Treading carefully between the plots, Lidiya Sribna, 51, goes from grave to grave placing a red carnation on each of the mounds of soil.
Rather than carrying the dates of birth and death, the plaques bear the day on which a body arrived at the morgue and the date a death certificate was issued. The ever-expanding section she is tending to today belongs to the dead of 2023. It is true what they say – it is the hope that kills. Valentyna Vetrova, 52, the wife of Hennadiy Ruban, 48, can attest to this. “I pray for him but I don’t know whether to pray as if he is alive or dead,” she says of her husband, who has been missing since February. “Oh, he won’t have to do anything if he comes home, I will look after him,” she says, her face lighting up at the thought of it.
The system, says Valentyna, a teaching assistant, puts the onus on those left behind to do the detective work. It is evidently hard for her to talk about it, but Valentyna’s last interaction with her husband was on Valentine’s Day. “I wish you endless love,” he texted.