Cities are being destroyed but their residents’ spirit survives

Two weeks ago Ivan Fyodorov, the mayor of the southern Ukranian town of Melitopol, was kidnapped by the Russian military. The following day hundreds of the town’s people came out onto the streets, despite the heavy presence of Russian troops, to protest and demand his return.

The 33-year-old mayor is an ethnic Russian, but had called the Russian presence in his city an “occupation”. For this he was branded a traitor and charged with terrorism by the invaders. Loyalty to his city and his country was far stronger than ethnicity.

I have a long list of things that I want to write about at some point in this column, but this month they all seem trivial compared with what is happening in Ukraine. The sight of cities in ruins, civilian populations fleeing and civic institutions turned into volunteer defence forces is heart rending.

The Academy of Urbanism has spent many years visiting cities all over Europe as part of our awards scheme. We have never been to Ukraine, although we had been planning to visit more eastern European cities pre-lockdown. We have however visited many places that look very like the towns and cities that are being destroyed before our eyes in Ukraine and we have met many mayors like Ivan Fyodorov, who fortunately was released in a prisoner swap after a week in captivity.

I realise that it is wrong to calibrate our grief and outrage based on how much the people affected look like us. I was badly affected by the destruction of Aleppo but that tragedy played out over such a long time the scenes of devastation almost became normalised.

Distant wars are no less important, but ones affecting places and people that feel familiar really bring home to us the horror of war, particularly when it is played out in tree-lined streets, public squares and university campuses.

当该学院前往欧洲城市考察时，战争的阴影从未像在英国那样深埋在表面之下。我们的城市可能经历了闪电战，但战争通常不是他们身份的一部分，除了考文垂这样的地方。

相比之下，住在法国南部城市佩里格的我妻子的祖父母仍对占领和维希政权记忆犹新。弹片留下的弹痕仍然可以在欧洲各地城市的墙壁上看到，提醒人们过去的恐怖。

The place that the academy has visited with the most recent experience of war was Ljubljana. The 10-day war of Slovenian independence in 1991 was within the memory of many of the people we met, although because the war was won and Ljblijana was largely spared, it was a source of pride rather than trauma.

The destruction of a city as an act of war is about far more than damage to property and essential services… cities are a manifestation of the collective spirit of the people

Our most uncomfortable experience was being presented with aerial views of the beautiful German city of Freiburg with every building except the cathedral destroyed by British bombers.

The destruction of a city as an act of war is about far more than damage to property and essential services. As we are seeing in Ukraine, cities are a manifestation of the collective spirit of the people. People interviewed on TV say that they cannot bring themselves to leave; it is their city, a place of friends and family, personal history and identity, and they will fight to defend it.

在英国，我们同样重视我们的城镇和城市，但我们没有地方自治，也没有地方自治赋予市长领导人民和带来变革的重要性。We are experimenting with the idea of mayors but without the devolved powers they will struggle to occupy the positions of leadership, respect and power that they do in continental Europe.

We have commented many times how important this is in peacetime and we are seeing now that the same is true in war as a Ukrainian volunteer army is holding the might of Russia at bay, for now at least.

The immediate priority is to stop the destruction and to save the beautiful historic cities of Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv and all of the other places that have so far been spared. Not because they are beautiful or historic but because they represent the culture and identity of their people.

If there is a positive lesson from those shrapnel-pocked walls elsewhere in Europe, it is that cities do recover. Freiburg, unlike Coventry, has been built as an exact facsimile of the city that British bombers destroyed.

这不是乌克兰城市第一次被摧毁。让我们希望，在不久的将来，那些受到攻击的城市就能作为一个自由国家的自由城市重新得到重建。