The keepers of the keys of Ukraine… and secrets

Yevgen Yelpitiforov counts the keys to the houses given to him by friends who have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion.

“There are 19 in all,” he said, cradling the bundle in his hands.

Since the war began, the 37-year-old biologist, who works as a gardener to make ends meet, has added another notch to his crowded resume – as a keykeeper.

In recent months, he has criss-crossed the devastated Kiev suburbs of Bucha and Irpin tending to houses and houseplants that were abandoned when their owners fled for their lives.

“After the liberation, many of my acquaintances asked me to come and see if their houses were still intact, if they had windows or doors,” he told AFP news agency.

Yevgen would walk around and turn on a light to fend off looters, clean up the broken glass, forward items to their owners, or do a bit of gardening.

Soon – as word got around – the keys began to pile up. They would be “sent by post, or I’ll take them from the neighbor’s or from under the doormat”.

Some keys were delivered with coffee or chocolates as a token of gratitude as Yevgen had done all this from the kindness of his heart.

Returning friends often found a small gift from him, a bouquet of flowers or fruit, to make them “happy”.

“If it was me, they would have helped me too,” he insisted. “These are my friends, all the keys I have are from people I know.”

But sometimes the job literally stinks. “The hardest part” was clearing out spoiled food from fridges and freezers that had been without power for weeks.

“The smell is so bad you could pass out,” he said.

That’s why he’s so grateful that someone gave him a Soviet-era gas mask.

Even after a thorough cleaning, apartments still have to be aired out a few times because “the smell lasts for a week or two”.

In Bucha, which has become a symbol of crimes committed by Russian troops, Yevgen parked his car in front of a brand-new apartment complex, most of whose windows had been blown out.

All that was left of one car parked outside was a pile of metal, while another was riddled with shrapnel.

Yevgen stayed in a small apartment just long enough to water some plants. The only sign of war was a note on the wall left by Russian soldiers: “Sorry for the break-in.”

The front door, like most others on this floor, needed replacing.

Oleksandr Furman, who was a television voice actor before the war, spent April as a key keeper, taking care of six apartments in Kyiv that had been abandoned by his friends.

His most unusual mission was to clean up the sex toys left behind by his ex-girlfriend and her new partner after fleeing the city in the early hours of February 24 shortly after the invasion began.

“She told me, ‘I can’t ask my mother to do that,'” Oleksandr said, bursting out laughing. “I hid them well…

“I was lucky. I wasn’t shot at, no missiles fell near me,” he said. And by helping the actor, he felt he was “doing my duty to those who have suffered.”

Back in Irpin, Yevgen used his smartphone to film some potted plants in a duplex overlooking a school whose roof was blown off. He would send the video to the owners who are abroad.

At his next stop, workers put a new roof on a house with burned walls. He stopped to tend to a young evergreen shrub badly singed by the flames.

“It reminds me of the Ukrainian people,” Yevgen said.

“On the one hand it’s burned, on the other it has the power to keep growing.”

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