MANDRIVKA OR THE JOURNEY OF THE FACEBOOK WOMAN IN UKRAINE At the very end of March and the beginning of April, 2014, I traveled through the whole of Ukraine, from Donetsk to Kolomyia. It formed the basis of my book MANDRIVKA or the Journey of the Facebook Worm in Ukraine.
An excerpt from the head of KOLOMYA and IVANO-FRANKOVSK Everyone in Kolomy and around unusually small and accurate: the town itself, which escaped the architectural gigantomania, and clear fences, carefully cut trees, and painted houses, and nowhere in my journey have small cups - chapels, standing at many people directly on the site, and a special picket for the vine ... Charm of a different culture. Everything seems surprisingly cute and elegant, but too decorative, I obviously do not have enough Russian space, which allows me to do everything and at the same time not do anything.
I do not feel anything hostile here, on the contrary, the delicate patriarchy of local life pleasantly envelops. But then I suddenly clearly understand how the Soviets with the sickle and hammer, the NKVD, arrests and expulsions looked brutally and absurdly here. The liberation from the Polish land went somehow crooked ... In what terrible, hitherto not dismissed pliers came the local people, set in the struggle for their separate state in front of the incredible, inimitable choice - the Reds or the Third Reich. And why do not the inhabitants of the East of the country understand the horror of these ticks? And why all these years almost nothing was done to begin to understand, but the little that was done, went somehow sideways and did not reconcile people?.
I have only "why?", And they have already taken Crimea, the seized administration of Donetsk and it is not known what is yet to come.
Crimea suddenly arose and in conversation with local residents. I bought from some old man a few bulbs of gladioli and went to the store to ask for a box under them. The shop turned out to be a watch shop with very funny uncles. For some reason they were glad that I was from Moscow, and began to remember their life in the army somewhere very far from Ukraine, then, of course, they moved to the Crimea. And one of them says:.
- Here I come to the Crimea. In summer. On the sea. And I go to the store. And I speak my own language, which is not so much different from yours, it is always possible to understand if you want to. A saleswoman to me in return - in Russian speak, but not on this one its own. I, of course, can and in Russian - that's how it is with you now, but you came to me, and I see that you are a guest. But here basically I will not, because it is insulting. I continue in Ukrainian. Scandal begins. No, well, you tell me, if my country is called Ukraine, then its inhabitants must know at least somehow its language? And what is so abnormal about this? Well, in Russia, after all, all the inhabitants speak Russian.
- More or less, - I answer. "Maybe somewhere in distant national towns there is someone who speaks very badly ..." "Well," says the uncle, "they do not work in stores, they probably sit on the stove, do not they?".
"So," I agree, trying frantically to recall at least one instance in which somewhere in a village shop in Russia - at least in the north or in the south - someone refused to speak to me in Russian, suggesting switching to another language.
... Full absurdity.
And about Ukraine, it turns out, not absurd ... "Reader, write in a personal, if you want to buy a book and find out what else was written and photographed in it.
In the photo: easter market in Kolomyia The site is not responsible for the content of blogs. The editorial opinion may differ from the author's.
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