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The media people of the news portal GX, formerly known as City X [Horod X], showed resilience in wartime, similar to that of their Hero City, Kharkiv. Since the summer of 2022, they have only filled their site in three – under regular fire and not always having a salary. However, journalists, one of whom is Halyna Polovyk, consider these circumstances are secondary to themselves. After all, the world should know about the tests that the city is enduring and the courage of the people of Kharkiv.
“We were told we could no longer work. But we continued.”
The Internet resource gx.net.ua, founded almost eight years ago, was among the top three news sites in Kharkiv in terms of attendance before the war. Created on the basis of self-financing, it functioned due to the sale of advertising. But in the spring of 2022, another challenge was added to the horrors that the war brought to the city’s residents and journalists.
“At the beginning of June, the bank was officially declared bankrupt, and it has already become clear: the war had been for a long time. At that moment, five correspondents and editor Oleksandr Brusientsov were working on the portal. We, journalists, were told that we might not work anymore; although the site was not closed, the editor supported it. But Natalka Boichenko and I decided to stay on a volunteer basis. That’s how the three of us have been working since that time,” says Halyna Polovyk, who has worked on the site since 2019.
During almost a year of Russian aggression, Halyna feels as if she has not had a chance to rest, although she left Kharkiv twice during the spring and summer – each time for several weeks. The first time was in Chernivtsi at the invitation of friends, then abroad to help evacuate relatives and close friends. Working on the information resource of a million-strong city is exhausting even under peaceful conditions; what can we say about war?
“Back then, in Kharkiv, everyone slept dressed.”
At first, the media woman set aside two to three hours a day for sleep. When you wake up, you turn to social networks and your phone to fill your news feed.
“The very first news on the website from February 24 was a blank from peaceful life,” the journalist thinks back to the beginning of the war. “The news was supposed to tell about the fact that our Academic Ukrainian Drama Theater named after Shevchenko will be reconstructed because he turned one hundred years old last year. And after that, there was military information. On the first day, we were shelled, there were victims… As far as I remember, more than 40 people were injured in Kharkiv then. A child died in Chuhuyiv. And the woman, an employee of the gas service, was at work.”
The editors immediately decided they would continue to work, but no longer in the office, but remotely from home, as they were used to during the Covid-19 era. First of all, to inform people about vital things. For example, where you can buy bread because the shops immediately emptied. Halyna baked bread for the family to survive for at least two days.
And the next day, she moved from her house to a distant relative of a respectable age, who lived alone on the fourth floor of a high-rise building near the plant named after Malyshev. Fortunately, this area was not shelled as intensively as Saltivka, Piyatykhatky, or Rohan. Halyna equipped herself with a workplace in the corridor. All site workers had electricity and communication; sometimes, the Internet connection fell off, but the providers quickly restored it. First of all, I collected information by phone. A solid base of contacts, accumulated during journalistic life, came in handy.
Explosions rang out at night and during the day, but the journalist never went down to the shelter: firstly, you can’t run there with a 91-year-old grandmother; leaving her alone is dangerous. Secondly, Halyna did not have time for this: the news feed needed to be constantly filled. In addition, to a certain extent, journalists became a link between people who needed help and volunteers who provided it.
“Acquaintances, former colleagues, pensioners called… We did our daily work and at the same time helped them as much as we could,” she says.
At the end of each endless work shift, the journalist put the laptop in her backpack – just in case, so as not to waste time collecting it later. She went to bed dressed: “In Kharkiv at that time, everyone slept dressed, at least in sports suits. Later, when I temporarily went to Chernivtsi, it was unusual to undress for two days before going to bed.”
Halyna’s every day began with her looking out the window to check if the boiler house that heated the entire neighborhood was smoking. The overarching thought was that the boiler house was obvious, and if it were shelled and the heating went out, people would freeze to death, especially older women. And it would be a colossal tragedy.
The war began to rule more confidently every day in the city, which was alive and beautiful yesterday. On February 27, public transport was stopped. The subway turned into a bomb shelter – for a long time, it performed only this function. Someone came here for the night, and someone never left the underground. The curfew became longer and longer; at some point, it started at 4 p.m. and ended at 5 a.m. In the first days, under the eyes of Kharkiv residents, Russian subversive groups entered the city and were immediately kicked out. Phone numbers were published on gx.net.ua, where those who noticed suspicious persons should contact.
One of the most audacious attacks on the city occurred on March 1: the enemy fired a rocket at the State Administration building, also known as the House of Councils, in the heart of Kharkiv. At that moment, a volunteer headquarters was operating there. About thirty people died.
“The bodies were then being removed from under the ruble for another month,” Halyna recalls.
At that time, the city was shelled 60-70 times a day… Kharkiv residents are worried, among other things, about the Kharkiv Physical and Technical Institute because a nuclear research facility is located there. Due to constant shelling, the institute was destroyed, and the buildings in the surrounding areas were destroyed, but the reactor survived.
But in the new catastrophic reality, something positive appeared – the war united the people of Kharkiv. Journalists learn about such examples every day.
“People tried to help each other. A volunteer movement has started even among those who had never volunteered,” the journalist says. “I was impressed by the case with the Ukrainian Weight Company (a manufacturer of large weighing equipment – Ed). In Piyatykhatky, where the enterprise is located, there was a front line; the Russians broke through there; the manager – a young entrepreneur Ivan Movchan – provided cars to employees to evacuate women and children and then to return and work at the defense plant. The factory fulfilled the requests of the army. Cars were provided, so-called anti-tank ‘hedgehogs’ were produced, and barricading concrete slabs were removed and installed where the military would say. At the beginning of March, the Russians bombed the enterprise almost completely. The remaining Kharkiv residents moved to Vinnytsia and continued their work there.
While preparing materials for her media, Halyna Polovyk immersed herself in stories that are impossible to listen to without tears – and continues to do so. In peacetime, her colleagues would have envied her: even more so – to have at her disposal such an inexhaustible source of stories as life in Kharkiv! For example, even during active shelling, hospitals, maternity homes, and perinatal centers – city and regional – worked here.
Halyna prepared two publications about the latter’s work. February – May 2022 were challenging at the institution, especially when the light went out. But the doctors, despite the explosions of enemy shells, remained at their workplaces, received new patients, and saved few lives. During the shutdown, staff manually controlled the temperature and oxygen supply to ensure that the babies in the “incubators” in intensive care units could survive. Doctors provided babies’ breathing connected to ventilators with their own hands.
For this, without exaggeration feat of saving lives, the director of the Kharkiv Regional Perinatal Center, Iryna Kondratova, was included by the BBC in the list of one hundred women who, according to this media corporation, inspired the world and influenced it in 2022. In addition, Kondratova’s portrait, along with photos of other courageous Ukrainians, was placed on the cover of the American weekly magazine Time, next to the portrait of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was declared Person of the Year – 2022 (in Ukraine, the image of this cover was distributed by the online media NV).
“And our conscientious communal workers who kept and still keep the city clean, despite the shelling. Even in Saltivka, which is completely in ruins, construction debris has been removed from the asphalt below. And the firefighters and rescuers who extinguished the fires themselves came under fire and died… And the teachers who continued to teach remotely, gathering their students all over Ukraine and the world?” Halyna expresses her pride in her compatriots. “It seems to me that if a journalist needs a story – small or big, then it is worth going to the streets of Kharkiv, stopping any person, asking questions – and there will be a story. There will be so many stories and so many tears from this war… We will learn so much truth… If only we wanted to write if only we could do that. The only thing I regret all this time is that I did not keep diaries.”
The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) and European partners helped with funds
Of the technical means for gathering information, Halyna only has a smartphone. She records interviews and takes photos and videos using it. By the way, at the beginning of the Russian aggression, it was impossible to photograph anything on the streets of Kharkiv without the accreditation of the Ministry of Defense. Just start filming, and patrol would immediately come. Therefore, Halyna Polovyk has not accumulated an archive since that time.
Working now more as a ‘lone wolf,’ she is nostalgic for the days of one of her previous jobs – on television. Yes, even in my current position, I used to be able to interact with a TV cameraperson to create bigger, more interesting, brighter projects. Now, journalistic topics are plentiful, but there is a lack of time, assistants, and financial stability. It is not known when regular earnings will resume. The salaries of media workers and the fate of gx.net.ua itself will depend on resolving the problems with the bank.
From September to December of last year, Halyna “organized” her salary herself – she applied for one of the crisis programs of the NUJU. This is a project of the Laboratory of Public Interest Journalism called Voices of Ukraine, implemented with the support of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF). This helped Halyna to stay in the profession to which she devoted more than 30 years.
Her colleague on the site, Natalka Boichenko, has been working all this time as an information volunteer with her family’s moral and material support. She specializes in the cultural life of Kharkiv, which took on unexpected new forms during the war. Artists of the leading musical institution – the Kharkiv National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet, named after Lysenko (Eastern Opera) – are now performing in the Maestro Salon. These concerts are truly elite because the hall can accommodate less than 40 listeners. And in one of the underground parking lots, a stage was set up for the performances of the same opera singers, performing different repertoire; actors of the Theater of the Young Spectator, puppet theater, and other teams. This year, the New Year’s and Christmas tree and festive events near it were moved from Svobody Ploshcha Square, where the tree was usually installed, ‘under the Maidan,’ that is, in the subway. Boichenko streams from these events on the website’s Facebook page and later post the recorded video there.
“First of all, I understood: you should never stop”
Journalists come across the same touching stories outside the city, in the territory of the de-occupied Kharkiv Region. Recently, together with energy workers and colleagues, Halyna Polovyk went to the village of Makarove of the Zolochiv United Territorial Community, which is on the border with the Russian border. Energy workers have returned light to people who have not had it since February 24! That is almost a year!
As everywhere after the ruscists, a ruin remained here. The crushed kindergarten building with a sign stating that it was renovated in 2021 with the help of German benefactors. Shkilna Street, where the headquarters of the occupiers operated, was burned to the ground.
“A pile of garbage, dirt, mutilated equipment, and probably someone’s tears,” says Halyna sharing her impressions. “The local electrician said that when he and the sappers first entered the village, they thought no one was there. And here, he says, they left! And what was most terrifying – so many children! And I, a journalist, was shocked: they were all under occupation, survived all this?!”
The experienced media woman immediately singled out from her observations topics that need to be worked on more deeply: “You go to the village – you already see many topics. For example, about compensation from the state for material and moral damages caused by the aggressor.”
“What supports me morally all this time?” says Halyna. “First of all, I understood: you should never stop. Always looking for a way out, even when it’s tough. For me, the main thing was to stay in my profession, in a business that I understand. And I’m already dreaming about future creative projects – maybe with foreigners interested in events in Ukraine and Kharkiv.
JOURNALISTS ARE IMPORTANT. Stories Of Life And Work In War Conditions is a series of materials prepared by the team of the NUJU with the support of the Swedish human rights organization Civil Rights Defenders.
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