Sever, do you hear? It's us. Yours. All together and each one alone.

You are already over 90. A respectable age for a city that was born among the sands in 1934 thanks to chemists and builders.

We're not with you today. But, damn, we remember everything. Every detail. Down to the lump in our throat.

You remember the organic, signature smell of Sever: when apricots, lilacs, acacias bloom profusely and all this mixes with the dense whisper of pine trees in the forest.

And why do we have the best artists, you thought? Do you remember those crazy pink sunsets that painted the sky as if the best abstract artist in the world was sitting up there?

You gave some of us childhood, some - stormy youth or maturity. But most importantly - you gave us Home.

Anyone who is not from here will never understand this code: “Which block are you from?” You scroll and do a roll call, and now they write to you Pisky, Pinky, DSK, Bukhara, Tykhy, PN, China Wall, Bombay… ✌️

We grew up with the fact that we have our own, for a moment, Ice Palace, the chemical giant "Nitrogen", which could be 75 this year (!), the mega-intellectual "Impulse", fountains and palaces of culture with a theater. You taught us to be proud of you. You taught us to understand that doing something for your city is doing it as if it were for yourself.

Today, your children are holding the line. They are in the trenches on the front line in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in the Territorial Army, saving lives in the State Emergency Service and hospitals, volunteering, teaching children online and winning in sports arenas. We are tearing our lives apart and doing the impossible so that the blue-yellow UKRAINIAN FLAG can once again proudly, at full strength, fly over your city Palace of Culture and over every roof.

What we feel now is not just tearful nostalgia. It is burning gratitude. This memory cannot be erased by any shelling. You are the city that taught us to be stronger than circumstances.

Sever, dear… we will return.
With love, forever yours.