The Engineers of the Rose City

Yurii and Svitlana Pavlenko, 69 and 70, brought precision to everything they touched — he as chief mechanic at AZKM, she as a design engineer. In Bakhmut, their “City of Roses, ” they built a life as meticulously crafted as their technical drawings: a spacious apartment, a dacha where Svitlana tended flowers while Yurii planted trees, and precious moments spent reading when work allowed.

Their carefully designed world shattered with rocket strikes on February 24. After shells exploded near their dacha, the trauma hit Svitlana particularly hard. The city they loved, which they considered Ukraine’s most beautiful after visiting many others, had become a battleground. Their nephew died defending it, adding personal tragedy to the city’s destruction.

Their evacuation route led through Kramatorsk, where they joined 5,000 others at the station. “We still think about how we could have died there, ” they recall — the station was struck by rockets the very next day. The long, stressful journey particularly affected Svitlana’s nerves.

After stays in Zhytomyr and Boyarka, they heard about Hansen’s mission while living near Tarasivka. On December 19, 2024, they moved into apartment 2.3 at Senior Chudo Village. “It was incredible!” says Yurii, drawing on his experience as a supervisor. “As someone who used to inspect many facilities for faults, I can’t find any deficiencies here. Many people have never seen such conditions in their lives.”

While maintaining their engineering precision, they’ve developed new blueprints for life: Yurii helps with carpentry, loading, and repairs, while focusing on supporting Svitlana’s health recovery. He dreams of personally thanking Hansen, whom he calls “a symbol of goodness and justice.”

Their advice to youth reflects an engineer’s appreciation for both precision and humanity: “The world has changed greatly. It’s important to remain human no matter what. And for a man to remain a man. As Kikabidze said, 'Walking the right path through life is very difficult, but very necessary.'”

From the City of Roses to this new sanctuary, these engineers have found that sometimes the most precise calculations are measured not in numbers, but in kindness.