I have always loved using the subway. I think it’s the perfect mode of transport! The subway is like a magical portal that can take you anywhere in the city. Think for yourself, you go underground in one place, and then after a while, you come to the surface in another place. Isn’t it a miracle? The subway will take you where you need to go, and traffic jams or traffic lights will not hinder you.
As a child, I learned that the subway had one more purpose. In the event of an emergency, the subway serves as a refuge for citizens. I had only seen something like that before in old photographs from the Second World War. It was the London Underground, and Londoners hid there from the fierce bombing of their beautiful city. In those photographs, people were sitting or lying right on the floor of a subway station in semi-darkness. Those photos made an impression on me.
Sometimes, going down the subway, I tried to imagine if something like that could happen in my life. But I couldn’t imagine it. My brain simply refused to believe that we could use our modern metro stations as a refuge in the 21st century. I did not know then that it would not just happen, but I would see it with my own eyes, so much like the people in those old World War II photographs.
The subway became a bomb shelter for me from the first day of the war and for several subsequent weeks when the air raids took place constantly. The air raid alert went off so frequently that I sometimes didn’t even have time to get home. Therefore, I can say with confidence that in the first weeks of the war, I spent more time in the subway than at home.
I will never forget how I went down the subway for the first time since the start of the war. Everywhere, there were many blankets and mattresses on which people sat or lay.
What immediately surprised me was that the people in the subway behaved as if nothing terrible had happened. We somehow quickly adapted to the new conditions. What’s the point of worrying about something you couldn’t change? We were all obliged to sit in the subway, hiding from air attacks, but who said that we had to sit with sad faces?
During the stay in the subway, people went about their business. Someone was talking, discussing the latest news, someone was playing on the phone, someone was reading a book, and someone was working on a laptop. Such an atmosphere gave me optimism and confidence that everything would be fine.
I don’t really like crowded places and often prefer to be alone, but in those early days of the war, it helped me a lot to be in such a crowded place as the subway. Although we were all strangers, there was such an atmosphere like if we were all friends. We were all united by one misfortune. We all understood what each of us felt inside. Therefore, each of us tried to help each other.
The children quickly adapted to those new conditions. They quickly found new friends, came up with different games, watched cartoons together on tablets and phones, or ran and screamed while playing catch-up. No one reprimanded the children, even if they shouted too loudly. We were glad the children were having fun and not thinking about the war.
The television monitors at the station, which usually played endless commercials, were tuned to the news channels. There were always groups of people near those TVs. It was a good place to discuss the latest news.
Typically, it is not so easy for a person to talk to a stranger. But in those conditions, you could just walk up to anyone and start a conversation. A few days later, I made a lot of new acquaintances.
Many people went down the subway with their pets. Everywhere, I could see boxes with cats or dogs on leashes next to their owners. For some reason, I felt especially sorry for pets. Probably because they did not understand at all what was happening and why they were in such a strange and crowded place.
During the day, most people went down the subway only during an air raid alert, after which they returned home again. But at night many of us came to the subway to spend the night until the morning. I slept on a small mattress that I took from home. The first night, falling asleep on a mattress on the floor of the station, I thought that was by far the most unusual place I have ever slept in. The day before that, I slept at home in my bed and could not even imagine that I would spend the next night on the floor of the subway station, but I quickly adapted to that. Surprisingly, that whole situation didn’t scare me at all. And a few nights later, I acted like it was normal for me to sleep on the subway. Of course, for all of us, these were extremely unusual conditions. But we all did everything we could to get through that time as easily as possible.
I feel great gratitude to the workers of the subway. They had tremendous responsibility those days. I think they did their job very well.
Together with volunteers, they turned the stations into suitable and comfortable enough shelters for many people. At the station, we could get food and hot tea. Despite the fatigue, the subway workers helped to solve any problem that someone might have.
Now, in these days of less frequent air raid alerts, the subway has returned to its original purpose. But every time I go down to that station, I often come to the place where I spent many nights. Those were not the most comfortable nights of my life. But at least now I have a few stories to tell my future grandchildren someday.
