Gnutivka is a frontline settlement near the narrowing of the grey zone, where Russian and Ukrainian forces are described as facing one another at close range. The place marks the concentrated violence beyond Sergeyich’s village and recurs as a point of reference for the risks of travel, the boundary between competing authorities, and the war’s reach into ordinary life.

Position in the Grey Zone

A local woman explains that Gnutivka lies where the grey zone narrows again: Russian forces are eight kilometres away and Ukrainian forces five kilometres away. There, she says, the opposing sides are nose to nose and gunfire continues through the day. The distances make the front tangible, while the narrowing geography suggests how little space separates civilians from the fighting.

Her account also contrasts Gnutivka with Sergeyich’s own village, where he says that in three years the church, a few yards, and the collective-farm administration have been hit, while almost all houses still stand. The difference is not that the war is absent from his home, but that its violence is less constant than around Gnutivka. The two places give the conflict different rhythms: intermittent damage in the village, sustained firing near the narrowed front.

Sound, Movement, and Risk

After visiting the elderly woman, Sergeyich walks away under the weight of his backpack, stooping to keep his balance. Cannon fire reaches him from somewhere beyond Svitle, and he thinks it is probably coming from around Gnutivka; he quickens his pace. The location is thus registered not through a view of the battlefield but through distant sound and its effect on a traveller’s body and speed.

Gnutivka also enters the novel’s practical geography through a planned postal ceasefire. Pashka tells Sergeyich that mail will be delivered to villages in the grey zone during a single quiet day, after local post offices have stopped working and mail has accumulated. The arrangement makes temporary calm serve a civilian purpose, while the need to announce a ceasefire for deliveries underscores how exceptional ordinary communications have become.

A Place Between Authorities

At a checkpoint, soldiers question Sergeyich’s route after seeing that his residence permit identifies Little Starhorodivka. One asks over a walkie-talkie whether the village belongs to the Donetsk People's Republic, then asks why Sergeyich is entering through territory described as the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk. Sergeyich says Petro advised him that this route was safer, and a soldier agrees. Gnutivka’s position in the narrowing grey zone helps frame a broader landscape in which routes are judged by shifting lines of control and by the relative danger of crossing them.

That uncertainty continues beyond the immediate front. When Sergeyich approaches the Federal Security Service about Akhtem, a guard warns him that he will not be granted asylum and that his stay in Russia is limited to ninety days. Later, a detective explains that Bekir has been charged not only over the church candles but for driving his father’s car without official permission for two years; the father was killed, but the registration and lack of formal authorization remain decisive to the authorities. These episodes do not place the offices in Gnutivka, but they extend the frontier’s governing logic: practical safety, personal ties, and formal jurisdiction do not necessarily coincide.

Narrative Significance

Gnutivka functions as a geographic measure of escalation. It is close enough to Sergeyich’s village to shape what he hears and how quickly he walks, yet distinct enough to clarify that danger is unevenly distributed across the grey zone. Its recurring associations—with the front’s narrowing, continual gunfire, interrupted mail, and uncertain passage—turn a place-name into a compressed map of civilian life between armed forces and administrative systems.