It was a sound that had been missing from Ukraine’s capital for months. Then, on a balmy spring afternoon, the chatter of children’s voices filled a playground again.
In a park next to the sky-blue cathedral of St. Michael’s Monastery, in central Kiev, a couple of young children clambered over a jungle gym and rocked on a seesaw.
Mothers stood idly chatting. The scene captured the atmosphere of today’s Kiev, as the tension slowly drains from a city that had been in the grip of an almost unimaginable electrical alarm for weeks.
In the early days of the war, families fled. The drone of artillery echoed through the streets. Numerous sandbag checkpoints went up. And over the city loomed the prospect of fighting in the streets or a prolonged siege.
Now, a month after the Ukrainian army defeated the Russian forces that had partially surrounded Kiev, the city is enjoying a return to something like normal.
For most of April, more residents returned to the capital than left, although the mayor has recommended most families not return as long as the threat of ongoing war continues.
The pre-war population of the Kiev metropolitan area was about four million; it fell by half over a few hectic days in February. Despite the return of some families, many people with children in Western Ukraine or as refugees in Europe, face an uncertain future.
In March, Honey Café, a cozy bakery and coffee shop on Yaroslavive Val Street that, for reasons unknown, soon reopened for business, seemed like the only place in town to have coffee. Still, waiters warned, “Don’t sit by the windows,” or an explosion would spray shards of glass.
Nowadays terraces are popping up all over Kiev. Some restaurants are full again, the once-usual, if unwelcome, state of affairs. At Tin Tin Food Spot, a restaurant next to the city’s velodrome, a lunch crowd was packed on Sunday afternoon.
The mood of the residents is one of deep gratitude: that the city is still standing, that life can resume. It has created an overall sense of bonhomie.
On a recent hour-long stroll, meandering through the cobbled streets of the Golden Gate and Podil neighborhoods, passersby smiled or nodded friendly.
The chestnut trees were in bloom. And from time to time, on the tops of hills, the still intact city skyline of golden church domes and tall buildings came into view.
Certainly, the war is still raging in eastern Ukraine. Cities like Mariupol and Kharkov are shelled daily. And few in Kiev ignore another attempt at the capital, should the Russian army muster the force. Tens of thousands of Kiev residents have relatives in the east who are in grave danger.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
Evacuation of Mariupol. Ukrainian officials promised to continue a large-scale evacuation from Mariupol despite renewed Russian shelling. The evacuation is seen as the best and possibly last hope for hundreds of civilians sheltering in bunkers beneath the wreckage of the Azovstal steel plant.
The brutal street fighting and widespread human rights abuses by the Russian military in the Kiev suburbs, including Irpin and Bucha, have traumatized residents and are likely to undergo months or years of emotional adjustment before any sense of security returns, officials and aid workers said.
And countless families have been separated from each other because they have been forced to flee their homes, either as internally displaced persons or as refugees to other countries in Europe.
Russian cruise missiles fired hundreds of miles away still target the capital from time to time, attacking military sites and residential buildings. But they are isolated strikes that pose little general risk to residents for the time being.
And so, after weeks of turmoil and clenched nerves, Kiev has become a city where at least another normal spring day can be enjoyed as a small blessing.