From Ukrainians we hear: Poles are so cheerful. The cities in Poland are so clean. Streets good, politicians competent and not corrupt. We look at each other: are they really talking about the same Poland we left? Once or twice the conversation descends on Volhynia.
This text has been auto-translated from Polish.
Me and Artur, my buddy, had no doubt for some time that we needed to go to Ukraine. To visit old friends and see how they live with all this war. Listen to what they have to say and then repeat it in western Europe.
We booked a hotel and tickets for the fourth weekend in August. As it turned out, it was exactly on Ukrainian Independence Day. What had previously been a three-hour flight from Berlin to Kyiv had now become an epic for a day and a half, as the airspace over Ukraine was closed. Balice, Przemyśl, then a whole night on the train.
From the twelfth floor of the Hotel Ukraina on Kyiv's Maidan, there is an impressive view of the entire downtown area. No damage is visible. There are not many people on the streets either, perhaps due to the ongoing heat wave. At Shevchenko Park we meet up with Serhiy.
- Druze! How are things going? - I show off my Ukrainian.
- Good," laughs Serhiy. - Both legs. Both arms.
He once tried on studying in Katowice, so we can continue to speak Polish. He runs a small hostel in the city center, where I stayed during my previous visit to Ukraine, before the war.
I inquire about his friends I met then: they are all okay. A couple went to the front as volunteers, although there were also forced enlistments and roundups.
- When you volunteer, you get a much better deal: three weeks at the front, three weeks at home. You don't have to give up your normal life.
Currently Serhiy is busy renovating his hostel and doing translations for foreign journalists. And drinking cognac. He takes us to the nearby Squat17 bar. He explains that when rockets fall, it's not likely to be on the center, but the suburbs. Where there are factories, warehouses and power plants. Or children's cancer hospitals.
- And when there's an anti-aircraft alert, how do you respond?
He shrugs his shoulders.
- Not anymore. I have internet and hot water at home. I won't sit in the subway.
In the evening there is a concert by a Ukrainian choir on the stage in front of the building, combined with an auction to benefit the army. Artur buys an expensive gold knitted necklace.
Listen to the "Eastern Bloc" podcast:.
A young guy standing at the bar hears our conversation and chuckles enthusiastically:
- You from Poland? I lived a few years in Krakow!
We whip up a riser.
- Here everything seems so normal. Until I have to remind myself that it is not at all," I say. The boy smiles.
- I am a soldier, you know? A hundred kilometers from the border is no longer so normal.
As one country
The next day we eat shashliks in an Armenian pub on the Dnieper River.
- And the grain thing! We were shocked," says Serhiy.
Artur and I croak and assure him that we were too.
- For us Ukrainians, it was like a blow to the heart.
Well, yes: this country survived the Holodomor, and its flag is the blue sky over a golden field of grain. The greatest treasure of the Ukrainian nation was spilled on the tracks by the Poles.
However, we agree that this was a one-time incident, and our countries have never been closer.
- We love Poland! You did so much for us in the first days of the war. Poland is such a Ukraine, which was lucky. We are like one country!
We laugh.
- It's true! Although as Poles we would be careful with saying it's one country. That would reek of Polish imperialism. After all, at one time we colonized you sharply.
Over these few days in Kyiv, the subject of Poland comes up more than once. From Ukrainians we hear: because Poles are so cheerful. The cities in Poland are so clean. The streets good, and the politicians competent and not corrupt. Artur and I just look at each other: are they really talking about the same Poland we left?
Once or twice the conversation comes down to Wolyn. In Ukraine, few people know the true story of the massacre. We listen in as Serhiy, enthused, explains to his friends what actually happened there. He himself has no doubt that it was a crime.
Then he goes on to tell us more about how he hitchhiked to Moscow and St. Petersburg in 2016. He entered some bookstore and came across a whole bookshelf with "scientific literature" about Ukraine. He shows a picture: each title is a variation on the theme "Ukraine is shit and should be liquidated." That's what the Russians he talked to said.
That night I hear the alarm siren for the first time. It wakes me up, a prolonged howl reverberates through the streets of the empty city. My heart goes up to my throat. After a while: silence again.
I decide that there is nothing to worry about, and fall asleep again.
Three two hundred and five three hundred
The next day we meet with Nazar. He is a tattoo artist at a studio on Rejtarska Street.
- When I hear sirens, I check the channels on Telegram," he says. - If it's drones or ordinary missiles, I don't do anything. But if it's a ballistic missile, I go to the bathroom for a cigarette, because it's further away from the windows. The rule is: always be separated by at least two walls from a potential explosion. But in a direct hit, of course, it makes no difference.
Nazar, a petite graduate of Kyiv's Academy of Fine Arts and the only case I know of who has elegant facial tattoos, turns out to be well versed in military affairs.
- At the beginning of the war, demand was so high that equipment prices skyrocketed. Now it's not so bad. Sometimes I take part in actions: I give tattoos to people in exchange for donations to the army. I have some friends in one squadron, and when I collect, it's mostly for them. Recently a rocket hit a warehouse in the middle of their camp. All the equipment went up in smoke.
- Were there any casualties?
- Three two hundred and five three hundred.
- That what?
- And that you don't know? "Two hundred" means killed, and "three hundred" means wounded.
I then check where these unusual terms came from. As it turns out - still from Soviet times. The coffin, including the body, weighs about two hundred kilograms.
I ask further whether his friends also spend alternately three weeks in the army and three at home.
- No, from there, but there is also such a thing as the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, I think you're talking about them. They also fight on the front and help the regular army, but they take turns more often and have time to rest. On the other hand, they don't get any pay or payments from the state in case of serious injury or death.
In the evening I join Artur and Serhiej at Twenty Feet in Podil, a historic part of Kyiv full of charming architecture, pubs and restaurants. One enters the club through a toilet in a nearby cafe. Good techno can be heard from afar, inside: a bar, young people dancing in front of a DJ and trees hung with colorful lights. The party goes on as if nothing ever happened. But not quite - the music quiets down at 10:30 p.m. A curfew is in effect and everyone must be home before midnight.
Serhiy moves to continue the party at a friend's apartment. Me and Artur return to the hotel.
My companion again spent the day at Squat17, chatting with Serhiy and his buddies. He asked them about politics. Opinions about Zelenskiy ranged from mildly critical to negative, but they all agreed that the feud should be put off.
Independence Day bombs
Saturday arrives. Ukrainians pour into the streets of the heated city to celebrate independence. For the third year in a row, there is no parade, but the crowd is still large. Every second person in traditional Ukrainian embroidery. On Sofia Square, in front of the cathedral, an exhibition of state-of-the-art military equipment. People are taking pictures of drones, kids are climbing on the caterpillars of transporters.
Not everyone has both arms and both legs.
And in Maydan, an exhibition dedicated to those killed in Olenivka. After Ukraine's command had to surrender Mariupol in 2022, the entire Azov brigade was taken prisoner. Some were housed in the Olenivka prison, which was soon bombed. The Russians maintain that it was Ukrainian. The wounded were not helped throughout the night. At least fifty people were killed.
In a Tatar pub in Podil we meet Elena. We give her a warm hug and try not to talk only about the war.
We met in Berlin when she was an activist in Ukrainian social movements. She returned to Kyiv just a few months after the full-scale invasion began - she was homesick and wanted to make herself useful locally. She now works in the Ukrainian administration and tells us that there is no money for many things: the government recently announced that there will be no pension valorization. In 2024, Ukraine will spend almost all of its tax revenues on maintaining the army. A gap in the budget has been created, filled with aid from the West. The salaries of Ukrainian social workers are paid by the World Bank.
We decide to raise a controversial topic: would she be in favor of women also being mobilized for the army?
- Yes, I think it would be a good idea. If only because of the rotation: many people have been at the front for two years without any break. If we had more soldiers, they could be relieved. I have quite a few friends in the army, punks and anarchists, including a couple of girls who volunteered to serve themselves. All of them were quickly promoted: not because of their exceptional strength, but because they are smart.
Elena was already an anti-system activist in her school days, and today she is protesting the neoliberal course taken by the government of her war-torn country. When we later consult the language, we quickly learn that her opinion on the conscription of women is quite isolated, even among the feminists here. Elena tells us about her punk friends. They are affiliated with the Solidarity Collective: a network of leftist groups operating within the Ukrainian armed forces.
We walk across the bridge to the forested island of Trukhaniv. The day is beautiful, over thirty degrees. We buy a beer each and sit on the beach on the Dnieper River. Suddenly sirens sound.
Strange - the Russkies usually attack at night. Me and Artur are drenched in cold sweat. Is it safe, so in plain sight? Why don't we at least walk a bit away from the bridge? Elena checks the channels on Telegram and says that the missile was admittedly flying toward us, but has already been shot down. So, like the rest of the people on the beach until dark, we don't move from the place.
About a hair
On Monday we are already in Lviv. We are sitting in a pub near the market square, Ukrainian songs are coming from the speakers. At some point the anti-aircraft alarm sounds again. We ask the waitress about it: a rocket fell just outside the city itself. Meanwhile, from Kyiv comes news of the most intense rocket and drone raids in nearly a year. Yes on the occasion of Independence Day.
Elena went down to the subway this time. Serhiy slept through everything.
When we are already sitting on the train to Krakow a day later, a Russian rocket kills a mother with three daughters in Lviv. Of the entire family, only the father survived.
**
Franciszek Machowski - a linguist and literary scholar by training, an activist and adventurer by passion.
