Lviv, Ukraine
I’ll do my best to remain impartial when it comes to international politics. There is so much more to every story than the American media can ever convey. However, I will say that war hurts all involved, whether they are know it or not.
In 2024, finding information on traveling to Ukraine is still a bit challenging. However, I attended a talk by a man who had been traveling there since 2022, and he helped me with the logistics and connected me with some group chats. I flew into Kraków and bussed to Lviv, maybe spending an hour at the border (I spent 8 hours at the border on the return to Kraków). The city has much of the European charm I’ve come to expect of towns in this part of the world, but it is certainly more like Montenegro or Hungary than France or the UK—wider streets, flatter facades, more space, and less modernized or western. Most of the roads are cobbled, and cable cars string the thoroughfares. Those paving stones seem quaint at first glance, but they are loud when vehicles traverse. I did notice they had the added benefit of being removable, so work crews didn’t have to close the entire street to get at underground workings. Remove a few stones, hop in, hammer hammer, and all good. There are malls, coffee shops, and McDonalds—all semblance of a city without strife.
I enjoyed the city and the people, and one could almost remain ignorant of the greater crisis if they wished to tour, but I was a volunteer and couldn’t stay in bliss. The war is present, if you are aware. Sandbags pile the lower windows of basement floors; printout signs declare what to do when there is an air raid; funeral processions bring soldiers home to the sound of amazing grace in front of the Lviv City Council; men in camo pants walk the streets; there are frequent power outages accompanied by the hum and rattle of generators kicking in across the city, and the most disconcerting aspects to me, which will warrant further explanation, was the lack of men on the street.
From what I gathered, Ukraine is pretty traditional in terms of gender roles, meaning it is mostly men at the front. When I first got to the city, I thought I was imagining things, or perhaps I was a creep, only noticing all the women I passed. There seemed to be five women in the 20-40 age range for every man in that range. To me, this couldn’t possibly be because of the war. I assumed this was just me and that I needed to work on myself, but then I met a hilarious babushka at a volunteer kitchen. She knew enough English to make sarcastic comments and interject with humor about different aspects of Ukranian culture. She told us we needed to marry Ukranian women and shook her head. Then she said more somberly, “We are losing all our boys.” I looked to the other volunteers and learned that many people had similar experiences to me, not willing to believe that the war would have such a tangible impact on the population demographics.
Upon further research, roughly 6% of Ukraine is in the military. If we assume they are all male as tradition might dictate and that the population was 50% male beforehand, then the percentage of the male population in the military is 12%. It can be assumed that a majority of those men would be between 20 and 40, thus contributing to the disparity I noticed on my arrival. That is staggering. The numbers may not seem high initially, but roughly 0.6% of the US population is in the military. That would only be 1.2% of men under the same assumptions, although the US is likely more diverse in terms of gender in the military—ten times less than in Ukraine. Painful to confront.
I am still processing all the implications and long-term impact of these statistics and am struck by the realization that I would have never known unless I volunteered in that kitchen. Sadly, I was only in Ukraine for three days before my new job, but I managed to volunteer for three activities: tying camo netting, walking dogs, and working in the kitchen, mostly chopping apples. Three days was not enough time, but that seemed to impress people more because of the pains of getting to the country. Every Ukranian I met was gracious and would joke about how they would prefer to spend their vacations on the beach. I was eating dinner with volunteers, and a man came to our table upon overhearing to thank us. All I met convinced me that they are kind and genuine people, and I hope to make it back and further into the country. I hear Odessa is a sight to behold.
