A year later, animals, birds and saplings are populating a new landscape of ponds and lagoons
Khortytsia Island near Zaporizhzhia. The water level fell dramatically after the dam was blown up downstream, creating ponds and lagoons. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian
This Soviet reservoir swallowed up ancient Cossack sites as well as vegetable gardens and grazing pastures used by generations of Ukrainian villagers as a source of food and fuel. The Kremlin promised modernity instead: electricity and irrigation for fields and collective farms across the southern region.In 2022, with the USSR long gone, Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of independent Ukraine. The reservoir quickly became part of the frontline.
The reservoir’s demise hasn’t thrilled everybody. The pipes that supplied Malokaterynivka with water have gone dry. Since June the authorities have been delivering drinking water by truck. Residents on Central Avenue, formerly known as Lenin Street, queue up with buckets. The town’s beach, where locals swam in summer, has vanished.
Ruddy shelducks were recently spotted bobbing in the water together with Canada geese, which are little seen in Ukraine. Moss and lichens were thriving, Mulenko said. The island is home to a small population of roe and sika deer. “I think we have a very interesting ecological system. In a way, it’s a wonder. There is nothing else like this in
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