Author: Vira Kuryko–Ahienko
The people have lost their loved ones and everything that they built over the long years prior to the war here. The story of Mykola from Novoselivka echoes the hundred-year-old classic novel by the name of ‘Stone Chross’, a Galician (western Ukraine) author by the name of Vasyl Stefanyk, from which was taught to the young generation in school at the time. The main protagonist Ivan Didukh, who is known in the village as a person that has worked hard for his entire life, must leave his land, land that he has worked for so much. This story is about an old link with one’s land, a link too strong for it to be torn by an elderly person.
Newspaper
The broken post box still contains a newspaper from the 24th of February. Like all other newspapers of the Chernihiv region, it came out Thursday night. The postwoman responsible for the village of Novoselivka, even after the Russian invasion, continued to deliver the newspapers to all the addresses on the list, including those that were under heavy gunfire and shelling.
Novoselivka is a village just north of Chernihiv, sitting on the path of one of Russia’s advances, surrounded by hills, a thin forest and fields. If Chernihiv was the shield for the capital, then one could consider Novoselivka as the shield for Chernihiv, which the Russians held under siege for a month.
The destruction of the village was immense. There was not a single house that was untouched. Novoselivka wasn’t occupied but nevertheless it came under heavy shelling by the enemy. If one house did not become a hole in the ground, then the next one would have a hole in it, or sometimes, merely a door remaining – an open entrance into nothing.
In the shot-up metal bus stop construction near the village, one can still see a taped message from the head of the village council. ‘Dear inhabitants of Novoselivka, due to the (text missing), which are happening at the borders of our country, (text missing)’. The people have been notified to take matters seriously but not panic. On Sunday the 6th of February, people are invited to assemble in the centre. No one will be drafted to the army there but people shall be briefed on what to do in the scenario that the village ends up without electricity, cellular coverage and where to run in such an event.
What Mykola built
– Where to run? All of this is our land – says a man from behind a wrecked fence.
Mykola from Novoselivka is 75 years old. Thinking about his parents, he estimates that he has around five to go. He is a simple yet proud man. In his youth he was a curly and dark-haired man who had the skills to slaughter a pig, and walk his racing dogs in a suit.
Mykola is a villager, deeply connected to his land. Three generations of his family grew up in Novoselivka. He built his brick house on his own from its foundation and has recently added a new one in order to upgrade it. If I did not spend half of my life building for my parents and sisters, I would have had a two or three-story house all for myself, he says.
Him and his wife spent a lot of time driving around in his ‘Nyva’ car. They took their hounds to contests in Kyiv, the Carpathians, and even drove around the former Yugoslavia. His wife Vira, who Mykola used to give rides to on his bicycle since school, said that she was willing to give up the money designated for the purchasing of new socks for her as long as it meant that they would be able to travel somewhere.
Mykola liked horses. He did horse riding from the age of six. He would lead the horse to the pole and make it on top with one leap. His legs would always be covered in bruises and would even have hoof marks on his back. By the age of 16, he would be able to do horse jumping over canals while on horseback. Soon after, he would be able to get on the horse by grabbing its hair with his left hand and hopping on. He has done so for 56 years. He even had a sports saddle, which he acquired by exchanging it for five geese.
When he was young, he bred sheep, cows, pigs, chickens and geese. He only drank homemade milk – as he washed and brushed his cows before milking. He also ate only his own meat, salted his freshly made ribs, worked in the garden, and looked at the field and forest from his window where his cattle were grazing. Now, this field is a cemetery of his life’s work.
So as not to stand in the eyes
He found out about the war in the morning on TV. A fresh newspaper would not be able to deliver news of the war.
Only on the second day of the war had he heard explosions – shots were being fired at Chernihiv. ‘I don’t know when but they quickly appeared on the hill in front of the village and started shooting through us. They shot until they started shooting at the village as well’.
Mykola, his wife who struggled to walk after suffering from a stroke, their daughter and thirteen-year-old granddaughter went down to the cellar under the humming, whistling and cracking of slate. Soon, they became familiar with when things got quieter and subsequently used that time to go up, have some food and lie in bed until the sound of the first explosions.
More than anything, Mykola wanted to evacuate the girls. Hence, his other daughter that lived in Poland and that just recently booked tickets for the 1st of March in order to visit her loved ones, started looking for volunteers which could bring her family from the village, where they did not want to stay.
This was on the 8th of March. Before lunch, it was more quiet. When the ride for the girls came, Mykola was in the cellar. He did not want to walk them out. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, leaned against the wall and didn’t move.
‘They started to cry, kiss me, trying to convince me to leave…’ – Mykola falls silent for half a minute, hiding his tears. ‘I still didn’t leave the cellar. God forbid anything happens to them, and this will be stuck in my mind. How would I live after that? If shelling killed them, I thought I would shoot myself instantly’. As a hunter, Mykola has a slim rifle under his bed.
‘Why did I not leave? Because of my home, the household, I needed to take care of them, feed the cattle, and fetch water from the stream in the field. The cows were not grazing and thus the water was clean. I was digging a hole in the ground, crystal clear water then engulfed it and I filled my bucket with it’.
Mykola exited the cellar when he was sure the girls all left. There was no connection and only a week afterwards, he sighed with relief – the girls were already in Poland.
Pleasing the eye
War is war, but one of Mykola’s cows is about to give birth. However, Mykola also has a ram, black sheep with slim legs – seven adults and eleven lambs, which always came to the world during fierce frost and cold, and thus Mykola kept them warm with lamps.
Mykola has a favourite 19-year-old mare Marta, from a Ukrainian equestrian breed. A crow with a star on its forehead so to say. ‘She was four years old when I took her. She grew beautifully, with a head not too large, straight legs, tail all the way to the ground, lip not hanging like in village horses, where flies tend to venture’. He made a barn for her with glass windows and the horse then always neighed upon seeing grandpa in the yard.
‘Ai Ai, wait, I’ll come soon!’
‘I fed her well, oats every day, fresh hay, and when the beets came, I always threw her soft ones.’
‘She never worked too hard. Humus and hay were both transported by a tractor. Maybe I harnessed her into a light cart, which any strong man could pull, when friends came around. Back then, elderly men, after a few shots of three-star cognac, would start messing about and take rides on the cart in the field and forest. ‘She did not merely walk, she danced. When I took her to get vaccinated in the village, everyone said what a beautiful horse she is. I think that any kind of cattle should be pleasing to the eye’.
Уламки, які не прошили Миколу
The debris that failed to puncture Mykola
That day, shelling started at night and was too intense. Novoselivka was covered with artillery fire and on multiple occasions, airplanes dropped bombs. Mykola lived without the girls now, so he went up to the house more often.
Around 4:30 he heard a strong explosion and he jumped off his bed. He went out crouching and saw that something was on fire. He then sat down near the cellar.
When it cleared out, his neighbour invited him to go and warm himself up with some eta. Mykola thanked her and returned back to his house through the garden. It was time to feed the cattle.
He walked into the yard, put on his galoshes, put on his sweater and entered the stable. It would be important to feed the cow first, he thought.
‘And here – something terrifying happened. Everything started to fall, holes started to appear in the ground. Debris started flying all over the yard, knocking out windows, the roof, the metal fence, and even punctured the scythe. Somehow, I was not punctured by a single piece’.
Mykola, crouching, hurried to free the animals. He was afraid of the wooden barn and pen that was full of hay going ablaze. ‘I did not want them to experience such suffering, it would be better for them to leave’. Scared, the cow and the sheep, under the ongoing shelling, left for the field and forest.
Then, Mykola went after the mare. Something wasn’t right. She was sitting. Mykola tried to bring it to its feet, but she wasn’t doing so. He looked closer – she had a wound in her back thigh. Probably, a piece of debris.
Mykola then tried to touch it with his finger, but did not feel anything. Perhaps, it was deep. Back out in the yard, the whistling and explosions continued. Mykola opened the pen, thinking that would motivate Marta to get up. She did not want to go.
Right at that moment, he heard the sound of breaks and tires screeching in front of his house. It was his nephew.
‘Quick, get in the car!’
Mykola crawled out of the yard and got in the car. The cattle were wandering around the field in the direction of the forest as the car drove by on the road to Vozenesenske. It is a village near Novoselivka. During those times, people were getting there on anything that they could. It was quiet there because the Russians were positioned there. People were escaping fires and debris into occupation.
When they arrived in the village, one of the newly arrived people said that they had seen a cow wandering around in the field. Mykola had a hunch it was his.
The cemetery of life
People in Novoselivka died from disease and shells. One woman came out of her cellar to see what was going on when a mine landed nearby. One of Mykola’s neighbours died in his henhouse. He suffered a stroke while his house was being wrecked by shelling. The man was laid down on some hay in the henhouse and covered with a blanket – no ambulance could have reached here.
In a nearby house, a man was killed in his house. A few houses away, an 80-year-old woman died in a fire in her house. ‘When the police and experts came, they could not even take the bones, because they crumbled in their hands. They took some in a plastic bag, while burying the rest’.
On the way to Voznesenske, Mykola saw through the field a woman lying dead in the grass like a doll, somewhere around his age. She was dressed in a man’s hat and cloak, thus making the initial impression that she was a man. In the field covered with shells, Mykola also saw the dead bodies of Russian soldiers. He did not pity them.
He pitied a Ukrainian soldier who stood near Novoselivka, to whom Mykola brought food to. ‘They let me have a look through their thermal binoculars. Wow, one could even see a cat on a hill far away! So I wanted to come back another time and tell this soldier that after the war ends, he should take his family and come to me. But the boy died. He was a good boy. I just don’t remember the name now’.
His nephew decided to go after the dead cow, as long as the meat was still fresh.
‘As you know…’ said Mykola, grievously.
His nephew came back with the chuck and quilt of the cow. Mykola knew that it was his cow and couldn’t eat it. The next time, they decided to get a cut for the dogs as well. Mykola also left with them. He recognized his cow from afar. A piece of debris from a shell had cut her stomach, and an unborn calf was lying nearby.
In the field and near the house, grey balls of fur could be seen. They were his sheep that were being killed one by one by debris from the shelling. The mare was lying near the pen. She died from that one piece of debris in her thigh.
Mykola dug a few holes in the field in front of the windows of his house and dragged his sheep and lamb, or rather what remained of them after the dogs ate them. He also dragged Marta into the field. He called some men over in order to tie her body up in order to move her. And so they moved the horse that in fact never laboured, with a two-wheel tractor out into the field.
People have started to walk through the field where the horse and sheep are buried. So many shells landed there that people were scared to get blown up there in the field. The cows were first to return and start grazing there, and everything seemed alright for the moment. Then, people created a footpath. However, the forest was a no-go. ‘There were Russians there, and everyone saw in the news, how people get blown up now. And there are honey fungus mushrooms now. This big! This year, they will be sitting there just on their own’.
Only the ram was waiting for Mykola in the pen. The only one who made it through the shelling and explosions alive in the yard. Him and Mykola. The ram proceeds to run around inside the fenced area and reacts to Mykola’s voice. The pens where the birthing of the lambs took place were empty. Mykola only took the heating lamps to the house, the ones he used to heat the lambs during cold winters, when the sheep like to bleat.
Mykola shows his wrecked garden and cartl, which still has debris on it, his apple tree, which had a broken horse collar stuck on it. ‘And the reins! Those have simply died, nothing is left of them. I don’t have any strength to mow the grass, the grass is taking over the yard, I only mow the lawn for the ram sometimes’.
Mykola is scared of raising cattle again, as he estimates his life expectancy based on that of his parents – another five years or so. What if there will be no one who would buy or take the horse? What if it is bought by a man who then sells it for meat? ‘A horse is like a dog, it can’t be treated like that’.
At the same time, one single ram won’t do. He will need a sheep. But where would one get one? There is one in one of the nearby villages, but who knows if it’s the same kind of sheep that he had. It is not known if they were cared for as well as Mykola did for his sheep.
By June, Mykola is not alone with his ram anymore. One of his daughters showed up. Mykola, smiling, cuts his burgundy roses. ‘She came to tell me to go with them to the city, to Lviv, they say. But I spent three days in Chernihiv and I’m already keen on going back home, I’d die in a city. I won’t go anywhere. I need to fix up my house, everything leaks there, no glass, the roof is punctured. I won’t go’.
His daughter listens to him from around the corner and shakes her head, scolding herself for not convincing him to leave earlier. He wouldn’t have seen what he has in such a case.
A few days later, I arrived with some homemade beer for some trials. The husband tells his daughter to prepare the table. Potato pancakes, salad, salted raw ribs and homemade liquor. The husband shots from out in the yard – he will go for a few weeks to Yaremche, to the Carpathian mountains. He does not want to go to the city, but he is somewhat ready to make his way to the mountains. He likes the nature of the mountains, the ringing of cowbells, and the local sheep. During his lifetime, he has been there three times, all for 12 days. He bought a vyshyvanka at the local shop. It was a regular one, factory-made, there are hundreds of these, but when the war started, Mykola took it to the cellar, because he was so fond of it.
There is an awkward silence at the table. Mykola is telling everyone what he will do in Yaremche. His daughter is unusually quiet. It seems that she is not saying everything that’s on her mind. Mykola acts as if he doesn’t know that they want him to leave with them for good. Nevertheless, he gave himself 5 years. He takes a shot of liquor. It seems he is leaving forever.
За столом незручна тиша. Микола розповідає, що робитиме в Яремче. Донька дивно мовчить. Здається, ніби вона не договорює всього, а Микола ніби вдає, що не знає, ніби вони так хочуть забрати його назавжди. Все ж він відміряв собі лише 5 років. Випиває чарку. Здається, він їде назавжди.
The content was created within the project ‘Life during war’, supported by the Laboratory of Journalism of the Public Interest and IWM.
