A minute of silence

On 11 November we had a delivery and, just by chance, it arrived at exactly 11. The silence is for 2 minutes and the driver was listening to the radio, so he told us and we marked the moment on our driveway. Cars were passing by, we were all still. I was thinking of British soldiers I knew online, who were killed by the russians in Ukraine. After the 2 minutes passed, I told the driver that in Ukraine the minute of silence is kept every day and that everybody stops. He said that this is how it should be.

I shared a few times the minute of silence in Lviv on my Instagram. I feel that no matter how many times I am sharing it, it’s still not enough to properly account for the collective emotions people share in that minute. The life before the minute, the way people seem to just slow down a bit a few seconds before 9 is so clear. Then the message is broadcasted to announce the silence, through the same system that is used for air alerts. The metronomes mark the minute and it ends with another short announcement. It doesn’t end there, people are still thinking of the lives lost, a couple more minutes the atmosphere is sombre. This happens every single day. I’ve seen people praying during the minute of silence, but most are just deep in their thoughts.

The air alert app can act as a reminder of the minute of silence. I set it up so I make sure I don’t continue with what I’m doing if I can’t hear the message being broadcasted. Sometimes I arrive before 9 at the volunteering places, so it makes sense to have this on, to make sure I’m not talking when I shouldn’t (it happened once before I had this on, as I didn’t hear the broadcast).

A café in Kharkiv has changed its opening hours: 8.00 to 8.59 and 9.01 to 20.00. I see clips from Kyiv as it starts to be respected every day as it is in Lviv. In Lviv it seems that almost everybody respects it. If I was to put a number, I think 99% would be accurate. As I said, this is happening every single day. People might be in their cars or on their way to work at the same time every day and every day they stop.
I took these 3 pictures on my last trip.

The cars stop, some drivers are staying near the car while others are sitting in their cars. It is surreal to see the cars and pedestrians stop, only hear the metronomes and seeing the lights turning from red to green, but being completely ignored.

In the buses and trams, people stand, as you can see in the picture below. On the left is a soldier who is recovering from an injury, he has his crotches on a side. While he is wearing tactical colours and not pixel, it is clear from his demeanour that he is a soldier and not a civilian volunteer.

This last picture is from a supermarket. People stopped, including the staff. At the end of the minute of silence the security guard shouted “Slava Ukraini!”. We replied “Heroyam Slava” from where we were in the shop.