This is one of an occasional series of dispatches about life amid the war in Ukraine.
KYIV, Ukraine — Just steps away from rush-hour traffic on Kyiv’s busy Taras Shevchenko boulevard, a handful of retirees trim bushes in a quiet, green oasis.
“They started coming when the war broke out,” said Natalia Belemets, the curator of this small botanical garden. “They want to help.”
The AV Fomin Botanical Garden is one of the oldest in Ukraine. It has stood in the center of the capital, Kyiv, for nearly two centuries.
Garden staff members were encouraged to leave Kyiv or work remotely when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But soon, there was a need for seasonal work and garden maintenance, so the volunteers on social media and came to help.
“This botanical garden is a pearl of Kyiv, a green jewel in the center of the city,” said Ms. Belemets one morning. It’s important to keep it beautiful, he added, “not just for us, but for the city and the country.”
Volunteers do simple garden work, such as digging, collecting branches and watering. At one point, there were about 20 people volunteering weekly. These days, the number has dwindled as many people have returned to full time jobs.
However, new faces will always come. While speaking Ms. Belemets, two women arrive and are taken to a bush by a longtime volunteer. They got down to work at once, one of the women tugging at the branches of a low bush, a brown leather purse slung over her shoulder.
Svetlana Sitko, 62, has been volunteering at the garden since April 2022, when the horrors unleashed by Russian troops on the suburbs of Kyiv, including Bucha, in their failed attempt to seize the capital only became clear.
“After Bucha, after Kyiv, we have to do,” sighed Ms. sitko He pointed to his chest: “It starts with the heart. We want to do something in the city, for the people, to help.”
His hands, clad in blue gardening gloves, move excitedly as he talks about the orchard he and his wife have planted in their cottage outside Kyiv: pears, apple trees, blackberries, blueberries, currant and honeysuckle.
A retired child psychologist, Ms. Sitko said that when he left the garden, he would change out of his purple leggings and dirty shoes and head to another wartime volunteer job: making camouflage nets for snipers.
Her husband Yuri was tending flowers nearby. He was the real lover of gardening, she continued. Married for 36 years, they were born four years apart on Feb. 24. That was the same date Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year.
Last May, he said, a soldier came to the garden with his wife and a small child in his arms. He tells her that he has some free time and wants to see “something nice” with his family.
“I really believe that these people who are on the front line need it,” he said. “They will come back after the war.”
Finding beauty in the garden, he adds, is “important for the soul — and the eyes.”
Daria Mitiuk contributed reporting.