“Pawn Shops and Free Bread: The Reality of Growing Poverty in Ukraine”

At the Treasure Pawn Shop in Kiev, 40-year-old Alexandra, a good-looking woman in a hooded woolen coat and Nike sneakers, comes to redeem her sewing machines. Like everyone who visits the store, she did not want to give her last name.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, she was working as an accountant in a company that employed 14 people. However, all have been made redundant due to the conflict. Since then, she has struggled to find steady work. With her savings depleted, like many others in Kiev, she turned to pawning her belongings to survive. Only a year later, Alexandra found a job, which allowed her to ask for her machines back.

As Alexandra leaves, clutching her belongings except for the cell phone she decided not to buy, cashier Alexander Stepanov notes from behind his tempered glass display case that on a busy day, 50 people can come into the store to hand in their cell phones telephones and household appliances.

Those who can afford it, he says, will return to collect their goods within two weeks. However, almost half won’t, leaving Treasure to sell the items. “People are fighting because of the war. They have no money,” Stepanov told The Guardian. Many have lost their jobs, he explains, while prices have skyrocketed even for those with jobs.

The scene in the pawn shop illustrates the crisis of growing poverty in Ukraine, the reality of which contrasts with the superficial hustle and bustle of Kiev’s bustling restaurants and bars, where it is often difficult to find a table.

Poverty has increased from 5.5% to 24.2% in Ukraine in 2022, pushing another 7.1 million people into poverty, with the worst impact hidden in rural areas, according to a recent World Bank report. With unofficial unemployment at 36% and inflation reaching 26.6% at the end of 2022, the institution’s regional director for Eastern Europe, Arup Banerjee, warned that poverty could soar.

Behind his window in Treasure, Stepanov describes the difficulties experienced even by those who have a job. “The price of everything has risen. Food is the most expensive, then fuel. Some things have become more expensive by 40-50%. Before the war, my wife used to go to the supermarket to shop and everything cost 200 hryvnias, and now in the same store she leaves 400-500”.

For those most disadvantaged, this means relying on handouts, no matter how small. In the town of Irpin, just outside Kiev, where heavy fighting took place at the start of the war as Russian armored columns tried to capture the capital, a destroyed bridge that had been used as an escape route by fleeing refugees is being rebuilt.

Elsewhere, damaged buildings are being repaired, cranes and crews are working. But while the ground war has long since retreated from Irpin, the economic effects of the conflict are still being felt acutely in a city where the population has grown from internally displaced persons fleeing the front lines to the south and east.

The most visible sign of the poverty crisis can be found in a Protestant church in the city, where priests have set up six distribution centers for free bread in the area. On most days, around 500 people line up for free bread, and tables and tents set up outside the center offer free second-hand shoes, clothes and children’s toys.

One Irpin resident, Veronika Pravik, looks through clothes and tries to find free diapers and baby formula for her toddler, which are sometimes available, but not today. She tells a typical story. Working in retail before the war, the 30-year-old lost her job and fled with her family to Spain for six months, where her savings ran out, before returning to Ukraine in the fall.

“I don’t work, but my husband does,” she says. “But all the prices have gone up because of the war, and my husband’s salary buys less than before because of the falling dollar. We still have to find money to pay for our apartment and heat it this past winter. I’ve just never been imagined that we would live like this. Before the war, we succeeded in everything. It is very difficult and everyone suffers equally.”

In his office in the church, pastor Vitaly Kolesnik, who organizes the distribution of bread, which takes place five days a week, together with his colleague Vasiliy Ostrij, describes the situation in Irpin. One of the biggest private employers, he says, was a woodcarving business with a workforce of 400 people spread over three sites, but its factories were badly damaged during the fighting.

Because of this, the factory is moving to western Ukraine and as a result the workers in Irpin are being laid off. “A lot of people are willing to work for peanuts here,” he says. “Wages are now less than they were. But people will do anything to make money.”

Although he says some of the breadwinners are internally displaced, he offers an anecdote that describes how people are trying to manage their dwindling resources. “You see some people come in cars for a free loaf of bread that costs $1. It gives you an idea of ​​how closely people watch every penny spent. We talk and pray with people about what’s going on. They talk about the economy and tell us how hard it has become.”

Economist Olena Bilan sees a deepening crisis, but says that without a huge package of financial support from the international community, including pledges worth $43bn (£34bn), the situation would be worse.

“We saw a 30% drop in GDP largely because Ukraine exports 80% of its goods through ports that it no longer has access to. We had inflation of 26%, which could have been worse, but people’s wages also remained unchanged and the currency has depreciated against the dollar by 20%. The biggest challenge will be how to create new jobs.”

In Irpin, the long line snaking under the trees to get bread marked “Victory” is thinning. At one of the clothing stands, the church volunteer, 58-year-old Larisa Kuzhel, is not optimistic.

“I think it’s going to get harder, especially for younger people. The retirees you see here are getting support. It’s only $50 a month, but it’s something. But the younger people who have lost their jobs are those , who are really suffering,” she says.