The first train arrived in deoccupied Kherson. Hromadske talked to its passengers

The Ukrainian army de-occupied Kherson in early November, after eight months of Russian occupation. A week after the release, on November 19, the first train arrived at Kherson station. It was the festive "Train to Victory", tickets for which could be purchased earlier within the framework of the joint action of "Ukrzaliznytsia" and UNITED24. The Hromadske journalist took this first train from Mykolayiv to Kherson. Almost 200 passengers who purchased a "ticket to victory" went on the first flight to Kherson. In addition to Kherson, such tickets can be bought to Mariupol, Donetsk, Luhansk, Simferopol and Sevastopol — and used after the de-occupation of these cities. The money from ticket sales will be used to buy cars that will help connect cities and towns in the de-occupied territories with the nearest railway junctions.

"I am going to hug Kherson with my heart, to look at the Ukrainian flag over the city. Literally the day before yesterday, I bought the tickets, and already in the evening they called me and asked if I was ready to go," writer and journalist Hromovytsa Berdnyk told Hromadske. Kherson is the only regional center in Ukraine where she has never been.

The woman also bought a ticket to Simferopol because she had not been to Crimea since 2013. She says that she really wants to meet spring on the peninsula, so next year she hopes to finally visit Crimea. She believes it is possible: "Faith is energy, and energy is what makes the world."