Recreational activities in Kherson

The most recent walk around Kherson has shown me new areas I haven’t been to before. This is the closest I have been to the disputed riverbank, where neither the locals not the foreigners dare to venture without a good reason. Our reason for the long adventure was the Civil Registry Office – submitting paperwork for a marriage license.

Let me tell you that as an individual with dual citizenship and different names for each citizenship, it continues to be a complicated process.

Some perfonal info, feel free to skip

I changed my middle name in America upon taking citizenship, which is normal and legal. Ukraine, on the other hand, doesn’t accept dual citizenship (interestingly, someone can be a foreigner and take Ukrainian citizenship. But a Ukrainian-born cannot have dual citizenship). The Ukrainian government also does not accept my name change, because in Eastern Europe an individual’s middle name is supposed to be their father’s name. As my father’s name is Oleksandr, my middle name is Oleksandr’s daughter – Oleksandrivna. Therefore, by one passport I am Inna Oksana, and by the other I am Inna Oleksandrivna. And here I am daring to also change my last name! Since for the marriage here I can only use one passport and it has to be the Ukrainian one, the result would be a citizen of two countries, with different middle names and last names in each. And, of course, one of these identities will be married, while the American will have a hard time proving than her married Ukrainian identity is the same one standing in front of American government agencies.

But enough about this complicated legal turmoil we are still working through.

From my previous post you know that public transportation is not a safe method of movement, and simple walking around the city puts you at risk of shelling and document checks. The city-wide curfew here is 8pm (midnight in Kyiv), while most stores close by 5pm (alcohol is not sold after 3pm). Some locations are safer than others to walk. And the street view, to be honest, is also quite depressing. You can imagine people go outside only at absolute necessity. 

These factors about limited city travel can be quite disappointing for a tourist and quite annoying, if you live with them for months at a time. What is harder to imagine, and heartbreaking if you truly think deep about it, is that this is a fact of life for everyone on the front line and occupied territories (it’s indescribably worse there, of course) for 3 years now.

Night life may not be something busy people of 30+ participate in as much in America and other countries, but imagine not being able to go outside at all after 8 or 9pm. Watching a movie or a late sports game, walking along the riverbank or a park trail, going to a bar, karaoke, or to a concert, visiting a friend after a long day, or venturing outside to clear your head and look at the stars is not an option. You cannot stay the night camping, cannot get home late or leave home early. Why would you need to, men can’t leave the city anyway – not only unable to cross the country borders, but also the city boundaries. The reason for it is the ICE-like behavior of military administration checking every young and middle-aged man’s identification and, as frequently reported, kidnapping them off the street and sending to the front after a 3-minute-long health check. There are also reports of injuries sustained by individuals attempting to assert their rights when being detained for being a male of mobilization age. The name of this military administration body is Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support (TCC, or TЦК in Ukrainian).

Even before curfew, the ability to “have fun” is limited by scarcity of open locations for recreation or entertainment – even restaurants are limited, let alone any movie theaters, clubs, swimming pools, bars, or bowling centers (some parks and a couple billiard rooms, at most). I mean, even grocery stores have limited choices compared to areas farther away from the frontline. Another limitation (both for any operating places as well as for any locals) is the finances. Opportunities for work are limited and the pay is low compared to prices, that are growing monthly due to inflation and war. And even those opportunities for work are mostly limited to women, because even employed men of mobilization age are drafted. In my personal experience, the bus driver for my trip from Kyiv to Krakow was drafted days before my departure and I barely managed to book another ticket on time. 

There is a beach nearby, yet it is off limits to anyone who values their life, as it is directly within Russian eyesight and artillery. There are parks and nature spots, yet they may be covered in anti-personnel landmines called “lepestok,” like the word for flower petal. There is a picture of such mine in my previous post, and these are banned by international conventions, but are frequently scattered by Russians in prefrontal cities to be used on civilians and can lead to death or loss of limbs. The requirement to always carry a tourniquet is exactly because of the risk these hard to notice mines.

Constant shelling of the city does not leave its citizens bored, and their dreams are simple. Most dream about going for a ride to a nearby city, visiting families, walking a dog at a park for hours, seeing a peaceful sky, and even just walking their child to school (now there are no open schools or kindergartens) or letting children spend time at a playground.