of Culture. During the Second World War, it was destroyed to the skeleton, but after reconstruction it received its modern name, the House of Fleet Officers. In recent decades, the DOF fell into disrepair: it was not repaired or heated. The DOF was given a new lease on life in 2022.

"We brought this Mykolaiv sign from Snihurivka, which was occupied after a week-long bombardment in March 2022 and liberated in November of that year. "It was standing right on the contact line," says Volodymyr Alekseev, musician and co-founder of the NGO Dof. "When we were bringing aid there, we saw that the sign was damaged from both sides – bullets were flying from both sides. You see, there is even one bullet still here.

Volodymyr stops talking for a moment and points to the sign again: "Show this to those who say there was no war in Mykolaiv. This is the kind of thing... that comes to life when you look at it."

When the full-scale Russian invasion began, Alekseev and his friends came to the building. "We just started doing something because we cared," he recalls.

In the early days, they made Molotov cocktails and helped set up checkpoints. Later, the space turned into a volunteer hub, where people brought things, medicines, and aid for the military.

"Every day, about 300 low-income people and IDPs who receive assistance passed through this place. Anyone could come and get medicine," says Volodymyr.

The Headquarters gradually developed thematic initiatives: a hub for IDPs, an art space, a children's area, a place for performances and lectures. One of the most important areas was the restoration of historical memory: activists collected archival photos, maps, and testimonies of old-timers. Today, DOF is one of the few places in Mykolaiv where you can safely gather, create cultural projects, hold exhibitions and concerts, teach children, and just take a break from constant anxiety.

Just like during World War II, in 2022 the House of Fleet Officers was shelled. Rocket attacks smashed the windows in the building; volunteers covered the holes with plastic sheeting. Repairs and equipment are made at their own expense or thanks to individual grants.

In the summer, DOF organizes camps for children, and hundreds of people attend cultural events. "People need culture, they need a safe place to meet and relax. That's why we fill this need," says Alekseev.

In 2023, we were thinking about a project for the restored DOF. "My friend made this LEGO model," Volodymyr shows. "The details were sent from Denmark, from the LEGO Foundation. The DOF was historically white – it was called the White House. And we dream of returning this beauty to the city, restoring the building. This is a place where we remember the dead and at the same time live on. And we are not going to give up or break down.