Everyone reposted this photo of Pavlo Dorogoy. Or maybe it just seemed that way to me. I saw it on the page of a military journalist I know, on the page of an unknown brovka from Myrhorod, and even a Kyiv IT specialist who managed to escape to Berlin in the spring of 2022 left this photo on his story carousel for 24 hours. The cold blue haze of Kharkiv. A bare tree with items hanging from its branches, thrown out of neighboring houses by the blast wave of a Russian missile strike.
The Russians shelled Kharkiv on the evening of January 23. Ten people were killed and 75 were wounded. I push away the image from Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, where Paul Bäumer drives past a scrubby forest on his way to the front and sees trees with the naked bodies of soldiers hanging from them, thrown out of the trenches and out of their clothes by the blast wave. But I remember that we had a falling out with the Kyiv IT guy long before he fled to Berlin, precisely because of Remarque. “I don't think we need an anti-war novel like that right now,” I said in response to his “when will we get our Remarque.” I think he said something about how this was the only way the world would understand us, but I wasn't listening anymore.
I look more closely at the tree in Dorogoy's photo and recognize the red, yellow, and blue Christmas decorations on the branches. I still haven't taken them down at home. Decorations for the holiday that we had so carefully arranged in our own homes. A holiday that no one but us was supposed to know about. Well hidden behind closed doors and curtained windows. A holiday exposed to the explosive wave of a Russian rocket. A holiday that ended. Right here, in the cold blue haze of a Kharkiv street, on the branches of a bare tree, treacherously resembling a Christmas tree. However, the holiday ended long ago. It ended everywhere. At my home. In a car with a “Press” sticker, passing the last checkpoint in Kurakhove. And in the beauty salon in Myrhorod. And even somewhere in Berlin, where, like Remarque, you can escape from yourself and your own life. Even there, folding an umbrella into a shoe box, you can't be sure where it will end up hanging a year from now.
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Olena Huseynova is a Ukrainian writer, radio host, and radio producer. She has been working at Radio Culture (Suspilne) since 2016. She is currently the editor-in-chief of the radio theater and literary programs department. Since February 26, 2022, Olena has been working as a live host of a round-the-clock news radio marathon on Ukrainian Radio (Suspilne). She is the author of two poetry books, “Open Rider” (2012) and “Superheroes” (2016). She writes essays and short prose.
Pavlo Dorogoy is a documentary photographer and filmmaker from Kharkiv. Starting out shooting in schools and at weddings, Pasha moved on to documentary filmmaking and reporting, working with archives. Then war came to our country, and he became a fixer for foreign media so he could see everything with his own eyes.
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