24.07.2023 It’s been a year since we started our Diary. A lot has changed during this time. Our life and our attitude towards it are gradually changing. What seemed impossible turns into the usual, becomes the everyday circumstances of life. On the contrary, what was once a normal life gradually becomes only memories. Time flows strangely and unevenly: some minutes seem to take forever, and weeks and months are compressed into something continuous, as if someone is deliberately speeding up the turning of the pages of the calendar.
A lot has been done in the past year. We reported on it in the Diary. Now we are at such a stage, when what could be done with our own hands (by the physical efforts of the team with the help of saving material resources and your donations, help from volunteers and the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine with materials) regarding the conservation of the damaged equipment and buildings, has already been mostly done. Furthermore, it is impossible to change the condition of the Institute’s buildings without significant material costs. The Directorate is actively working in this direction, but life shows that such opportunities, if they arise for us, will not be real in the coming months and maybe even years… The most realistic plans are the installation of already purchased windows, the arrangement of slopes, as well as purchasing another batch of window blocks and working with them. There are still some possibilities for moving heavy equipment (vacuum units, machines, etc.), but this also requires the use of not only physical strength, but also cargo equipment.
Now our main task is comprehensive assistance in the approach of Victory, which our soldiers are choosing at an extremely high cost. Among the defenders of the country are our employees, whom each of us is proud of. We also have irreparable losses. The memory of Serhiy Barchan lives on in our Institute, because this wonderful young man was our friend, colleague and a high-class specialist in his field. He managed to do a lot for the Institute and left a good, bright and therefore very painful memory of himself…
In order to bring Victory closer, we strive to understand the urgent problems revealed by the full-scale invasion, to implement all available opportunities in order to propose ways and methods of solving them as soon as possible, we participate in project competitions, in exhibition events. We do not have great success yet, but we do not lose optimism and try to use any opportunities.
Employees return to the Institute, most of them go to work. Some, after looking at our life here, return to a safer place. Everyone chooses their own path. The unforgettable unity of people, the desire to support each other, the boundless joy of seeing (alive!) familiar, familiar faces again is not so acute anymore… There are more people, so the power of feelings is now distributed over a larger denominator. In addition, one definitely feels emotional fatigue from daily nervous tension. However, work (as well as life in general) gradually becomes calmer, enters the usual course…
Due to the great distance between our employees, who are currently working in different cities and countries, and very different life circumstances, the ties between us gradually and inevitably become weaker. Obviously, some have already settled in more peaceful places and are unlikely to return to Kharkiv… However, life will show what and how it will be. Therefore, we will continue to work, we will make short sketches of our events in the Diary and hope for the best.
20.07.2022 The wartime realities divided the Institute staff into hundreds of local cells scattered throughout the our country and abroad. We are proud of our employees, who are in the ranks of TerritorialDefenceUnits defend Ukraine. We sincerely thank those, who in the hottest times of the beginning of war saved not only the Institute, but also rescuing the lives of the district residents in bomb shelters. Of course, each of us is trying to adjust his life and the life of the family now in new conditions. However, we are keep together, despite the war. We keep in touch and try to do our scientific work as best as possible.
There are a small group (about 40 people) of Institute employees, who have the opportunity to come to the Institute and participate in the work of its restoration. We would like to introduce you how they live now in Kharkiv near the front line.
In May, we saw the Institute… It was directly in the warzone area, and all its buildings and infrastructure were seriously damaged.
Plauen is currently has a single floor
Institute car
Plauen (former second floor)
The roof of the main building
Plauen (former roof)
More than 600 windows in the Institute were broken
Experimental Production building
The last floor of the main building
Every day we try to do something for saving and restoring the Institute. Among the many problems we face is the removing of broken glass and covering windows, to save the equipment from atmospheric and human factors, draining of the rainwater in the rooms left without a roof, strengthening and restoring the damaged walls, repairing communications, etc.
Among the front-line and everyday features of our present days are, for example, regular cannonade and the absence for a long time of any city transport to the dangerous area where the Institute is located… Someone of our employees have become cyclists, someone go by walk, someone come as close as possible by transport, someone even use a taxi to get the Institute.
Perhaps someone will ask: why are you doing this??? Can your efforts really improve the situation on these ashes? Is it necessary to do something at all now, because everything should be restored from scratch?
Such questions have the right to arise. However, we see the sense in protecting the buildings from rain and dirt, securing the equipment, giving the opportunity to work at the Institute even now to those who can work even under current conditions, to prepare as much as possible for the coming winter taking into account no heating conditions. Who else will do it? This is our opinion, and this is how we justify the importance to come to the Institute every day and do something useful gradually. We do it in spite of those who aim rockets at us every day and every night and try in every way to destroy us physically.
We clearly understand that the help from government could come only after the most important issues for all of us have been solved and VICTORY will come. For now, we face new problems every day and are looking for ways to solve them. We do not lose our thirst for new things, we support each other and we hope for the VICTORY and REVIVAL of OUR INSTITUTE. We are living and working for this.