‘Drones all night. By morning, you smell the smoke’: life in the last hotel on Ukraine’s frontline

There is one important rule in the Richelievsky, Kherson’s last functioning hotel: close the curtains before dusk. Less than a kilometre away lies the Dnipro, the river that has formed the frontline since Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson in November 2022; Moscow’s troops are on the opposite bank.

In a city where Russian drone operators hunt civilians in what is now widely known as the “human safari”, even a sliver of light escaping through a window may be enough to reveal someone’s location after dark.

In the lobby, Yevhen Emtsov, the hotel’s manager, sits at a small round table almost buried beneath papers. Outside, explosions punctuate the evening, joined at intervals by the mechanical hum of drones patrolling the streets in the red zone. Inside, residents pass through, pausing with questions and requests at the table that now serves as Emtsov’s office.

In more peaceful times, the Richelievsky accommodated tourists and business travellers attending conferences. The three-star hotel belonged to a different Kherson, one in which the river drew visitors rather than marking a frontline.

But in March 2022, as Russian forces closed in, Emtsov began taking in people fleeing heavily shelled communities along the Dnipro without waiting for the hotel owners’ approval. By the time the city came under occupation, the building had already begun its transformation from a commercial hotel into a refuge.

In the months that followed the invasion, between 200 and 300 people were staying, far beyond its intended maximum capacity of 120. Russian patrols would enter the building, questioning residents and recording their fingerprints. “Imagine you are sitting at home, strangers come in and begin doing whatever they want,” Emtsov says.

Today, the hotel is home to 41 displaced people, with rooms and three meals a day provided free of charge. “People come to us,” Emtsov says. “You can sleep here today, and tomorrow we will see. Nobody sleeps on the street. Nobody.”

It is close to midnight when the power cuts out, leaving the hotel and the city in complete darkness. “Drones and artillery can be heard throughout the night,” Emtsov says. “By morning, you will be able to smell the smoke.”

Hours later, kept awake by the noise of bombing outside, I make my way towards the top of the building, where the seventh floor lies deserted.

From up here, Kherson is almost entirely dark, its streets and buildings barely distinguishable in the blackout. Brief flashes flare among the stars, while explosions and the buzz of drones carry through the night.

When daylight returns, the building shows no sign of stirring. At this hour, the Richelievsky feels like a ghost hotel, mirroring the emptied neighbourhoods of Kherson’s red zone.

The first people to emerge are in the hotel kitchen: Natalia Yastreb and Iryna Rybalchenko reheat fishcakes and stew from the previous evening. Residents drift wearily into the adjoining dining room with their plates, exchanging few words as detonations continue outside.

While some residents have already left for work, Nina and Viktor Tsokurenko begin the day in room 43 with exercises and tea. Since suffering a stroke, Viktor has struggled to speak. “There was a powerful explosion at one o’clock,” Nina says. “After that, I did not sleep again until morning.” Still, she offers coffee and honey; before the war, the couple kept bees.

One floor below, four cats pad around room 37. Tatyana Nesterchuk, one of the hotel’s longest-standing residents, has returned from a shift at a laundry in Kherson’s Dniprovskyi district. The minibus journey to work takes her through some of the city’s most dangerous streets, with an emergency bag always at her side.

“It is like a one-way road,” she says. “You do not know whether you will return. Before setting out, it is as though I am leaving a will behind.”

When warnings of incoming guided aerial bombs reach the hotel, she heads to the shelter with family photographs and other keepsakes packed into her suitcase, which weighs about 10kg. “It is heavy,” she says. “My son tells me to take half of it out. I tell him, ‘I can’t.’”

Nesterchuk has been told that her house has since burned down. Even the fences are gone. “But the land, at least, will remain, I suppose.” She remembers drinking coffee on a small terrace before leaving for work or taking a hoe into the garden to tend fruit and vegetables.

“I always loved the mornings at home,” she says. “The birds were singing. It was quiet and peaceful. There was no buzzing, no humming.”

Another air raid siren cuts across the city. In room 54, Alisia Logvinenko, 11, the only child among the hotel’s residents, answers my knock. She speaks in a breathless rush that makes her difficult to follow. Her mother, Iryna, stands behind her.

The 50-year-old tries to put the war into words a child can understand. “Someone wants to take away our home.”

“To conquer a country,” Alisia adds. “Did I say that correctly?”

“Yes, you did,” her mother says.

When Iryna mentions the few friends they still have in Kherson, Alisia cuts in. “Not mine, hers.”

Most of the children she knew before the war have left Kherson. “I don’t really miss them,” she says, opening her YouTube channel and turning the screen towards me. What makes her happy now, she says, is “lots of likes on my videos”.

Before the invasion, Iryna had planned to take Alisia camping in Ukraine’s nature reserves. The landscape her daughter has learned to navigate instead is governed by a different set of rules.

“Look at the sky. Listen and try to go where there are more trees and walls,” Iryna says. The hotel may offer a measure of shelter, but she has no illusions about its limits. “There is no feeling of safety anywhere.”

Downstairs, Svitlana Salii, Emtsov’s right hand, is behind the reception desk when her phone rings. As she listens, her expression tightens. A Russian FPV drone has struck the van carrying the hotel’s manager and several helpers on their way back from collecting groceries.

Outside, the mechanical hum rises and fades, and I find Emtsov and the others about 15 minutes away, gathered around the white Mercedes. “What can I tell you?” he says. “We heard the buzzing, saw the drone ahead and got out in time to take cover before it crashed into the vehicle.”

The attack is another reminder of what it costs to keep the place running. “As a hotel, we will not be able to operate. But as a hub, we will continue for as long as we have enough strength.”

As conditions in Kherson continue to deteriorate, Emtsov is trying to find a way out of the city for Iryna and Alisia; charities are seeking a place for them in Odesa. For now, mother and daughter remain in room 54, behind curtains drawn before dusk.