Issue 10. Disagreement

Telegram is a key social media for Ukrainians – a space where people follow the news and stay connected with family, friends, and neighbors. This essay examines how a Telegram chat shared by the residents of a Kyiv housing complex reflects the transformation of human relations under the pressure of war. Everyday disputes over parking spaces and noise collide with existential fears. Crisis reshapes the dynamics of a community, but without erasing the minute tensions that come with shared living space.

A social media chat group among neighbors in a building can be a space of dichotomy and undisguised coalitions. For or against the housing maintenance office, for or against new utility fees, against grills and water dripping from AC units, against dog owners and parked cars, against noise and construction dust, against businesses and particular neighbors. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine brought deeply rooted polarities to the surface, giving them new dimensions and dynamics. Sometimes the shared experience of war acted as a kind of bonding factor making human aspects more important than logistical ones, and disagreements could be – and were expected to be – overcome through compromise.

In 2019, the residents of my Khrushchev-era apartment building in Lviv were given the opportunity to self-organize and unite. A dozen neighbors jointly considered refusing the services of the housing maintenance office, as a neighboring building had just done by establishing a homeowners’ association. But as with many other apartment blocks from the Soviet housing stock, the meeting ended in disagreement.

Some residents, mostly elderly ones, opposed the changes. A chat group was created on Viber group chat, where participants mostly addressed issues like parking outside the building or water supply outages. After the full-scale invasion began, we residents managed to get to know each other better – in the bomb shelter, during massive drone attacks.

To peer from our analog yard into Kyiv’s digital yard of thousands, to draw parallels and note differences, to discover spaces of disagreement or consolidation, I researched the Telegram group chat of one of Kyiv’s new, not yet fully completed housing complexes, marketed as elite.

This group chat brings together homeowners and tenants, real estate investors and local entrepreneurs, as well as representatives of the housing maintenance office. All three thousand members would hardly ever get a chance to meet in person. This group chat became the virtual yard where everyone could meet and voice their opinion: the instant messaging app enables networking and daily communication within the apartment complex.

Beyond the “classical” genres – arguing for the sake of arguing (“shitstorm” / Ukrainian “srach”), offering “expert” opinions, rejecting opposing viewpoints, displays of extreme individualism (labeled “boorishness”/Ukrainian “zhlobstvo”), complaining for the sake of complaining (“whining”) – appeared also clear attempts at mediation, and the assertion of one’s own boundaries and dignity.

With the start of the full-scale invasion, the group chat became a space of partial consensus: a common enemy, the Russian Federation, displaced old pretexts for disagreement. Communication became crisis communication. As in other urban chat groups across Ukraine, activity peaked on days when Russia bombed and when its attacks badly damaged the energy grid. The chat group functioned as a space of collective response and a tool of mutual support in wartime conditions. In the lulls between missile and drone strikes, it often reverted to disputes of the pre-war sort.

Here’s an example:

March 1, 2022

11:21 p.m. (in Russian)
Feel like crying 😢 can’t take it anymore

11:22 p.m. (in Russian)
Yeah, it’s fear, there’s no escaping it at times like these(((( I’ve been trying to meditate and it’s not working((( so I’m taking sedatives

11:23 p.m. (in Ukrainian)
Dear neighbors who are still there in Kyiv, hang in there. Take care of yourselves. Sending you strength 🙏🙏 and thank you for sticking together and keeping order in the complex. I’m truly grateful for that from the bottom of my heart. This will all be over soon

***

The panic of the early days of the full-scale invasion united chat members in an intense search for outsiders among their own: “the Donetsk crowd,” Russian speakers, supporters of particular political views, strangers, saboteurs, and bots. The chat group had privacy settings, with each member being “verified” through a property title, a rental agreement, utility bills, or familiarity with the local lore. Members joining after February 24, 2022 drew special scrutiny. Some explained they’d only joined recently because they’d had no interest in scrolling through “200 messages a day about parking spots and dog poop.”

Messages became most intense on February 26, 2022. The chat group turned into an echo chamber of numerous – and somewhat paranoid – concerns about potential or imaginary threats. The focus shifted to calls to observe blackout regulations, along with angry demands to switch off any source of light (construction floodlights, staircase lighting, phytolamps) for fear that they might help enemy forces adjust their fire or signal to sabotage groups. The fact the building was located near an infrastructure facility only heightened the tension.

So went one message:

February 28, 2022

03:46 a.m. (in Russian)
The fairy lights and regular lights should obv be turned off. but do report UV light asap to all emergency services and the Territorial Defense. And keep a close eye on anyone who keeps insisting that UV light during wartime is just for plants.

***

The chat group became a space of crisis networking. Despite the housing complex having security and CCTV cameras, neighbors additionally organized patrols to check for outsiders. People were required to show ID documents to enter the bomb shelter in the parking garage. Patrols walked the sections and removed “looters’ marks” from the doors of abandoned apartments. The messaging laid bare disagreements over defining responsibilities: about what one owns and what belongs to others, between those who stayed and those who left and are now anxious about their apartments from a distance. Also, between those on the ground who have to stand ready for emergencies and those who didn’t leave their keys with anyone as they evacuated the city.

Tension, exhaustion, fear, and heightened emotion fueled insults and aggressiveness. But there were also rare messages calling for a collective effort to focus on what might at least be useful and within people’s control, given the circumstances: “volunteer, tidy up your apartment or building, help ban rascists on Instagram or Facebook.” Blocking users who spread misinformation became a common practice.

Despite the tension, the group chat became a platform of good neighborliness: a place to find out about the opening hours of the nearest grocery stores and whether bread has sold out, to find out what payment methods are available, whether pharmacies and vet clinics are open, how particular subway lines are running, and what’s the situation on bridges, roads, and exits out of the city. People offered free medicine, clothes, and food; they donated duvets and furniture to equip the bomb shelter; they collected gloves and blankets for Territorial Defense units; and organized the fabrication of Molotov cocktails. The chat group bridged the distance between Kyiv and European countries whose borders some residents had already crossed or were planning to reach.

By March 1, 2022, as the emotional wave of the war’s first days begins to subside, the neighbors found themselves feeling nostalgic about the pre-war arguments they used to have, about utility fees, parking, construction noise, and dog owners who never clean up after their pets. What has once petty conflict was now remembered as a kind of romanticized, shared experience.

Here’s an example:

March 1, 2022

11:44 p.m. (in Ukrainian)
Not long ago all we ever noticed were the annoying things about our neighbors, parking, dog owners, all that.. but the circumstances have made us open our eyes and our hearts; this war has changed every one of us..
I only hope it ends soon, and we’ll get through this war 🙏 How I miss that peaceful sky we all took for granted.. Glory to our defenders 🙏❤️

***

By May 29, 2022 – symbolically, Kyiv Day – the war receded into a background of daily routine, and the old discussions about the housing maintenance office versus the homeowners association reasserted themselves. Arguments over the noise coming from a fountain resumed.

“Boorishness”/zhlobstvo, as open disregard for shared property, stinginess, and single-minded focus on personal comfort, was a recurring preoccupation of the chat group members. There were disputes over vacant parking spots, with comments such as “I’m not in anyone’s way here” or “there’s a phone number on the car, just call me and I’ll move it”. There were insults and explicit threats to take off tires or call a tow truck if owners didn't move their cars.

Rhetoric peaked when ethical and moral principles were at stake. In an argument about a BBQ zone on the housing complex’s grounds, residents debated whether that kind of leisurely activity was appropriate during wartime, and whether open fires in a residential zone violate safety regulations. In October 2022, chat group members clashed over the activities of a pole dancing bar within the gated complex. The bar itself wrote messages to try to dispel rumors and claims that it was actually running a strip club and a brothel, but the question openly split people between advocates of “traditional values,” who threatened to go public and have the bar shut down, and those unbothered by its presence. Some residents commented wryly that certain heated topics managed to eclipse the usual debates about municipal services and fees.

The first massive strikes on Kyiv’s energy infrastructure, in the fall of 2022, seriously tested the residents’ capacity to set aside disagreements and coexist. A new wartime reality once again acted as a bonding factor. On November 25, 2022, night and day, chat group activity reached its highest intensity since the start of the full-scale invasion. Across nearly two thousand messages, residents mostly tried to make sense of events, the power outages, how long they’d last, and how to let others know once electricity was restored. Local businesses equipped with generators invited residents to come charge their power banks and phones. People discussed the reasons behind what felt like unfair power outage schedules across the capital. These digital interactions resembled a collective emotional decompression, and a way of coping with the energy crisis together, often treating the hardships with a sense of humor:

November 25, 2022

12:54
Where did our Electrician go? Who knows?

13:09
He was in [redacted], front street 15 minutes ago and after that the light went out. That's why I can't call him

13:10
😅Since the light went out, maybe you shouldn't call him 🤣

***

By December 2022, questions of collective responsibility, social justice and alternative power sources became especially acute, as some residents took action to solve problems while others did not. Each apartment was expected to contribute 2,000 hrivnas toward generator fuel, and residents were left debating what to do with those who hadn’t paid, whether out of “boorishness” or genuine financial hardship. Should heating stay cut off in non-payers’ apartments, or would moral pressure be the answer, by posting lists of debtors for all to see? Whatever constructive proposals emerged were buried under dozens of messages devoted to what one contributor aptly called the “Shakespearean dilemma of ‘to chip in or not to chip in.’”

Another series of disagreements revolved around how responsibilities were distributed among the housing maintenance office, the property developer, and security staff. During an air raid on April 28, 2023, a debate broke out over benches which had been removed from the bomb shelter and placed in the yard. Some residents were angry about the security staff’s inaction, noting they were supposed to ensure seating for women and children in the shelter. Others countered that the security staff bores no responsibility for the benches because furnishing the bomb shelter was the housing maintenance office’s job. Some tried to calm the more agitated members; others attempted to redirect the conversation altogether, pointing to the tragedy unfolding in the city of Uman, where a Russian missile had just destroyed part of an apartment building.

This is how it went:

April 28, 2023

05:46 a.m. (in Ukrainian)
Don’t fight over some benches. Life’s not about that.
But I do think the benches should stay there for at least a while longer. Nobody’s gonna die because of them. Nobody’s gonna die without them either. But it’s really just a question of whether they can be there or not, whether there’s room or not. I think they can and there’s room. So why not leave them there?
And this isn’t about who’s the mum and who’s the kid here. Or who owes what to whom.
Let’s wait for the all-clear and go back to our beds. That’s it ✊

05:47 a.m. (in Russian; in reply to message)
Put them in the shelter and people will complain that it’s spring outside and there’s nowhere to sit

05:48 a.m. (in Russian; in reply to message)
Take them away and they’ll be asking
Where are the benches?

***

Discussing urban neighborliness never stopped. In the chat group, residents complained about loud arguments in the nearby apartments, some drunken shouting in the yard, or a neighbor constantly practicing the same piano piece. Come summer, and they jokingly united into an “anti-dripping-ACs movement,” trying to persuade upstairs neighbors to install condensate traps.

November 21, 2022

05:09 p.m. (in Ukrainian)
Neighbors in [redacted], [redacted] section, or maybe [redacted] floor, I don’t know, whoever’s got a synth or a piano at home, I can’t tell by ear just yet 🤔
If you’re reading this, could you maybe let us know when you’re planning to wrap it up? It’s been going non-stop for 4 hours already 😬
Not that I’m against it, but maybe throw in some guitar and vocals to spice up the repertoire a bit 🙂

Cleanliness was another flashpoint, particularly in the newer sections of the housing complex where ongoing apartment renovations meant construction dust constantly penetrated elevators and stairwells. Some saw no reason to clean spaces used almost exclusively by contractors, while others insisted on maintaining standards: residents “have to breathe in and track dust across all the floors.” On the car front, tensions went beyond parking spot competition to outright conflict between drivers and pedestrians. Residents debated where speed limitation measures should be installed in yards where children played and parents pushed strollers. There were pointed remarks about driving culture and the property developer’s “foresight” in planning the space.

As in the pre-war times, the group chat continued to function for regular daily advice and community life: exchanging tips, service recommendations, handyman referrals, household matters, and general conversation. There was a palpable fatigue around well-worn refrains: “is the power back on?”, “ZheK is shit,” “it’s all the dog owners’ fault,” “who even parks like that?”. And yet residents also made an effort to keep their semi-anonymous digital communication as an extension of more ethical face-to-face interaction, with humor, and without aggression or sarcasm. They made efforts to reach a compromise in the interest of coexisting in those shared spaces of stairwells, playgrounds, and parking lots.

Disagreements in the digital space of an apartment complex are surely inevitable under any circumstance, as they are in any interaction among people with varying experiences and worldviews. One might expect that disagreements would recede during a full-scale war, when the need to unite against an external threat far greater than a yard or small personal interests would demand it. But in fact, as my research on the chat group showed, disagreements only shifted temporarily. As soon as shared experiences became less extreme or simply more routine-like arguments of the type that existed before the big war quickly reasserted themselves.

Translated from Ukrainian by Hanna Leliv

Illustration: Olha Lisovska