好英语网“就像活在恐怖电影中”：一座乌克兰小镇的消亡
HULIAIPOLE, Ukraine — The shelling begins in earnest a little before midnight, well after the sky has turned oily black, the cell towers have powered down and the stray dogs bark into the night.
乌克兰古利艾波列——天空乌黑，在即将进入午夜的时候，炮击开始了。手机信号塔断电。流浪狗在深夜狂吠。
There is no electricity or running water in Huliaipole. There is just darkness and long minutes of silence when the ticking of battery-powered wall clocks or the grating of open gates in the cold wind are anxiously scrutinized until the next explosion thuds somewhere nearby, rattling windows. And bones.
古利艾波列没水没电。在黑暗和漫长的静寂中，焦急地聆听着电子钟发出的滴答声，或是寒风中敞开的栅栏门发出的嘎吱声，直到下一次爆炸在附近某个地方响起，震得窗户哗啦作响。连身体里的骨头都在颤抖。
乌克兰东部古利艾波列，居民们在一栋受损的公寓楼外生火取暖。这个小镇曾经居住着大约1.3万人，现在它的死亡速度比其他乌克兰城市慢得多。
And then it happens again. And again. A high-pitched screech and then a boom. Sometimes the shells get closer. Or farther away. Maybe, for a few hours, they stop altogether. But it’s been the same routine for almost a month in this town along the front lines in eastern Ukraine, with each night bringing the same question: Where will the next one land?
然后再来一遍。再一遍。刺耳的啸叫，紧接着是一声巨响。有时炮弹会越来越近。有时越来越远。爆炸在几个小时后可能就完全停止了。但在乌克兰东部前线的这个小镇，近一个月来每晚都是同样的过程，每晚都会带来同样的问题：下一枚炮弹将落在哪里？
“It’s like living in a horror movie,” said Ludmila Ivchenko, 64, between tears, bundled in her winter parka on Monday. She rocked back and forth, sitting beside the flame of an oil candle deep in the basement of the town’s hospital where she and her neighbors now live.
“这就像是活在一部恐怖电影中，”周一，64岁的卢德米拉·伊夫琴科裹着厚大衣泪流满面地说道。在镇医院地下室深处，她坐在油烛旁，身体被震得前后摇晃。她和邻居们现在住在那里。
As Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv and Mariupol are being torn apart by intense bombardments, cruise missile strikes and infantry advances, Huliaipole, a town once home to about 13,000 people, is dying a much slower death.
哈尔科夫和马里乌波尔等乌克兰城市遭受着猛烈轰炸、巡航导弹袭击和步兵推进的蹂躏，而曾经居住着约1.3万人的小镇古利艾波列的死亡速度要慢得多。
The town, about 90 miles northwest of Mariupol and on the edge of the Donbas region, would likely be in the path of any future Russian offensives in the east, where the Russian defense ministry said Wednesday it would focus its operations.
该镇位于马里乌波尔西北约90英里（约145公里）处，位于顿巴斯地区的边缘，可能会落在俄罗斯未来在东部进攻的路径上。俄罗斯国防部周三表示，它将集中在东部地区开展行动。
Strategically situated at the intersection of important roads bisecting the eastern part of the country, Huliaipole is surrounded by a half-moon of Russian and separatist forces that are perfectly content with shelling the town instead of taking it, likely because they don’t have the resources yet to do so, military analysts say.
古利艾波列位于乌克兰东部地区一些重要通道的交汇处，极具战略意义，它被俄罗斯军队和分离主义势力呈半月形包围。这些军队满足于炮轰小镇，而不是占领它，军事分析人士表示，这可能是因为他们尚未有足够的资源。
The residents of the shrinking enclave — now down to about 2,000 people — are caught in the middle of dueling artillery battles between Ukrainian and Russian forces as homes, apartments, markets, restaurants and health clinics are slowly destroyed, and people are forced to flee, live underground or die.
这块飞地在不断缩小，居民人数现在已经减少到大约2000人，他们陷入了乌克兰和俄罗斯军队之间的炮火决斗之中，房屋、公寓、市场、餐馆和卫生诊所逐渐被摧毁，人们被迫逃离，或躲到地下，或死去。
To the people still there, Huliaipole’s war began on March 2: the day the power went out. The water supply followed.
对于还在那里的人来说，古利艾波列的战争始于3月2日：停电的那一天。随后停水。
Bracketed by rolling wheat and sunflower fields and bisected by the Haichur River, Huliaipole looks and feels like a Soviet-era staple: modest homes and low-slung apartment buildings with spacious tree-lined streets, perfect for an afternoon bicycle ride in another time.
古利艾波列被连绵起伏的小麦和向日葵田环抱，盖丘尔河将其一分为二，它看上去与苏联时代最常见的小镇并无二致：简朴的房屋和低矮的公寓楼，绿树成荫的宽敞街道，也许在另一个时代，非常适合在下午骑自行车出行。
On March 5, Russian forces briefly entered the town before being pushed back. The collection of vacant half-destroyed stalls where people once sold vegetables and other goods is a strange reminder that this was once a real town. Now there is a patchwork of empty buildings with broken windows and missing roofs inhabited more by stray dogs than people.
3月5日，俄罗斯军队在短暂进入该镇后被击退。人们曾经用来售卖蔬菜和其他商品的摊位已经被毁得差不多了，这些林立的空置摊位提醒着我们这里竟然曾是一个真正的城镇。现在，一大片建筑物空空荡荡，窗户破损，屋顶也没了，住着的流浪狗比人多。
Around a dozen civilians have died from the fighting, local officials said, a number that includes people who have suffered heart attacks during the siege.
当地官员说，大约有十几名平民死于交火，其中包括在围困期间心脏病发作的人。
“There is shelling every day,” said Tetiana Plysenko, 61, a teacher in Huliaipole.
“每天都有炮击，”古利艾波列61岁的教师塔季扬娜·普利森科说。
Every morning, people emerge from their homes and shelters to assess the damages and call their neighbors to make sure they are still alive. Rumors are rampant, as is misinformation. One rumor is that a local was caught helping mark targets for the Russian military and was subsequently hanged. No one can really say if it was true, or not.
每天早上，人们都会走出家门和避难所，查看损失情况，并给邻居打电话，看看大家是否安然无恙。谣言猖獗，虚假信息也是如此。其中一个谣言是，一名当地人因帮俄军标记目标而被抓，后来被绞死。没有人能说清楚这究竟是真是假。
“We still can’t understand that this has happened to us. We think that we’ll go out tomorrow and everything will be as before,” Ms. Ivchenko said from her basement shelter. “But there is no way to go back.”
“我们仍然无法理解这样的事发生在自己身上。我们认为明天出去时一切都会和以前一样，”伊夫琴科在她住的地下室里说。“可是回不去了。”
For now, Huliaipole is patrolled by a small contingent of Ukrainian territorial defense soldiers. The job of evacuating people, and bringing in humanitarian aid, falls to the 10 or so people on the Town Council. They have repurposed the town’s school buses to bring in food and water and take out people desperate to escape the shelling.
目前，一小队乌克兰领土防卫兵在古利艾波列巡逻。疏散民众和提供人道主义援助的工作落在了市议会大约10个人的肩上。他们重新启用镇上的校车运来食物和水，并把急于逃离炮击的人们带出去。
Sergiy Brovko, 57, a short, wiry bus driver whose crow's feet wrap around the side of his head, had been ferrying children to school for less than a year before the war reached the town. Now Mr. Brovko drives his aging Isuzu bus to the city of Zaporizhzhya and loads up humanitarian aid: boxes of bread, cans of goulash and water. Then, he makes the hourslong trek back to Huliaipole.
57岁的公交车司机谢尔盖·布罗夫科矮小结实，长长的鱼尾纹延伸到脸的一侧，他开校车还不到一年，战争就到达了该镇。现在，布罗夫科开着陈旧的五十铃巴士前往扎波罗热市，装上人道主义援助物资：一箱箱面包、一罐罐炖牛肉和水。然后，长途跋涉数小时回到古利艾波列。
“I could never have imagined this,” Mr. Brovko said on Monday, as he headed toward Huliaipole on his seventh run there since the war began. He maneuvered his bus over the potholed roads common in Ukraine’s more rural reaches, downshifting to almost a standstill to navigate the larger craters left by overuse and disrepair.
“我从来没想过会发生这样的事，”布罗夫科周一开车前往古利艾波列时说道。这是他自战争爆发以来第七次前往那里。他驾驶着大巴，行驶在乌克兰农村地区常见的坑洼道路上，为了驶过因过度使用和年久失修留下的较大坑洞，他只得减速，有时几乎停下来。
“Not even in my nightmares.”
“甚至在我的噩梦里也没有。”
The road from Zaporizhzhya into Huliaipole begins somewhat normally, aside from the military checkpoints and cement road barriers. But the posters throughout the city are a peculiar mix of things, signaling what life had been like in the city not long ago and what now lies beyond Zaporizhzhya’s gates: Between concert announcements and McDonald’s arches are billboards informing passers-by which part of a Russian tank to target with a Molotov cocktail.
从扎波罗热到古利艾波列的道路开始还比较正常，除了有军事检查站和水泥路障外。但整个城市的海报是一种奇特的组合，显示出不久前城市生活的样貌，以及现在扎波罗热城外的景象：在音乐会和麦当劳的广告之间有一些广告牌，告诉路人应该用燃烧瓶瞄准俄罗斯坦克的哪个部位。
As Mr. Brovko gets closer to Huliaipole, the traffic thins out. Small towns along the road seem eerily closed, almost like abandoned movie sets. Ukrainian checkpoints are manned by young and old men. Newly dug trench lines zigzag away from the road, fortified by freshly cut logs and machine gun positions. By the time Huliaipole comes into view, Mr. Brovko has passed several recently planted signs that declare: MINES.
随着古利艾波列越来越近，车辆渐渐稀少。沿路的小城镇显得格外封闭，几乎像是废弃的电影场景。乌克兰的检查站由年轻人和老人把守。新挖的战壕蜿蜒而行，远离大路，以新砍伐的木头和机枪阵地加固。当古利艾波列进入视野时，布罗夫科已经经过了几处新近设置的标牌，上面写着：地雷。
“I evacuated my parents yesterday,” he explained, pointing out that a house on their street had recently been hit by artillery fire. Just days ago, he said, he had to wait to enter Huliaipole, his bus loaded with nearly 500 pounds of potatoes, until the Russians finished shelling it.
“我昨天把父母疏散了，”他说，他们所在街道上的一所房子最近遭到了炮火的袭击。他还说，就在几天前，他得等着俄罗斯人的炮击结束后才能进入古利艾波列，当时他的大巴上还装了将近500磅（约227公斤）的土豆。
On Monday night, Mr. Brovko parked his bus on the outskirts of town, riding his bicycle back to his father-in-law’s house, where he would spend the night before loading his bus with evacuees the next morning. His neighbors had fled a week earlier, leaving their puppy behind, so the school bus driver-turned-evacuee-transporter-turned-dog sitter fed the animal some bread before setting his alarm for 5:45 a.m. and going to sleep.
周一晚上，布罗夫科把巴士停在市郊，骑着自行车回到岳父家，在那里过夜，然后第二天早上把疏散人员装上车。他的邻居一周前逃离，留下了他们的小狗，所以这位校车司机变成了疏散员和运输员，此时又变成狗保姆，他喂了小狗一些面包，将闹钟调到早上5点45分，然后就睡觉了。
Tuesday’s sunrise was bitterly cold. The shelling had stopped around four in the morning, rolling off into the distance to some other frontline hot spot. Boxes of milk, water, bread and other goods were unloaded off Mr. Brovko’s bus to a collection of volunteers, before he drove a few blocks to pick up the day’s tranche of evacuees.
周二的日出时分非常寒冷。炮击在凌晨4点左右停止，转向远方的另一处前线热点。布罗夫科从巴士上卸下了一箱箱牛奶、水、面包和其他物品，交给一群志愿者，然后他开往几个街区之外，去接当天的撤离者。
The 40 or so people would all be driven to Zaporizhzhya, where they would register as displaced people. Some would be housed in school dormitories and gymnasiums or with friends and family. Others would leave the country. More than four million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24 and 6.5 million have been internally displaced, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
大约40人将被送到扎波罗热，在那里他们将被登记为流离失所者。一些人会被安置在学校宿舍和体育馆，或者与朋友和家人住在一起。还有一些人会离开这个国家。联合国难民署的数据显示，自2月24日俄罗斯入侵乌克兰以来，已有400多万人逃离乌克兰，650万人在国内流离失所。
Of the roughly dozen people who boarded Mr. Brovko’s school bus, mostly women and children, their reasons for leaving Huliaipole were similar: The shelling was getting worse, and coming closer. It was too much.
布罗夫科校车上的十几名乘客大多数是妇女和儿童，他们离开古利艾波的原因都很相似：炮击越来越严重，越来越近。实在无法忍受。
They quietly stepped onto the yellow school bus on Tuesday, some in tears. One woman said goodbye to her small toffee-colored dog, Asya, as evacuees are not allowed to take pets with them. Another woman, Valia, 60, was taking her granddaughter to reunite with the girl’s father before leaving southern Ukraine. When the granddaughter asked where they would live, the grandmother told a lie to reassure her.
周二，他们悄悄地登上黄色的校车，有些人泪流满面。一个女人向她的焦糖色小狗阿斯雅告别，因为撤离者不允许携带宠物。另一名60岁的女人瓦莉亚要带孙女去和她的儿子团聚，之后离开乌克兰南部。孙女问她们要住在哪里，祖母撒了个谎来安慰她。
“To Dubai,” said Valia, who declined to give her last name. “The sea is turquoise there.”
“去迪拜，”拒绝透露姓氏的瓦莉亚说。“那里的海是蓝绿色的。”
Not long after the buses left Huliaipole, the shelling resumed and lasted throughout the day, said Kostiantyn Kopyl, 45, a surgeon in the hospital and a member of the local territorial defense unit. Ukrainian forces fired back at night, and those remaining in the town did what they did every night: listened and waited for the next explosion.
45岁的科斯蒂廷·科皮尔是医院的一名外科医生，也是当地领土防卫队的成员，他说，巴士离开古利艾波列后不久，炮击又开始了，持续了一整天。乌克兰军队在晚上进行了回击，留在镇上的人做了他们每天晚上都要做的事：倾听并等待下一次爆炸。
“Everybody’s alive,” he reported.
“所有人都活着，”他报告说。