Bakhmut memories
I keep forgetting I visited Bakhmut once. It was nine years ago, when Bakhmut was still called by its Soviet name: Artemovsk.
News is that after about a year Russia has finally taken Bakhmut — with huge losses on both sides, possibly in the tens of thousands, and the near total destruction of the city itself. We’ll see if it holds, given the locked-in back-and-forth nature of this shitty war.
Looking at the photos of this annihilated town, I realized that I keep forgetting I visited Bakhmut once. It was nine years ago, in August 2014 — not long after the separatist militia, headed by Igor Girkin/Strelkov and back up by Russia, was booted out of there. Back then Bakhmut was still called by its Soviet name: Artemovsk, after the early Bolshevik leader. The name change was done after I had been there, so no wonder that I have kept blanking on the fact that Bakhmut and Artemovsk are same place.
I think I’ve written about that trip before to you. I was reporting down there that summer — in Eastern Ukraine and the Rostov area. For one day, I was able to talk my way into doing a ride along with a civilian Ukrainian supply truck — which was run by volunteers, funded by a local Kharkov oligarch, and was delivering basic goods to Ukrainian soldiers. Bottles of Coke, tin cans of food, army boots, rubber mats, blocks of cigarettes, things like that. I was surprised that I was able to weasel my way in. My presence in the war zone required approval from the local SBU office, which I got by texting him my passport and an assignment letter from my then-editor at Pando, Paul Carr. That was enough. But I guess why not, there was so much chaos and so many western journalists sneaking around doing stories on the war then that I fit right in.
Artemovsk was just a stop along the way for us. It was a typical provincial Soviet Ukrainian city. Quite a lot of trees. The usual dilapidated apartment blocks and inner courtyards. And that very pleasant earthy smell you get over there. I didn’t think anything of the town back then and we made only a very quick stop at the local hospital. I barely took any pictures. Who knew it would become such a bloody, destructive focal point in Russia’s failed regime change war — and a point of defensive pride for Ukraine. Or that most of it would be reduced to rubble. What a travesty.
Looking back on it now, I guess you could say there were some signs that trouble was never far way. The town had been the site of failed pro-Russian rebel takeover early on in Ukraine’s post-Maidan civil war and the front was never very far away, with the local crumbling hospital constantly filled with injured soldiers brought there from battles that were taking farther east.
Here’s the little bit of the journey that took me to Artemovsk — I mean, Bakhmut.