Still, our group of cinephiles collectively decided that it wouldn’t be the worst of deaths - to be killed while enjoying your double cheese popcorn.

The cinematography, too, exceeded our expectations. The vastness of green nature, stars and flying above picturesque mountain ridges, was surely a worthy picture.

The plot turned out to be a utopia for men who love fishing and shooting at moving objects from high towers. The film might well be the proverbial “screenwriter’s barely concealed fetish”.

Imagine a young man who’s just recently quit his job as a Frankenstein’s monster, and can now change into his comfy jeans and hipster sweaters and fly in an antique little plane, with his favourite Shepherd, stealing coke from abandoned bars.

The man of course has a tragic past, the promise of a family that was destroyed by a mysterious virus. But worry not, there will be exactly two women in the film, to show two possible futures in this comfy apocalypse.

The world is gone, Ridley Scott sums up. But if we can still make music and bullets, not all is lost.

Kharkiv cats’ recommendation: the devious title aside (dogs aren’t really stars, because we are), it is a worthy watch for a big screen and slow meditative evening, preferably without killer drones hunting sent by your neighbours to kill you. Nothing new or groundbreaking, but a film one could enjoy.

It is said that a Ukrainian must feel the weight and sorrows of the world at any given moment. Even I our sleep, we are supposed to work hard with the traumatic memories or even be catching clairvoyant messages, as a recent study has suggested.

In concert with this directive, I’ve been waiting for a sign to take a break. In my case the sign was a combination of a tick in the left eye that started whenever I talked to other people, and a series of overly dramatic dreams about the sea.

And so, here I was at 6 am on the bench at the main station of Odesa, trying to decompress from a night train from Kharkiv, which was surprisingly fast and comfy and Shaheed-drone-free. As I was getting strength to stand up, groups of locals and tourists circulated the iconic square by the platforms. A company of travelers from Odesan suburbs sat near me. They were speaking that unmistakable softly southern variant Ukrainian that people from Bessarabia, Kherson and Zaporizzhia regions do too. One was a man from the occupied Kherson region who explained a complicated scheme of traveling from occupation. His friend tried to convince him to stay with them in Odesa, but the man “had a vegetable garden” and it was clear he’d go back, making the talk tone melancholic. Another group of elderly ladies discussed the morning’s Privoz market and the cost of peaches. Yet others were running about with bouquets of short summer roses, waiting for the Kyiv train that was late.

I finally stood up and walked to Pryvoz to buy some fresh peaches from a local farmer, man who unapologetically pushed a piece of peach into my hand to “taste”.

Having dropped my bag at the hotel near the beach, with a swimming suit, a book that will never be read and the all-gripping aroma of peaches, I walked to the city beach and dropped into a full sleeping mode.

Falling asleep on the beach when you are fair skinned always ends in the same way. Having ensured I’ve burnt every open part of my body, I kept lying, eyes closed, listening to the sea waves and people talk. An owner of a local cafe and deck chair rental, a typical Odesan 50+ lady was commanding a group of teenagers who went on to dig the sand putting umbrellas around the beach for the paying customers. “Boys, why so relaxed,” - she’d boss them, - “look, you haven’t swiped that corner yet. Go on, hurry.”

Child labor being part of Odesan DNA, I thought of all the “schools for young thieves” that existed in the city dungeons in the 19-20th century. Port city is always a slightly criminal, naughty place.

Every five minutes I heard the passing of the sellers of sweet corn, honey pastries “pakhlava” (baklava) and the famous Black Sea shrimp, known for its tiny size and doubtful ecological qualities. Fishermen were gathering by 3 pm. Alongside with the russian drones.

A car with the air defense drove by, and then suddenly stopped on a road above the beach and started taking the shaheed down. The military operating a machine gun did not cause commotion. People continued lying on the beach. An elderly Odesan man in swimming spedos, stood by the air defense guys commenting their progress “well, you will probably not be able to take him down from that distance”. The military gratefully nodded to the man’s advice, and continued to load their gun.

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But when it comes to only the most well-known legendary epos, the time can fly fast. Did it fly for us?

The film opens with the story-teller aka local bard standing on the table (we can relate, table is a perfect standing spot), and telling the story of a horse which we all know carried inside a bunch of air-constricted Achaean soldiers sneaking into Troy and so on.

The horse serves as a refrain/chorus throughout the film. At some point you see the horse so often you start to question its construction (like, why it’s vertical?) But the main focus of the action is on Ithaca, the turbulent home of Odyssey, who left his wife and kid 20 years back, and his absence starts to show. Even Odyssey’s poor dog can’t die in peace till the man returns.

Odyssey and his team, meantime, becomes the perfect examples of “I told you so” tales. Right from the moment Odyssey says, “we will try a faster way” Nolan gives us a hint that it’s going to be an adventure of sheer stupidity and courage, where all the poor magical creatures have to encounter an insufferable bunch of soldiers who invade their private property and make a mess.

In this series of misfortunes the real ingenuity of Nolan’s script lies. It’s sure the film of its time and about its time. Unlike other Hollywood greats, Nolan has always loved a good script and it shows.

This film is ultimately about all the overseas US wars since WW2, and rightly so it is tremendously anti-war. When the law is broken in one place it will be broken in your home too, the director hints. And that’s a good lesson. The lesson which many empires never learnt. War always comes back.

Two things that make Nolan’s Odyssey truly enjoyable are the camerawork and the music. The film is beautiful, immersive, smart and (maybe unintentionally) hilarious because it shows that people can do many silly things.

Kharkiv cats’ verdict: we laughed, we cried (a little bit), we approve this film for the people with an acute sense for beauty and strong bladders.

For decades, Spielberg has been combining personal childhood trauma and the Roswell accident into various mixtures of fantastic and action movies. His new work, Disclosure Day, is no different.

As always, aliens are only interested in the US of A, on which vast lands they are desperately trying to park their vehicles. Perhaps, in the fear and excitement of meeting new life, the trauma of the first white settlers come comes through.

Of course, there is an evil power in the face of secret agency that is working with the US army and headed by an elderly Mr Darcy (sometimes he starts to look more like Slavoy Zizek which leads to even more questions).

Anyway, there is WW3 coming up between Americans, Russians and North Koreans (it is not clear who against who exactly, but it is quite clear in Mr Spielberg’s world there’s no Ukraine, meaning we lost and russia won, as per Spielberg). The giant North Korean concentration camps seen from outer space is of no concern to the heroes of the movie, however, because there are several aliens who have been experimented on in 1970s, and that’s much more urgent of an issue than the problems of Asians.

To not go into big spoilers, but simply referense the title of the film, one might guess that the disclosure day would come (in the end of the movie). And all the good people of the world (including russian soldiers in fur hats, who might or might not be partners of Americans) will learn from their phone screens and very much believe the existence of the three scrawny blue humanoids with heads reminding of our school teacher of russian literature.

No one would doubt the badly edited footage a single bit, because AI doesn’t exist. And “the world would change forever for everyone on our planet”.

Except for the millions of North Koreans who don’t have the internet and will continue going to the battle or dying in concentration camps unaware of the aliens. Business as usual.

Our Kharkiv cats advice: for anyone interested to study what is bothering the good old Hollywood and the first world societies in general, it will be a fascinating film. There will even be Catholics here. The camera work is as always impeccable. Rich colors, long shots and fantastic work with actors is as always there. It is, though at times highly irritating, still a high quality Western product. To be consumed at your own risk.

Dzharylgach is the biggest deserted island in the Black Sea. Here in July, 2019 I found wild animals, even wilder people and the legendary Eiffel Lighthouse.

A university colleague who studies the history of travel memoirs says that tourism became a swear word from the start. Colosseum has been ‘too crowded and disappointing’ already in the 18th century, which why already then people started to look for those special secret places that would not be as crowded as a Louvre on Sunday. In search of my own secret place I went to my home of Ukraine and decided to check out the legendary lighthouses of the deserted island Dzharylhach.

1 How Do You Get to a Deserted Island?

Located in the southern Ukrainian wilderness Dzharylgach is the kind of place I’ve always promised I’d visit some day when I have a car. Thing is summer travels in local public transport is a thing not even people born and raised in these lands can easily master. The deeper to the south, the more forests recede to grass steppes, and roads become directions.

All that said, when I got an invite from a group of campers who were going to Dzarylgach, I took it as a hint from destiny. And was right. The next day I found a direct bus to Skadovsk — the closest place to the island. It was a night bus with no toilet on board, but who cares when destiny calls.

The best, but arguably longest way to Dzharylgach a train to the city of Kherson, a change for a local bus to Skadovsk, and finally a boat to the island.

I knew I was in Ukraine when the driver stood in the middle of the bus and shouted that we all have to go to the toilet at the gas station, “because nobody is going to stop on the highway!” I obediently woke up, pushed my night-mask to the forehead and went into the night like a zombie.

Morning met me with endless fields of sunflowers and clear water canals. Arguably the top most beautiful sceneries in my life. I even thought that the road was deliberately not fixed. To make it harder for potential attackers to invade this beautiful country. Or to save pristine nature of a deserted island from people like me.

Despite the roads bus arrived exactly on time, as if the driver calculated every bump he had to move around. You can generally rely on Ukrainian buses and trains in this. In the morning light Skadovsk looked exactly like a soviet little town my grandpa lived in. I melancholically looked at the cisterns with kvas and beer, but to find a cup of decent espresso here was a far-fetched dream. To my surprise, several turns into private housing, we found a shaded open air cafe with “ pancakes”, “scramble eggs” and “macchiato” on the menu! Civilization is slowly fighting its way.

After a perfect and completely unexpected breakfast it got better.

The big ship to the island goes about 4 times a day, and all these times you’ll probably miss like I did. But you can always get there by finding an idly standing captain on a pier.

We easily found a local captain, a tall thin man who has a twin at any Ukrainian port. And though the captain was already contracted by a group of holiday-makers for a “refreshing sea trip”, he easily took the five of us and all our backpacks. Holiday-makers were also locals, so they didn’t mind to drop us off the island for a small discount.

On a speedboat it takes 15 minutes to get to Glubokaya (Deep) Bay on the island. Our yacht stretched the pleasure to 40 minutes, and if you prefer restaurants and loud Ukrainian music — the big ship gets you there in an hour.

2. Where Do You Sleep on a Deserted Island?

Our guide and island’s long-timer Sasha said it’d take us about 4 km of walking across the little lakes and swamps to get to the other wild side of the island. Before such hardships we decided to enjoy some civilization at the last cafe in the Bay with fried fish, kvas (Ukrainian lemonade of sorts), and, after that got lucky again. Two meters from the cafe “By Gavrilovich” we saw a big open truck. The driver was an identical copy of our captain and there were two mothers in swimming suits holding kids and bottles of beer at the same time. They had no idea where they were going, but enjoyed every minute of it. We joined them in that. Past the deep sands, violet fields and fresh water lakes we were joined by a couple of deer who ran before the truck and hid behind the trees. It felt like an unintentional safari. And I’m not sure who was more interested to see who.

Wildlife of the island seems to be as interested in you as you in them. Wild boars and roes walk into your tents, and are always happy to eat your food while you’re swimming. And one seagull even flew after me for several kilometers, attracted by my straw hat (or hair who knows). Not to mention giant iridescent blue medusas, our constant buddies.

The other side of the island is washed by the open sea and considered wild. But it’s an illusion. About every 10 minutes on the beach you’d meet a couple of backpackers or a shabby old man with a 5-litre bottle — the most popular local accessory. A couple of hundred metres into the island we found out why. The water here is so close to the ground that you just need to dig a hole in the sand and fresh water immediately fills the cavity. You then filter it through several cotton pads and very soon have a stock of clear fresh water. You can also put a tent in any place that’s not occupied by another tent. I.i. almost anywhere.

Around the fire in the evening as I watched the stars I finally got the chance to ask the local old-timer the most important question: ‘how far are we exactly from the lighthouse, and how do I get there?’ He looked at me as if I was a little bit mad, and said it was ten, maybe fifteen kilometres. Google maps showed 7,5 km, but, as my camping friends rightly remarked, ‘you think google maps actually been here?’

I decided to sleep on it, and woke up with a steel-solid determination to get to the lighthouse. No matter what. It would be my mount Everest (the most famous object of tourists’ hoards).

I was prepared to face the wilderness. But the only thing to face five minutes down the beach was an anchored speed boat with three men walking around. Whether they were just enjoying a small party, or causally poaching some wildlife without witnesses, the biggest problem of Dzarylgach turned out to be that it wasn’t deserted enough.

3. Meeting Islanders

On a closer look the boat turned out to have a huge sign “Police” on the side. The fact that it was not militia but a new police cheered me up (as every child of the nineties I’ve always been more afraid of militia than of criminals). And even though the three heavy half-naked men looked exactly like militia, and probably were militia just a couple of years ago, they somehow lost the scary vibe and cheerfully invited me to join their breakfast.

I kindly said thanks but no thanks and, relieved that food seemed to be everywhere, moved on to meet other aboriginal people, including a family of friendly nudists, another copy of an elderly gentleman with a half-empty 5-liter bottle trying to get off the island and a couple of little children writing the word “not” next to the sign “drinkable water”. I have to say I saw cities that were less populated than Dzarylgach. What started that morning as a decision to fight pure nature, became Canterbury tales.

4. Mission “Eiffel Lighthouse”

Just a week earlier I was in Paris and did my best to avoid the famous tower, especially on Bastille day. Now to see the construction that is not nearly as famous I walked almost 8 km under direct sun, burning my feet and at the risk of being fed to death by friendly nudists and police. And it was worth it!

Architecture puts everything in perspective. The lighthouse made the beach that could’ve been any beach, truly unique. A famous Eiffel lighthouse unlike the landmark Paris tower didn’t disappoint. Ordered on a whim by an eccentric millionaire in the days of Russian Empire, it was lonesome like a lost baby standing on a concrete platform with a sign in Ukrainian “don’t jump on the construction” (which sounded just too tempting even for my ears).

Surprisingly the newer white automatic lighthouse that stood several meters away, looked even better. As my yoga teacher said, ‘Don’t set goals, a goal should be a beacon’. Well now I had two of those.

5. The Most Crowded Place on a Deserted Island

The surrounding area had everything: chaise lounges and umbrellas, grilled meet, tipsy men in boxers chasing their kids, mojitos and even a famous Black sea shrimp (famous for its ridiculously small size). Eating ice-cream and drinking kvas I fell on a chaise lounge and gave in to the deafening celebrations of Ukrainian holiday-makers.

The only person I didn’t meet on the way back was a legendary hermit monk. He is supposedly the only human who stays on the island throughout the year. But comes summer, the man disappears in the middle of the 42km territory, preferring hordes of mosquitoes to the hordes of campers.

6. How to Get Off the Deserted Island

Next morning on the way to the truck’s stop I saw a group of campers that looked like a whole traveling village. I wondered how they dreamt to get that enormous amount of things off the island.

The truck goes four times a day. To my luck the next one was in 15 minutes. When the car showed, a crowd of about 30 people materialized from the thin air, including a dozen of school kids with a teacher. I decided not to test my negotiation skills and immediately climbed in between the two families with a watermelon. Vaguely remembering my mug from before, the driver didn’t mind. He finally caved in to the poor kids, and all the 30 of us drove to the traveling village I passed earlier. The driver took the village’s kids and women and promised to come back for the rest.

At the bay having finished another glass of Ukrainian lemonade, I walked to the pier and the first captain on the pier easily agreed to take me on his speed boat. I only had to wait for “a family that hired me to get to Skadovsk.” No need to say, it was my traveling village. With my light backpack and a straw hat, I sat on the nose of the speed-boat (the only place there was left) and like a guardian mermaid was shipped off the island in 15 minutes.

Epilogue. The Books to Take to This Particular Deserted Island

In 2023, I read that russian soldiers were hunting down wild animals on the island. The animals who were never hunted and who had been protected for decades, who did not expect cruelty and murder from a human. I truly hope the occupation ends sooner rather than later and the island will start to recuperate.

Since there aren’t any books about Dzarylgach yet, the thing to take there would be:

1. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer that’ll show a foreigner’s perspective to ‘the whole Ukrainian deal’.

2. If you can read in Ukrainian, try the brilliant Yuri Yanovsky’s Master of the Ship novel.

As Kharkiv cats, we found it absolutely essential to evaluate the book whose title features one of our grand enemies - roosters. We were glad to see that just like in our households, the rooster plays the role of an ultimate villain in the book. The plot revolves around a certain house with rooster ornaments adorning it. In the 1930s, not many honest citizens could leave that place on their own two feet (or four paws). How ironic that now the main character is desperate to get in.

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It was such a lovely day, in the end, many thought, crawling out into the young spring to check if the town remained its usual orderly self. It did. However, an aftertaste of suspicion settled on the spacious main avenue between two giant tulip flower beds, and on the sunny school yard, and outside the office of the RuSpace corporation, and in the minds of some of the corporation managers. Fortunately, they never left the premises of this supposedly secret object and thus could not spread fear among the unassuming civilians of the town.

For the townsfolk, anxiety came irrationally. The sun became suspiciously too bright, radioactively unpleasant. The water from the tap acquired a zesty metal taste, almost as if it did not come from the best mineral springs in the universe, appropriated by the corporation in a perfectly legal way. Perhaps, it was people’s noses, eyes and tongues that went mad.

Most uncomfortably, the preparations for the Victory Day were in full swing. Small inconveniences could not spoil the most prominent day of the year. The universe should have been more considerate to the worshippers of May 9th, the glorious Victory Day (‘when grandfathers fought - and won - and stood with the flag on top of a parliamentary building of what was that country nobody remembers anymore’). RuSpace corporate town preserved the sweet memory of the good old Victories on Earth (ungrateful planet, as it is).

No kind of spoiled water or air could stop the perpetuum mobile of the festive preparations. The streets were swept, and sidewalks washed, every greenery on every perfectly rectangular flower bed combed to the state of perfect symmetry. The Mayor General liked his town neat. Red tulips were planted for the morning when the children would cut them and place on the marble pedestal of an unknown soldier. The monument was pompously snatched from a “totalitarian” museum in Latvia before the colony fled the Earth. The Mayor General himself directed the rescue operation, which he was reasonably extremely proud of. He was noticed (as the perfectly reliable rumours had it) in his polka-dotted pyjamas embracing the leg of the statue in the dead of the night, singing quietly into the folds of the bronze pants. The rumours to which the mayor general did not condescend.

No, the Mayor General thought, wiping sweat off a bald triangle on top of his head, where the white hair kept mysteriously disappearing. No circumstance could spoil the 304th anniversary of the great Victory. In the good old days, the crooked-handed technicians would have long been placed in front of a firing squad, and off with them. At times, the mayor dreamt he had a tiny bit more power. All his enemies, the high court judges, the technicians, the postman and the postman’s German shepherd could do with some Gulag discipline.

When things would go sideways, as they now did so irritatingly often, the Mayor breathed out and counted down, five, four, three… When he got tired of counting, he would lie, sleepless, till morning, looking at his wife’s gigantic hands. He couldn’t stand those gigantic hands (though not many other people noticed anything wrong about them), and even more so, he detested his wife’s, Mrs. General Mayor’s, ever-irritating optimism. Yet, even in his dreams, he did not dare put her before the firing squad alongside his other worst enemies. The General Mayor would finally get up at dawn, and walk to the bronze statue and retell his woes to the figure of what he assumed was a famous general of the past glories of the great Russian Empire, “Alyosha”.

The awful incident with the sirens did not break the town’s spirit. Manya Usupova proceeded to her office and, shedding the guise of a perfect housewife, mother of three, became the ruthless child-hating principal of School No 2. School No 1. remaned empty, the consequences of a mysterious fire not fully alleviated. Thinking about it while having her second cigarette of the morning, Manya felt a dash of contempt. Like many times before, she thought that the vast Gulag economics of the Golden days would have swiftly dealt with all these manifold cases of disorder and decay in their community. A hundred thousand forced labourers would have benefited them greatly. Alas, nothing of the sort could be expected, given that the only prisoner currently behind bars for unruly behaviour was her own husband, and if it wasn’t for her convincing arguments, he would have been released long ago. Thankfully, she still had some weight in society. Some would even say excessive, but why should a great person be small? And let the evil bastards like her husband rot in hell, or the three-by-four enclosure of the district penitentiary. Thinking of her husband gave an unpleasant taste in her mouth, and Manya called the secretary to bring some instant coffee.

“Get the kulebyaka too,” - she barked, hanging up. Manya knew the secretary heard everything from behind the wall anyway.

“What was that blasted alarm for, Nikita?” - she complained into another receiver.

A series of apologetic murmurs followed, leaving her even less satisfied.

The secretary Annushka brought kulebyaka and the instant coffee, or rather a mixture of milk powder and coffee shavings, called Petrovska Sloboda, in honour of a great Soviet general she had read something about in the days when she had to pretend to be a history teacher. This was before her true calling as a principal revealed itself. Kulebyaka was overall dry inside, and damp on the edges, miraculously inedible.

“Only you can bake like this, Annushka,” - she said, and only Annushka could consider it a compliment.

“I can also bring some schi along, they go together perfectly,” - Annushka added.

“That is not necessary, thank you, Anushka. Call the bastard now…”

“Which one?”

“Grygorytch! Who else could have poisoned an entire class of the little delinquents by selling his wife’s bubliki for credits?”

Grygorych was swiftly shoved into the office, as if the air itself sucked him in. He looked at the metal grid on the window with visible disappointment. There was no chance of escape from Manya; she made sure of that.

“My dearest Maria Alexeevna…”

“Don’t even start, you idiot,” - Manya lost her good humour, as a piece of kulebyaka stuck to the cavity of her 8th rotten tooth. - “Listen, Grygorych. I can turn a blind eye to your drinking in the changing room with this aerobics vulture. Whatever else you do after classes is not my business. BUT. Try pulling anything like that pie scam of yours again, and I will shove your wife’s bubliki where you won’t be able to get them out from. Understand?”

Unfortunately, there was little else the principal could do but physical threats, since Grygorych was the only candidate for the position in this living universe. They both knew it, and therefore, Grygorych was subjected to mere torture, but could never under any circumstances be fired. Fortunately, torture was Manya’s talent. She shouted until her heart started to ache, then Annushka walked with the second cup of Petrovskaya Sloboda coffee, and Grygorych was dismissed.

The heavy feeling that had settled between Manya’s hefty breasts couldn’t get away as easily. The principal walked to the window and, like comrade Stalin during his prison years, looked through the bars into the bleak schoolyard, covered in a perfect layer of concrete. The fact that no child could possibly play there unbruised did not cheer her mood today.

The old maple tree, the lone survivor of the previous year’s carnage by local community services, bent and creaked. It was the oldest and most miserable tree that anyone had ever placed on the Union planet. The second cup of Petrovska Sloboda smelled like Anushka’s shchi soup.

Manya was just about to dive into her guilty pleasure, reading messages from her child informers, when the false alarm blasted once again.

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Savely the electrician boasted an exemplary sleeping routine. It could only be interrupted by his blasted neighbour, the great-great-grandchild of a veteran who not only talked but often screamed obscenities in his sleep, reliving PTSD of his honourable ancestors.

“The Ukrs, the Ukrs attack!” - a heavy winter slipper flew into the wall even before Savely fully opened his eyes. He was often faster with the hands than the mind, a technical being.

The phone rang viciously:

“You idiot!” - the words could be thought by many but spoken by one.

“Yes, Maria Alexeevna, I hear you…”

“I wish you were killed by the siren, you moron!”

“Oh, I’ve been asleep. See the night shift…”

“To hell with it, it’s 2 pm, and the poor children are going insane! The Mayor can’t reach you, nobody in this town knows their business!”

“I’m sorry, Maria Alexeevna, I know school must be suffering…”

“I meant my own kids for chrissakes. Why in hell did you put the siren right in front of my house, moron?!”

“As I remember, you were the one who specifically asked for security….”

“Enough, get to work. And stop with the excuses, be a man.”

The phone went violently silent, and Savely dropped back on the thin single mattress, an artifact of the golden Soviet era on the ungrateful Earth.

---

Truth be told, he was not a very good technician. He barely even knew which wire went which way when the alarms had been installed. But in a small town, and such an exemplary at that, one has to keep up appearances. And so Savely stuck a sonic screwdriver into every single alarm mechanism before he could authoritatively pronounce that all of them were broken.

“Please shoot them down,” he told the sports teacher and a team of Capital News reporters, the least busy people in the RuTown. The trio went around the streets, happy to be shooting rifles at the posts in the daylight, with only minor injuries to the tulip flower beds and a schoolkid who was stupid enough to walk home down the main avenue instead of backyards.

Blessed silence put the town in its sweet embrace once more. But the anxiety settled even more, until it reached the deputy Mayor, normally the most serene and quiet middle-aged mouse of a man, Nikita Alevtynovich Kotsaryov.

Nikita Alevtynovych was a man who valued privacy. Not many knew about his deep connection to the Great Patriotic War. Only he and probably his neighbour knew that Nikita Alevtynovych’s great-great-grandfather took part in the Great Special Military Operation, or WW2 (the one with Napoleon), or some equally important event. In part, the deputy’s privacy could be explained by a fair number of objects his great ancestor obtained as trophies. And though Nikita Alevtynovych himself knew very little of the functions of most of them, he doggedly wiped and polished the treasured mechanisms, and kept them in the most honourable spot behind the glass in his cupboard, alongside artificial teeth of his late mother. The collection was his pride, but also the cause of deep unhappiness. Every trophy, law dictated, was to be stored at a museum, which made Nikita Alevtynovych’s holding on to these things not strictly legal, or even absolutely illegal. He could not build healthy relationships or make strong friendships or even confide in therapy, for that reason. He knew the therapist was good friends with Manya, the school tyrant who also happened to be head of the museum. Thankfully, the museum remained such a closed institution that no one even knew its exact location. Rumours had it that there was no museum at all, and Manya simply collected a salary as its director, like she collected payments for the four kids no one ever saw.

Nikita Alevtynovych feared Manya more than he feared the vicious Ukrs who regularly visited his dreams through his precious ancestor connection. His intestines would turn inside out if he ever saw Many grab any of the precious family treasures. He preferred to remain eternally miserable and private in his private life.

The mysterious sirens shook Nikita Alevtynovych deeply. His second passion after grandpa’s trophies was a yellow newspaper, Secrets and Mysteries of the Great Milky Way. It was a good-for-nothing publication, shipped every two weeks by a mailman from an unknown publishing place on what they claimed was Earth itself. It was supposed to be published by the North Korean comrades. But the level of evil ingenuity of the mysteries had always caused Nikita’s suspicion. Nikita Alevtynovych secretly believed they were some spy-produced poison. Since everyone knew spies were everywhere except for the Union planet. The paranoia did not prevent him from earnestly believing in every single rumpur the paper produced. Two weeks prior to the siren accident, he had read a bizarre little article on the monuments and other memorabilia of the Great Patriotic War. The article recalled the horrific genocide of statues to the communist chiefs, arranged by the vicious Pre-Baltic nations. It was reported that before the great Ru people decided to travel to another planet, a private house museum somewhere in that Pre-Baltic place was ransacked. Not many things were taken, but some Soviet-era kitchen utensils, a washing machine, and a midsize bronze statue of Lenin that the museum owner purchased for his garden exhibition.

The museum director, it was reported, could not forget the incident, retelling it in all the false details to his poisonous descendants. Now, a spaceship bearing a Now-Baltic flag has been seen circling the Union planet, and the author of the article suggested that the Pre-Baltic descendants were lurching around in search of reappropriated goods (that had been a present to their minuscule nation from the great Soviet people anyway!).

“These must be those Now-Balts who are messing with us!” - Nikita Alevtynovych gasped with a sudden awe at his own sharp mind. He decided to keep the thought to himself, however, since nobody could really be trusted these days.

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Another naturally concerned mind belonged to the main intellectual and the great ambassador of the great and even greater Russian literature, the chief librarian, Maximilian Bulgakovych K.

MBK, as he was largely known, had a sophisticated soul, perfectly attuned to the signals from above. His rare gift was nurtured and supported by years of reading the great and even greater Russian literature. He so often cited passages of Dostoyevsky and Nabokov that the local government tried to keep the elderly business ladies and underage girls away from him lest the seduction be too strong. They were all shoved into an internat for elderly ladies and underage girls, with a separate wing for suicidal divorcees. Or so he called the local school and its vicious principal, who systematically, year after year, rejected his demands to be granted a literature teacher’s position.

MBK was tremendously respected by the rest of the community. So much so, local inhabitants were terrified at the very thought of visiting the library, since already at the entrance, they were surrounded by bulky warnings and even threatening messages on how to approach books. The books were mostly left alone, to be slowly appreciated by rats. MBK had no trouble living with the animals, but he could smell the human brainrot from afar. The false alarms reeked of a vile conspiracy in the style of his favourite CIA spy novels which he read vice versa, treating the protagonists as villains.

Walking outside the house, where he lived - secretly - with a tyrant wife - MBK was thinking of who he could trust. Desperate times… require desperate measures, or “paste a great russian citation of your choice”, as he loved to say. Being an undisputed expert, he preferred to encourage people to think on their own. MBK himself could make up an entire book plot based on what this or that classic author could have written.

This rare talent inspired him with a brilliant idea that ultimately led to his consequent actions. MBK ran to the Mayor’s office, shouting already in the doorway,

“Great threat is upon us, General!” - he hurriedly discarded the “Mayor” part, appealing to the war times.

“I hear you, Colonel MBK,” came an ironic response, but MBK decided that colonel was precisely what he could be. “What do you have to report?”

“We need to think strategically, General. Complete evacuation. Women, children and other invalids first. Or last?”

“You cannot be more right!” - the Mayor agreed. - “What are your suggestions, comrade? I suppose, we could fit them all in a school cellar, then assemble in a squadron and go investigate. I will call the principal. I am sure she would not mind you keeping guard of the poorlings in the shelter. Gym teacher can’t be trusted with power.”

----

And so it happened that on a sunny and suspiciously warm day in early May, the entire RUtown’s nerves gave in to the open panic. Once parents heard they would not see their offsprings (what a relief, for the children’s safety that is), it became finally clear to just about everyone that the apocalypse was upon them. As the kids were safely away from the picture, and subjected to a series of lectures on Tolstoevsky’s poetry, the grown-ups were free to strategize.

The Third-Rome-Russian church wasn’t normally the most attractive place for gatherings. Not many knew of its existence even. Used by community workers as a chess club, casino, and hula hoop championship venue, the church officially belonged to the Third-Romish priests, but that crowd had long proven to be too toxic even for the tolerant town’s community. They were stripped naked, beaten with raw eggs and chased away one dawn some sixty years prior, and now lived in a hippy commune in the planet’s desert areas.

Desperate times, however, call for the most radical measures, and the reinstatement of the old faith came as an organic response. With no priests in the lightning year’s vicinity, people, or rather Manya chose the electrician to ‘bring the light of faith’ to the suffering crowds. Known as a person with the quietest and least discernible voice in town, the Father Electrician was perfect for the job of a mumbler with the book. With safe passage to heaven for the victims of the upcoming attack secured, the community went on to other urgent matters. It had appeared that in the short time between the beginning of the panic and the strong hand of the General/Manya pact was signed, a number of unknowns managed to ransack the supermarket, taking every piece of edible produce to unknown locations. Panic grew. Some of the stray housewives started climbing cherry trees in search of green kernels, and a series of severe allergy cases ensued. Men raided streets in search of metal objects that could be passed for a weapon. Children were literally dying of boredom, buried in the sarcophagus of Tolsturgenev’s citations. War and Whatever depressed some into deciding to not grow up any further. All of this transpired in a matter of hours.

Emergency state was long overdue, but the Mayor General hesitated,

“We need a group of highly skilled professionals to go on reconnaissance outside the town.”

He looked at a Gym teacher, drunk on supermarket perfume, and Savely - the two talents the community could well survive without.

“You think…” - Manya suddenly interjected, red foam visible in the corners of her otherwise well-painted eyes,

“You think those might be… Ukrs?”

“Gosh, woman, stop drinking that Petrovska Sloboda! It is most likely simple pirates, or one of those Space Evangelists. Let the men sort this, will you?”

She begrudgingly agreed, hoping the Mayor’s plan would fall as miserably as his next elections, which she would as always supervise.

---

The brave reconnaissance team melted into the tall grass that was banned from the centre of the town for growing too frivolously. The confident leaders of the horrified community headed to the school to inspect the bomb shelter. All were extremely careful not to attract unnecessary panic among others, and walked separately, in short sprints between the shadows that the great red flags of the upcoming Victory celebration cast along the main alley. The others, in the face of the school’s pilates teacher, the slender reindeer Alla Markovna, eyed from the school balcony where she usually smoked her first cigarette, as the erratic jog of her principal made zig zags from one tulip flower bed to the other. She had always suspected Manya to be deranged, but was holding the thought to herself in fear Manya could use it to secure additional disability payments to the director’s already unreasonably expanded pension. Everyone in town received pensions independent of their age or status, as it was the main aim of the Golden Soviet age.

Alla Markovna made her first sip of the burnt chicory drink, squinted in the suddenly violent ray of sun that hit her left eye, and decided to stir some panic by calling a friend. A few minutes later, dishevelled citizens of the town left the identical rows of yellow four-storey buildings and trickled to School No. 2. Alla Markovna put down the yellow receiver and walked to the wardrobe to choose the sleekest yoga outfit for the upcoming civil war. It took her too long, as when she walked down the stairs to the cellar, the crowd was already ungovernable. People climbed on each other’s shoulders in desperate attempts to survive something they could not clearly articulate.

“Just stop you all! Enough!” - the voice thundered from the corner loudspeaker. Everyone froze in awe of an invisible authority. The metal echo of the speaker continued,

“The apocalypse is off. The alarms that you might have heard earlier today have been a standard check from our colleagues at the RuCorporation Plant. Everyone can leave for their houses now… And don’t forget your children. Thank you.”

The mass of human bodies froze into the cobwebbed background of the cellar. A housewife who was about to stick a heel into the soft body of an opponent, an elderly flower seller, put the shoe back on and, as if she had just woken up, walked away. One by one, other distraught individuals followed in perfect silence. The citizens of the exemplary RuTown could not explain the sheer volume of bruises they had on their bodies as they walked, stunned, to their apartments. Shirts were torn, and an occasional jaw broken. But more than physical damage, the perfect Ru citizens were surprised at the sudden brutality that surrounded their otherwise perfect existences.

By 6 pm, when everyone sat at their slightly bitter dinners, Manya and the Mayor, who was just a Mayor again, got the last cellar refugees to leave. The enraged MBK was the last one to be dragged out by legs and arms. He was clutching at a little boy’s backpack and continued to cry out Classical-sounding rhymes in the language he had managed to create in a matter of an hour for the underground generation. His dream to teach was so close. He did not have to return to his secret tyrant wife, however, as he was taken to a small library at the RuPsych hospital instead. MBK finally allowed the bloodstream to accept a generous dose of sedatives, which made him forget not only the hastily created tongue but every line of Pushkin’s Caucasus cycle.

The secretary used the humdrum to escape, and the exhausted Manya had to stir her own Petrovska Sloboda coffee mixture into a cup of coldish water. Luckily, she had documented all the insults that the disappointed citizens shouted at her, and already started to file the damage claim in her head.

By midnight, the Mayor got out of his office too. Exhausted with the amount of paperwork he had to submit to himself, the Mayor walked and walked, and ended up near the statue. He needed to touch the metal of the legendary artifact, as others go out to touch the grass. Unfortunately, the day could not possibly bring the Mayor a single minute of innocent joy. Nikita Alevtynovych was crawling around the unknown warrior on all fours, savagely stepping on the budding red tulips and placing bits of metal rubbish on the spots he thought corresponded to the four sides of the old, ungrateful world.

“Whatever are you doing, idiot?” - the Mayor screamed, unable to contain his feelings towards the deputy.

“None of your business”, blasted Nikita Alevtynovych back, to the sheer surprise of his boss, who’d never thought the voice of the deputy could reach audibility. - “I know how to fix it all, don’t you get it? It’s so simple. That’s what grandpa’s trophies were about!!! Oh, it all comes together!” screamed Nikita Alevtynovych. In the orange light of a street lamp, he looked like a ghoul digging for his own grave. The Mayor sighed. He hated sitting at the job interviews and doubted he could find anyone more adequate for the position. He sighed again and was about to head home to his wife’s gigantic hands when the street lamp flashed, blinding both men.

The air around the Mayor and his deputy became unbearably bright and hot, and a heavy-looking object landed, knocking both men off their feet. The Mayor wanted to curse at the new development, and particularly at the fact that no alarms warned the town of the unidentified space object, parking right in the town’s centre. But the atmosphere, or some other psychological factors, didn’t allow a single sound to leave his mouth.

It was, in reality, a very standard interplanetary ship, one that many countries use back there on the ungrateful Earth. The staircase was typical of planes and small space vessels. A man and a woman, probably pilots or other staff, appeared in the middle of the staircase. The woman took a translation machine out of her dungarees’ pocket and read from the paper,

“RuCorp representatives, we are here to read the inter-Earth verdict in the case 15358B of the petty theft category. The investigation into the case of theft of the general Potyomkin statue from the private collection of Mr. Kasselis has come to a conclusion that a person from your community transferred the said statue to the central square of your town, where the statue is currently in place,” - the woman looked at the statue demonstratively.

“We have further identified Mr Lev Gorky, the Mayor of the town, guilty of theft, with him being the figure in charge of the community. Further on, more stolen objects have been identified around the statue in sitù. In particular, a 1960s shaving razor, an engine to the washing machine, a Lego piece, and a hair dryer taken in the year 2023 from the town of Nova Khakhovka on Earth. Given the circumstances, we will reopen the case against Mr Gorky to account for the new findings. In the meantime, we will ask you to follow us to the temporary detainment centre. Mr. Gorky, we kindly ask you to follow us,” concluded the woman, and, before the Mayor could open his mouth, he was promptly sucked into the ship through the baggage tube. The statue, along with Nikita Alevtynovych’s grandpa’s trophies, was sucked into the ship right after the Mayor. When the ship rose in the air, Nikita Alevtynovych, the new acting Mayor, fell on the flowerbed and watched the ship glide up like a reverse meteor into the ungrateful skies.

“On a mayor’s salary,” he thought, feeling smashed tulip heads against his back, - “I might get a better apartment. Invite someone for a date, perhaps. Or a concert.”

When the people of RuTown woke up the next morning, Victory Day was in full swing. The music blasted with an ever more violent optimism, and the TV screens showed old movies of the wartime era, silent, since the community weren’t allowed to bring the full media package to their exile when they were asked to leave the ungrateful Earth.

Townspeople walked around, dazed and bruised, dragging the kids that resembled their kids, and talking to the neighbours that resembled their neighbours. It was all very good and very standard. Not many noticed the missing statue of the unknown soldier. The acting Mayor General Nikita Alevtynovych was sitting proudly at the head of the holiday table, telling the stories of his famous ancestor who fought in two or even three world wars back on the old, ungrateful Earth. Manya danced with the MKB, who got much better after a session of electric therapy and was allowed to leave the hospital during the daytime. The pilates teacher was enjoying the sun and the fresh humiliation of the entire town. And in the midst of the cheerful festiveness, nobody really thought of the gym teacher and his friend who’d been gone exploring the wild and dangerous planet that started right outside the border of the nice and orderly RuTown.

But what do we really know about Tuapse? This by all means fascinating place was already once under an intent Ukrainian gaze. In fact, we have found a lovely detailed literary account of Tuapse shortly after the deportation of the Circassian people in the late 19th century.

This time we are reading a semi-autobiographical 1919 novel by a Ukrainian Crimean Tatar writer Ahatanhel Krymsky. In particular, Part 2 of the novel, entitled “Tuapse”.

Krymsky himself was in many ways ahead of his time. He co-founded Ukrainian academy of science, knew dozens of languages, wrote over 500 academic papers in linguistics and had zero chance of survival in the Stalin’s era.

The events in the novel narrowly follow the actual life of Krymsky via his protagonist Andrii Lagovsky, a scientist and a teacher who looking for money agrees to tutor a Russian general’s son. In part two of the novel, Andrii travels with the general’s wife and son to the seashore of Tuapse, which has been recently ethnically cleansed.

Approaching the city on a ship, the trio argue about the value of indigenous people who were deported. Andrii, who struggles over his own Ukrainian identity, expresses a certain sorrow (as you can see in this crudely translated monologue):

The general’s wife feels sorry too, but for a different reason. It appears that the native inhabitants took a secret word long life in Tuapse with them. When the settlers start to build houses by the sea, they soon start to suffer malaria. In fact, they know very little about the art of survival in the conquered lands:

On the very first day the general’s family throw a teacher with his gazillion kids out of a local school and prepare to settle there. The teacher has to move to the old school in a swampy part. Soon, his children start to die.

But even before, on these first days in the beautiful seaside Tuapse, Andrii encounters shadows of the past. The bazaar is still there, with its plethora of languages, only lightly veiled by hastily painted russian shop ads:

In the first days the russian general’s family even find it hard to purchase food since no one seems to understand their cultured tongue:

But the signs of the old culture die out before Andrii’s eyes, and the settlers - Russians, Ukrainians, Greek or Turks, all obey the new orders, given in the Russian language.

Tuapse has changed like other conquered lands. Like Krymsky, a local Circassian folklorist Aubekir Gukemukh was executed in the 1930s in the Red Terror, his ethnographic collection of more than 2000 works about the life of the indigenous people was burnt by NKVD. But we heard a splendid Circassian proverb. It says, “The blood of the innocent will be avenged by strangers”.

And so,

Kharkiv Cats recommendation: this is a brilliant, funny, biting novel, way ahead of its time in terms of depiction of violence, but also sexuality (😺). And if you don’t want to wait for the novel to be translated - there’s always our good frenemy AI and the electronic version of the novel in open access:

https://coollib.cc/b/419389/read

Sometimes I start to think I know everything, and this is usually the exact moment when life shows me that the absolute opposite is true.

On a terribly windy April day I am standing above the collector in the middle of the road cover. Eco-activist Oleksii points to the collector, “that’s where the river starts!”

Before 1928, the Kharkiv Tractor Factory neighbourhood was the perfectly wild steppe plane, where locals had pastures and countryside gardens, surrounded by two gigantic ravines. In the bed of the ravine, a shallow steppe river Mokryi Zhykhor (“wet”, “zhykhor” - spirit of the house). The constructors of the factory put the beginning of the river into collectors where all the dirt from the surrounding factories would flow. The ravine was slowly buried by sheer volumes of soil and panel housing scraps. I feel excitement rising in my heart as we walk past a string of garages running across the Oleksansrivskyi avenue.

A sharp descent down the valley, and we are in the ravine that survived because the Soviet Union died before it finished off the local nature. There is magic in the acute change of scenery. Suddenly we are not on a film set of a snobbish avant-garde director imagining Soviet greyness, but at the LOTR setting of the Hobbiton. The valley looks like a fairytale. “In the direction of Azov” a sign shows the flow of how Zhykhor flows into the river Udy, Donets, Don and finally the Azov sea.

The organizer of the Eco Toloka “Mokryi Zhykhor” Ruslan is standing by the river with a rake. The started in 2023, and in 3 years cleared 6000 bags of rubbish out of the ravine. Two more seasons are planned to fully clear the riverbed.

Toloka is historically a gathering of villagers in Ukraine, who come together to build a church, or someone’s house, or do a spring cleaning altogether.

When the full-scale invasion started, Halyna, one of the activists said, the shortages in electricity and water started, and the neighbours realized that Zhykhor springs were the only place where drinking water could be found. But to find the water, people had to go through tons of rubbish. And that is when the movement of several enthusiasts became a mass movement. Negotiating with the local district authorities, the activists made an agreement that the community services would take the rubbish away.

Walking the enchanted land, we find a source of drinking water that the activists of the previous generations made. Their initials and year - 1981 - encrusted with little tiles.

We walk up back to the civilization passing a string of houses build in all kind of bricks put together. Oleksyi says that the construction started in 1939, was interrupted by WW2, the houses were bombed and then built again in 1949 from the materials other buildings.

So many people who never knew one another created this quirky landscape, built or stopped from building the nature away. I think of how many hands and dreams it takes to create places of care in a big heartless city that’s being hit by the enemy every day.

Toloka takes place every Sunday at 12:00 “in any weather”.

We meet on the stairs of the Kharkiv Assumption Cathedral. The sharp April sun hits me in the eye as I am trying to take two small parcels out of my backpack and give them to Natalia Mykhalchenko. Natalia is a known writer and explorer of the Ukrainian East from Donetsk, and the objects I am about to give are bitterly symbolic. They are bits of chalk and two small pieces of Easter bread brought by from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the last unoccupied towns of the Donetsk region. Women in black scarves on their heads walk into the cathedral past us, as Natalia takes these sacred gifts. As we speak, the Russian military pound Sloviansk and Kramatorsk with 1500 kg guided bombs, Shaheed and FPV drones. “They are aiming at the historical heritage, of course“, - I am told as if it is the most usual thing to do in war.

The aim of the Russian military in the Donetsk and Luhansk region is to erase every physical sign of history, every kind of industry - from wineries to ceramics, from coal to salt mines. It is why Natalia carries the little bits of Donetsk minerals so tenderly as if I am bringing diamonds. I know how it feels, to witness the end of a civilization. Though we laugh sometimes that when the East is deoccupied, we will be able to go and see the physically preserved “Donbas“ - that which was under occupation since 2014. They take your soul or your body. And there is part of the region that lost its soul, and part that is now losing its body.

The question is, why do the Russian military so methodically shoot at every evidence of human life in the Ukrainian East? What might be the practical purpose of erasing the memory of an entire region?

To understand the motivation of the Russian state, one needs a little bit of history and a tiny bit of logical thinking. The term “Donbas” or as it is known in the Russian language as “Donbass“ gives a clue of the original purpose that the Russian empire saw in this land. Short for “Donetsk Coal Basin“, it only partially coincides with the borders of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The term “Donbas” was coined in 1927 by a Kharkiv geologist Evgraf Kovalevsky. His task was to discover the economic potential of the region for the Russian empire, whose servant Kovalevsky was (despite his Ukrainian origin - self-colonization is a separate story in this book).

An ecocritical scholar Darya Tsymbayuk in her PhD, compared the way locals wrote about the region, and the way the representatives of Peretsburgh and later Soviet Moscow did. If the locals described the beauty of the steppe, the vastness of the horizon, imperial servants saw the place as a “poor landscape“, devoid of exotic plants or architecture (the Russians much preferred travelling Western Europe, of course, as they also do now).

Seeing beauty in nuance, in a piece of salt from Soledar or wild apricot bloom, is a hard toil of time and care.

For the Soviet Union, ‘Donbas‘ continued to be the most valuable asset of soft power. Donetsk coal performed the same function as Siberian oil does today. Neither’s located on the ethnic Russian territories. When the resources of the mines became depleted by the end of the Soviet Union, the miners were left without proper paychecks. The miners were the first to start demonstrations for the Ukrainian independence in the region. A great book to understand the often paradoxical image of a “Donbas” local as the “true servant“ of the Russian/Soviet empire, is Iryna Sklokina and Volodymyr Kulikov’s work Labour, Exhaustion, and Success: company towns of Donbas.

If the Russian and later Soviet imperial bodies successfully exhausted “Donbas“, what could a contemporary Russian Federation need from this land?

To entertain an idea that the biggest landmass on Earth needs more land would be rather naive. A Ukrainian climatologist Svitlana Krakovska recalled a Russian ecologist bragging at an international forum in 2022 that Russia does not need sustainable energy as “there are still plenty of forests in Siberia“. This little anecdote explains the generous attitude of the contemporary Russian state to the formerly colonized territories.

What of ‘Donbas’ then?

If not land, nor salt, nor coal, what does Russia need?

A grave.

A wasteland.

A polygon for a new attack.

‘Donbas‘ becomes a giant runway, rolled in concrete and toxic waste.

And while we, the remaining citizens of the Ukrainian east, run to preserve the tiniest memories of the region, in mineral stones and Easter breads, we ask the world to study, explore, and help liberate this magical sacred dwindling world.

The minibus pulled up suddenly, throwing my colleague’s seat forward like a loose lego piece, and here we were. Like two mountain goats, standing on the hilly side of the road amidst the picturesque 19th century ruins of Izyum. The only flat surface in the centre was a vast main square with a beautiful building of the former female gymnasium looming in the distance, and another former boys’ lyceum to our right.

What you notice in this old part of the town, is that every historical landmark has been bombed, shelled or burnt by the russian military. It seemed as if the occupational government tried to deny Izyum its past in particular. Perhaps, if the town remained under russian boot, like Mariupol today, the old ruins would be instantly replaced by cheap hastily erected residential buildings of schizophrenically bright colours.

But the history made a different turn. One day, as the director of the local ethnography museum Halyna said, the locals saw the russian planes turn back, and the long lines of military weapons turn back, and even through the 24/7 curfew the occupational administration imposed, the locals felt something changed in the air. On September 10, 2022 the russian military left, like a swarm of zombies in the end of a horror film, leaving the quiet and devastation behind. The local ethnographer got out of the cellar of his five-storey just outside the main square, took out a Ukrainian flag and walked the streets of his town freely for the first time in months. His photo essay is preserved in the local ethnography museum.

The historical landmarks of Izuym are left as they are, waiting for the end of the war and restoration committees. Experts are wary of travelling so close to the frontline, leaving most of the listed buildings without basic conservation works (it is important for the ruins to be covered from the top by any kind of material to preseve the materials inside from the weather).

“But all of it can be restored, easily!“ - Halyna said, showing us intricate neo-gothic patterns on the former police department. I squint and imagine the building in all its glory, how beautiful it will be. It will be for sure.

To a military shouting, “this is a secure facility!”, Halyna responded, “I know exacly what it is, I am the museum director!” The military seeing Halyna’s resolute look shied away into the landscape. “This Soviet “doorman” habit,” - she snorted. We walked around to look at an unexpected result of a russian shelling: when one of the Soviet-looking buildings got its walls damaged, the bricks fell off, revealing 18th century wood and clay structure underneath. “A miracle amidst war!“

As we walked past the Transfiguration cathedral, a stunning 17th century church in the style of Ukrainian or Popular Baroque, I was surprised at its relative intactness. “It is closed now. The holy father seemed like a nice man, but when the Russians came, he flipped to their side and fled. Oh well, what can you do, the Moscow patriarchy.“

Past the cathedral we climbed up the Kremyanets mount along the highway covered in protective nets. Apricot trees were cut along the highway during the net installment, to our dismay. When guiding people up the mountain in summer Halyna would often hang on and pick the ripe sweet apricots. And sometimes she would hide behind the monuments from russian drones.

Another point of deep irritation of the locals has been the graffiti on the WW2 memorial on top of the mountain. “It all started with this banksy guy, and now everyone started writing something there, which is simply not appropriate.”

The famous polovets idols, babas, damaged by the russian military, have been evacuated to a secret place Halyna wisely did not disclose, and all I had left was the memory of my 2021 summer walk around them.

Students used to come celebrate school-leaving parties and meet the dawn on the mount. It was a place of celebrations and memory, and during the occupation was the only point where locals could climb at their own risk and call their loved ones.

The stairs leading to the memorial were damaged by a russian soldier who in summer 2022 decided to drive down in an armored vehicle. The memorials to Chornobyl, Holodomor, and the Soviet-Afghan war were also touched by the russian fire.

Back in the city, inspecting the famous metal staircase in the former female gymnasium, we learnt of how different life was in the rural part of Izyum and in the historical centre.

“Here in the centre all the apartments were looted. Everyone were held in terror. During the last days before the liberation russians didn’t allow people to leave apartment buildings, even to walk a dog.“ In the rural part behind on the other side of the river people had their gardents, cellars filled with food, wooden ovens and some freedom of movement, since the russian military didn’t know the area well and were afraid to walk too far into the side streets.

In the hallway of the ethnographic museum, to which we finally gravitated, a photo of the founder and an old bible greeted us. Mykola Sybylev founded the museum in 1920s. During WW2 he was in evacuation. When he returned in 1945 and saw the work of his life looted and burnt, Sybylev had a heart attack and died. The only exhibit that survived was an old Bible, hidden underground and returned to the museum after a long restoration. By sheer irony, the same Bible was hidden in a hole in the ground from the russian army in 2022. It is now once again being restored from the humidity of the Ukrainian black earth.

The museum’s exhibits have been evacuated, and now a new exhibition is being assembled. I would say that it is the most striking museum display I have seen in a while. It is called “Izyum During Occupation“ and contains some funny and some blood-chilling exhibits left by the fleeing russian army.

We are greeted by a display of the occupational newspapers, notably called “Kharkov Z“. It looks like a parallel reality in which Kharkiv is somehow already seen as occupied and a new russian administration shares the newest achievements of the young Kharkiv republic which never existed.

Between a female t-shirt used to cover the head of a captive in the torture cellars and letters of the Russian children to the kids of Izyum, I don’t know which traumatizes more. That there is no hope behind that border? The cheerful letters are compared to the memories of Izyum kids of the bombings and sitting in cold cellars.

The exhibition ends with a shattered memorial to a russian colonel who had the audacity to not only die in Izyum but also be festively buried on the main cemetery of the town. The gravestone was destroyed by the local citizens after liberation and bits now exhibited in the museum.

After taking a photo together, we rushed back to the Povorotka stop. Owing to the kindness of Halyna, we were picked up by a friendly car and driver through the backyards and swollen wooden river bridge, past gardens and ruins back to the roadside stop.

The medieval fortress of Izyum impresses with long memory, iron determination to survive, and the kind of humour that only the toughest people have. But most importantly, the town is waiting for justice to be served for all the forests burnt and mined, for human lives lost, for the sheer monstrous cruelty this town survived. “The road through Kremianets was chiselled in the mountain by the German POWs after WW2. Let’s see what the russian POWs build after this one.” Will the tradition of such reparations continue after this war, is yet to be decided. Hopefully, by the people of this land.

One day in the second year of war, I woke up to silence. The earth beneath my newly constructed five-story did not vibrate with the movement of heavy military machines. As I opened the window, gray morning leaked in, smelling of fireworks and hope. I ran to the balcony and observed the fringes of the city - the burnt forest, a pair of ruined high rises, and a bombed menora of the WW2 Jewish memorial. Quiet and serene. The war is over, I thought.

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“Well, if there weren’t these sandbags…” - they say. But there are sandbag, and sirens, and the methodical pum-pum-pum of the air defense trying to shoot down a swarm of russian iranian drones somewhere to the north. One of such drones is hitting an airport in Kuwait at the same time.

Two ladies with grandkids whisper loudly, “well, should we go to the metro if it says the shaheed flies to us?” - but their grandkids are already far in the beginning of the procession, sneaking through the museum gates.

We walk past a series of round buildings that hide antique 19th century telescopes. Air defense continues spitting charges into killer drones.

We walk to the 1920s telescope booth and immerse into the daring age of discovery.

Here the famous Ukrainian astronomer Mykola Barabashov worked with his class. He is known for drafting the map of the other side of the moon, and for being the university rector during WW2.

Just outside Barabashov’s favourite spot is a monument to the employees of the research institute who were killed during WW2. Most of them starved, were executed or hit by bombs under the Nazi occupation in 1941-43.

Barabashov himself was lucky to be evacuated to Kazakhstan with part of the institute’s equipment. He undertook a complicated mission of renewing the work of the institute and the entire university after 1943. Most of the astronomy museum exhibits were destroyed during WW2.

Inside of the main building of the museum, alongside what was left from the previous war, in the library, one stand is dedicated to a more recent occupation. As there is a metro under the institute’s territory in Kharkiv, stargazing is very limited. The most of the research has been conducted outside of Kharkiv at a station near Chuguiv. That station was occupied for several months in 2022 by the russian military.

They used the station as a shooting range and quarters, training to shoot into books and telescopes.

The work of the station hasn’t been resumed still, as it is quite dangerous to work near the frontline.

Between the daring desire to travel to the stars, and the need to self-archive and self-preserve, the museum tries to find a balance.

Old and new live near. When I walk out into the daylight again, a message from the Nova Post delivery says that the 2nd volume of the long-awaited Ukrainian sci-fi by Max Kidruk has arrived. I go home to read about Ukrainians trying to settle on Mars as russians are secretl delivering heavy weapons, to the red planet this time.

“This is exactly the problem”, - I said after a moment of thinking. - “Why is a Russian journalist be the one to show Ukraine to the global reader? Why don’t American audience read a first-hand Ukrainian account? What is the whole obsession with looking at us through the Russian gaze?”

Several days after on the fourth anniversary of the full-scale war M.Gessen presented another authoritative article on the past and present of Ukraine.

I found the audacity fascinating. And quizzical. With the fading interest in Ukraine, why would the authoritative journalist continue to insist on speaking for (and instead of) Ukraine. About our future and past, no less.

I started reading and immediately, a russian gaze presented itself. I started to look at Ukraine through this gaze by reading the sentences in my head. Here Ukrainians are suddenly feel that “this 4th anniversary is very special as it coincides with the number of years of the “great patriotic war”, and Ukrainians like russians” consider this artificial division from WW2 “sacral”. (No one in my circle thought about this connections at all, for for a russian journalist it seems self-evident that we should have and so they write about it as of a fact).

Later in the text M.Gessen start to judge Ukraine’s level of democracy as “falling”. And, sure, who else but the representative of the two empires would qualify to speak of that.

Ultimately, it felt in the text that Ukrainians were the captives. Not of their government or russian state, but of M.Gessen’s imagination where Ukrainians think like russians and are essentially “little russians”. We were plastered into a form that the russian gaze prepared for us. And so, the 1990 Revolution of Granite becomes a “new invention of Ukrainians” who create “new history” for themselves, where “russia was always an enemy”. And that concerns and torments M.Gessen who from the heights of their Moscow upbringing never heard of such a revolution.

Ultimately, thinking why numerous russian intellectuals continue to be so obsessed with Ukraine, I come to a conclusion that they, as ever, seek “greatness”. Suddenly they feel that Ukrainians have something, if not “great”, then “significant”, and nothing significant can go past a Russian gaze.

I only hope that one day the paper that still hold Walter Duranty’s legacy will allow a Ukrainian gaze to seep through. Not great. Just humane.

The forests around Kharkiv are slowly growing with young pines. They pop up from the snow like little furry monsters, reclaiming life, reclaiming the city from the buzzing of the Shaheed terror.

“Where is it going?“

“I don’t know, the main thing is not into us.“

Breathe in, breathe out.

Three years on, Ukrainians hold on, bracing for the new day of ballistic terror. More than 217 billion dollars was paid by the EU states to the Russian Federation, allowing Vladimir Putin to continue his military campaign in exchange for fossil fuels. 193 billion was given to Ukraine in arms shipments and economic loans.

Ukraine maintains its polity and social identity in the unoccupied territories. South African tech billionaires ridicule its freedom, being unfamiliar with concepts of empathy and the power of horizontal communities. Every day, Russian drones and missiles, assembled with the help of Western components, kill Ukrainian civilians and military, wild and domestic animals, burn forests, poison waters and soils of one of the biggest producers of food in the world. Every day, more lands that were once productive and diverse, wither under the step of the Russian boot.

Ukraine persists in its aspiration to remain a free democratic state. At times anarchic, decentralized, and skeptical of everything, this imperfect state persists. Its mates are other ‘small ones’ fighting the ‘big ones’, from Latvian volunteers to Taiwanese activists. United by a shared understanding of freedom and vision of the future, attacked democracies create networks of support, not necessarily united by geographical borders. The Russian state knows precisely what Ukraine values the most, and will do its best to destroy things and places that are sacred to Ukrainians.

Ukrainians also know the Russian people very well. Perhaps, better than anyone else. For centuries, we gazed at the Russian people, studied them, and dissected their motivations and character in our literary and philosophical works. Russian culture and history have been burned into our eyelids by the strict post-Soviet teachers. We know where the grandeur comes through, where silences and displacement of facts occur. On the opposite, Russian people don’t study Ukrainian history and literature and don’t know Ukrainian culture. We can speak their tongue without an accent; Russian people can hardly differentiate between Ukrainian and any other Eastern European language.

The Russian state knows where our museums are, and bombs and loots them. A recent detention of the Russian archaeologist Alexander Butyagin for his illegal work on the occupied territories and “bringing exhibits“ to the Hermitage museum, caused an uproar among the Russian community abroad, showing that there is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to legal, ethical, and moral conventions of Russian science. Ukrainians know what Russian museums conceal and where. Ukrainian icons, art, and documents are there; we keep track of those taken treasures. When Viktor Yushenko met Vladimir Putin in 2007, he reminded his counterpart of the Baturin Massacre, the time when Russian tsar Peter I burnt then Ukrainian capital Baturin and killed approximately 10 000 inhabitants, stealing treasured symbols of Ukrainian cossack rule — kleinody — as well as the archive of hetman Mazepa. Yushenko suggested, in the spirit of improving relations between the two states, that Russia could return Ukrainian symbols. It would have been an empathetic gesture. Not only did Vladimir Putin not know about the existence of Baturin. He had no idea that the Russian Museum in St Petersburgh holds this loot. No Baturin’s treasures were ever returned.

Ukraine is not the only and probably not the most tragic victim of the Russian imperial greed, which had wiped multiple ethnicities in the 19th century. The last indigenous person of Sochi, the bearer of the Circassian language, died in 1998. Historians estimate that if the genocide of the Circassian people had not occurred, these people would comprise a 40 million nation on the territory of what today is known as Krasnodarskyi Krai. Ukrainians were luckier in this respect. They could blend in and out of imperial structures and survive physically. Owing to the racist underpinnings of the Russian empire, looking like Russian people, sounding like them, knowing their culture and history, helped to a point of physicalal presevation.

By hook and crook, tooth and claw, Ukraine succeeded in its thorny path to independence. Ukrainian people, the adaptible survivors, have learnt, like no other, what should be done with the Russian state to ensure a peaceful future for us all, the small ones, the survivors. Who knows the danger better than us?

It might well be Ukrainians’ burden (alongside other neighbors’) to decide what should be done with the Russian state. The thought might seem laughable. Ukrainians, of whom the world knew nothing a second ago? (But who is really to blame for this lack of knowledge?)

Pragmatic thought and evidence suggest it is Ukrainians’ mission to figure Russia’s future alongside our own future. If Ukraine observes the law and international conventions, if Ukrainians respect the restrictions of their partners, Ukranians have already assumed the necessary moral ground. Inadvertently put onto a high horse of morals, from this high horse, we can see the problem clearly.

One day, the window will open, and the Russian Federation in its current state will come to an end, as the two previous iterations of this state did. Its end has been woven into the finitude of Vladimir Putin’s life. When the window opens, Ukraine should be allowed to define the future of Russia. Ukrainians don’t need the lands that aren’t theirs, don’t thirst after the rich oil and gas sources, taken from the indigenous peoples of Siberia in exchange for cheap alcohol. The clarity of the high ground makes Ukrainians appropriate decision-makers.

What does Ukraine need with Russia?

Looking at the social networks, one might presume Ukrainians seem to want Russia’s 140 million citizens not to exist. It is a superficial thought. Ukrainians, like no one else, need a peaceful and quiet neighbour. Some might laugh that peace and quiet is only possible at the cemetery. No one wants to live near the cemetery, however, knowing how prone the cemeteries are to zombie epidemics. Having the longest border with the Russo-Belarusian state, Ukrainians are more than anyone interested in healthy, long-lasting, and sustainable peace along this curved line of pain. The wounds need to be healed. Not at the expense of the victim. Such a frail line won’t last. Wounds are healed with justice, admission of crimes, and necessary restrictions towards the aggressor. Reshaping Russia should be a strategic goal of the Ukrainian state, as the Russian people know the weak spots of Ukrainians and will always strive to hurt us if allowed.

Today, Russia is methodically destroying treasured elements of Ukrainian identity — land, individuality, and memory. Land and food are the two most traumatic concepts in Ukrainian history. Forced labour for the imperial elites or in Soviet communal farm systems, waves of hunger, so particularly cruel on some of the richest soils on earth, has formed the Ukrainian national character. Taking away Ukrainian land/identity was the reason of the Russian land grabs that first succeeded in 2014, but started even earlier with the Tuzla island, indicating systemic character of such attacks. The high value of land for Ukrainians is the reason for the full-scale invasion. Russia attacks Ukrainian soil because the soil is sacred for Ukrainians. The biggest country in the world does not need more land, of course, land does not matter to the Russian identity. It is precisely because it matters to the Ukrainian one that the idea of taking the land from Ukrainians becomes a fixation of contemporary Russia. The lingering empire takes its vengeance on the people who do not want to obey. That is proven by urbicidal erasure of cities  that the Russian military practiced first in Chechnya, then Syria, now in Ukraine. Identity erasure of the Ichkerian people after the loss of the second Chechen war followed the erasure of the historical architecture, landmarks, and places of knowledge and memory of Grozny and other cities of the republic. Without connection to the history, the subjugated people were prone to be moulded into the most ardent supporters of the empire they used to disdain. Aleppo was carpet-bombed like Mariupol by the very same general, “butcher” Aleksandr Dvornikov. The success of drone images of the all-out bombed Syrian cities that the Russian side produced in infinite quantities oversaturated and finally bored the international audience. When a single landmark, Notre Dame, is destroyed, it feels like a personal tragedy to every human. Entire cities ceasing to exist become statistics. Bakhmut, Mariupol, Vovchansk, Vuhledar, Soledar, Mariinka, Avdeevka, Kupiansk, Lysychansk, the list goes on terrifyingly. To the indifference of the foreign public. We, Georgians, Ukrainians, Ichkerians, are left alone to weep the burnt wounds of our memories, our selves.

Land is poisoned with mines, rivers with chemicals, buildings ruined, graves erased, children educated as if in a dystopian novel to become trained soldiers of the empire. But the empire does not have time to spread its wings. The cards pronouncing its death have been thrown on the table. The dying empire and its emperor will take everything and everyone it can grab into a grave.

Ukrainian individuality comes from the land. A popular saying has it that “a Ukrainian will cut the entire forest, but will never cut a fruit tree. In the harshest poverty, Ukrainians will always hope to survive until the next spring blossoms and a tree gives fruit. In 2021, when the market of land was opened by the Ukrainian parliament, allowing citizens to purchase land, the most romantic and impractical city hipsers were suddenly running around village councils with patches of papers, ardent to buy out their grandparents’ tiny allotments. They became knowledgeable in jurisdictions and legal terms, and hired lawyers to make sure the land would remain in their property forever. “Forever” could not exist under the soviet/imperial regimes, where land could be given and taken on a whim, “forever” is an important part of Ukraine’s objectives. Therefore, the lands are rendered uninhabitable by the Russian state. Therefore, the pride trademark of Ukrainian farmers, the Melitopol sweet cherry, is claimed, alongside the Skythian gold from Crimean museums, as “part of the great Russian culture”. When the Russian army runs from Melitopol, it will burn all the cherry trees.

Finally, memory. After the occupation, the Russian military change the names of the streets, destroy old graves and monuments, and burn Ukrainian books. The fear of the occupational authorities is well-grounded. Russia cannot exist on the territories marked by the non-Russian languages and histories. If there is no Russian history, it will be created. Stories whispered from ear to ear from generation to generation preserved the identity of indigenous peoples across many empires. A former colony needs to have a very good and very long memory, as the paper burns all too well. Until there are Ukrainians who remember free Crimea, who lived in the unoccupied Donetsk, the Russian state will be under threat. And so, re-education takes place. Children are taught about the great comrade Stalin, while grown-ups are made to sing the Soviet anthem while being electrocuted in torture cellars. Binding together, like safety nets, memories of survivors will form the new volume of the Ukrainian history book.

What of Russia then? Ukrainians know the Russian people, and their weak spots too. In the first days of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians adopted a habit of using lower case when writing “russia”. Fighting auto-correct and red underlining, obstinate Ukrainians continued to write “russia”, until the state ministry of education issued a decree, allowing the use of low case for russia in all the official documentation. A bee sting in comparison to the erasure of human habitats, this gesture was a move of deep understanding of the Russian identity and its enlarged ego, leading to outraged responses from both pro- and anti-Putin Russian people. Even symbolically, in this tiny gesture, the Russian people could not stand the idea of making Russia small.

This tiny gesture pointed to the well-known weak spot and at the same time a cornerstone of the Russian identity - greatness. Greatness, or rather a promise of it, is the glue holding the Russian nation together. The dream of greatness makes poor Russian blue-collar workers in Urals disregard their modest living conditions. The Russian people can sacrifice their comforts for the promise of specialness. Such is the contract between the Russian president and his people. The contract is not based on economic conditions. Russia will never be encouraged to change because of poverty. It can only change when the promise of greatness disappears from the horizon completely. Only when an alcoholic uncle Vanya from the town of Kostroma cannot knock on the table and shout, “we will show them kuzkina matj [motherf—]!” Only when such possibility completely disappears from the dreams of the tired humourless Russian provincials, will the war be finally over. The war has always existed primarily in the heads of the Russian people. It is from these heads that the war spread across the globe. Only when an air of greatness melts off, an industrious auntie Natasha from a factory producing Kalibr ballistic missiles will suddenly look around her poor house, observe her peeling wallpaper, and start thinking rather than of the great Russian poet Pushkin, about this house of hers and the dirty street that could do with sweeping, and her neighbourhood. Then, she will stop thinking about my house and my street, and my neighbourhood. Only then my Ukrainian home will enjoy peace.

It is important to note, that Western European and other world universities and cultural institutions also need to rethink their input in expanding the ego of auntie Natasha. Phrases such as “the great Russian culture”, “the great Russian ballet”, “Peter the Great” should become a bad taste. The world needs to help a Russian citizen recover from a fevered dream of greatness. A tone of normality should settle instead. Learning the cultures of Eastern European countries that successfully protected their democracies will be helpful for any Ivy League student. Moldova, Romania, Poland, Ukraine, among others, hold keys to understanding democratic processes in the region. These states don’t want to be great, they don’t want someone’s lands, and it is a wonderful and intriguing characteristic worth exploring.

To feel that being small can be comfortable and liberating, the Russian state will need structural changes. It is not our task to introduce them. But to take lessons from the Ukrainian decentralization reform could be of help. Whether the regions of Russia will want to be one state or decide to become independent, is also not important. The key is they need to become agents of their own will, autonomous and self-sufficient.

Ukrainian, Georgian, Moldovan, Ichkerian history and literature should be of great importance to the future Russian state or states. It is advisable that they become recommended to all the Russian school children. Developing empathy towards neighbours is key to not repeat the dangerous path of genocide.

Abuse of the natural resources will have to stop. Russia will need to show by example the willingness to reduce ecological hazards. The nuclear weapons arsenal and production should remain on the territory of Russia, but be overseen by UN peacekeepers, including the Ukrainian contingent. It will be helpful for the new Russian state not to be bothered with the tempting thoughts of nuclear blackmail. It will create generations of better and kinder human beings.

Russian people should be able to see the parts of Ukraine devastated by the Russian invasion as specialized tours, but not live on these lands permanently. Humbling experience of seeing the error of their system will help protect the Russian people from the resurfacing of the promise of greatness. The history of Rus must be studied in the world history courses, and should be taken away from the Russian history course. It has proven poisonous for Russia to start their history lessons with the lands of other states. By bombing the ancient city of Kyiv incessantly, the Russian people lost their right to the history of Rus.

The study of indigenous histories and languages not only regionally but across Russia might be a good way to unlearn the dark path of imperialism. A student in St Petersburg learning Karelian language and the history of the Russian invasion into this land, might be a way to increase empathy and humanity, and humility of Russian people. Finally, each part of Russia needs to remember local traditions and identities and find new meaning in them. All the treasures looted from the regions of Russia and the former states of the USSR must be returned and exhibited in the native lands from where these treasures were taken. Proudly. Pride, unlike greatness, is a healthy emotion for minorities and the oppressed. Pride to be who you are, truthfully.

Russia needs to be woken from the drug addiction of greatness. It might be a long and difficult path. This path can be corrupted, have setbacks. Other conflicts might erupt. The presence of the Ukrainian military contingent in the border regions of Russia and Belarus might help enhance mutual understanding and sustained peace between the Ukrainian and Russian states. Belarus needs to be made independent again. Belarusian dictatorial regime might prove to be stronger than the Russian one, therefore, the presence of peacekeepers will be particularly important on the territory of this aspiring country.

There might be many other complex plans and possibilities of how Ukraine can devise a better future for the region. We might never have a chance to see such a scenario, of course, as the possibility of complete erasure and loss of the Ukrainian independence persists. Yet, I believe that it is more possible than many consider.

And so. What should Ukraine do with Russia? The short answer is, Ukraine needs to show Russia how to become a state, i.e. the state that does not need greatness, but has a strong horizontal system of citizen support, dignity, and freedom. For too long, Russia contaminated Ukraine with its ideas, corruption, greed, habits to fear and lie. It is time for Ukraine to teach Russia how to be human.

17 November 2024

And yet.

A soldier is lying in a makeshift hospital, a Christ-like pose indicates the suffering of the wounded. Medics surround him in angelical carefully captured vision reminding the viewer of the Quattrocento. Fra Angelico, or Filippo Lippi, perhaps? The picture couldn’t be more in line with how the West sees a war — a faraway mythical apocalypse that would never ever come to the comfortable well-to-do European family. It will always remain a vision from an enchanted storyboard of “elsewhere”. That is how a German photographer Nanna Heitmann sees it. Through Nanna’s camera, the exotic and exciting other — Russian soldier — can become a mythical hero or a Jesus from the cross.

“Underground Field Hospital” — the title states. Exciting. I wonder if Nanna noticed broken bottle glass crust against their shoe soles. If the photographer realized where they actually were. The famous Artemivske Winery, occupied and destroyed, set in a miracle of a salt mine. Generations of people put their lives into creating and nurturing the art of wine-making. In my home, there is a bottle of Artemivske sparkling. A pack of Artem Salt. A piece of salt from the Natural Reserve near Bakhmut. The last of their kind. The lost. Our lost culture and nature. Uprooted history, broken destinies. Ukrainian culture did not interest Nana. A Russian soldier who destroyed this culture and paid with a little bit of his blood for that seemed like a more visual, flashy object of observation.

Even better, a Russian soldier who destroyed Ukrainian winery, could be paired very fittingly with a little girl from Kharkiv region whose panic attack seemed like a great subject matter to another German photographer Florian Bachmeier. Did Florian use a silencer? Or did the girl hear the click-click-click of multiple frames as she lay there?

Two masters working on both sides of the front, representatives of the superior civilization, had similar style and approach — Renaissance aesthetics. The richness of colours and compositions evoke the need for beauty in a growingly austere world economy. By World we, of course, mean Global North. Not Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, or Palestine.

Going to places where pain is higher and therefore surreal is a tactic of resourcification of emotions. And here, a wealthy Russian photographer, an avid supporter of Vladimir Putin’s politics of kidnapping Ukrainian children takes a weekend trip to the soon-to-be Russian colony of Georgia. A state. Not a state. Sakartvelo is the name, but who would care to learn how they call themselves. Like Ukraine, Sakartvelo is a resource colony. Sun, sea, fantastic fruit, warm-water ports, and picturesque drama that can be hunted, resourced, and extracted.

Photographs are extracted like crude oil.

On the glossy pictures of the brave conquistadors “the savage” is shown in its calming mesmerizing distance from the viewer.

What difference does it make? One comes to occupy a winery but has no skills to take care of a winery and suffers from the wounds. What does the life of those who wounded the occupier feel like? What lands, what home did the defendant who inflicted the wound comes from? What is he or she like, the Ukrainian soldier who injured a Russian one? What are their motivation to fight? Photographs don’t give us answers. They present a Giotto-like feast for the eyes of a distant observer. Offering, instead of responsibility, a victimhood card to an aching aggressor, photographers are changing the story of Russo-Ukrainian war. From a case of an attacker and a defendant, to a swan song of a suffering attacker, the poor beast, whose paws have been cut by audacious Others, who dared to fight back.

One comes for the wine, coal, for our sea, another comes for the image.

Photographs create a comforting distance.

Exotic.

Terrifying.

Morally ambiguous.

Why not peace?

Why don’t Kartveli people make peace with their government?

Why don’t Ukrainians submit to their former owners?

It was a Soviet wine. Not Kartveli or Ukrainian.

It was a Russian imperial Donets coal basin.

A warm water port.

An exciting safari.

I remember in the first weeks of the full-scale invasion, a Western journalist interviewed a Ukrainian teenager in a hospital. The teenager lost his leg. “What did you feel when your mother died in front of your eyes?” — the journalist asked. Greedily. Eagerly. It could never happen to them in Europe. Europe that started fifty miles away from the hospital where a Ukrainian boy was treated.

World Press Photo 2025 released a very clever and sympathetic apology for putting images by the two German photographers in tandem. They should have been separated by a line, or a page, or a scroll, perhaps?

But why?

Don’t they make perfect sense together?

Two eyes of the Imperial god.

Having understood, that they would now have to welcome a fellow Russian photographer, an open supporter of genocide of Ukrainians, the World Press Photo cleverly withdrew the invitation. But not the prize. Rightly so. The prize is both for them and the photographer.

P.S. You were not invited to my home, Nanna. Who taught you to break into my home, and claim it with your camera?

My draft translation of the poem - original below.

Divination

The Christmas quiet somberly ascended

On dusky city in the afternoon

On white frost, on the festive clothes,

Cold drizzle thinly covers all.

Like nebulas on ornamented glass

Shop windows wonder at a wintry face

And with a humdrum of disheveled murmur

Somebody else’s festive mood

Walked past us.

And many don’t have holiday no more

Once happy and important date

Passed darkly.

And only boredom will be stirred inside

And it will tell the moon, “come meet me”,

A ghost of chilly purity.

1932

​​Микола Зеров

ВОРОЖІННЯ

Різдвяна тиша повагом зійшла

На місто пообіднє присмеркове.

На білий іній, на вбрання святкове

Заноситься рідка холодна мла.

Мов більма з помережаного скла,

Вітрини дивляться в лице зимове,

І з гомоном розтріпаної мови

Чужа веселість мимо нас пройшла.

Та багатьом уже немає свята.

Колись весела і червона дата

Як чорна цифір нині промайне —

І лиш нудьгу всередині сколише,

І скаже місяцеві стріть мене

Примарою холодного безгрішшя.

29.01.1932