I visited the Donbas in April 2014 for the first time and perhaps the last, when there were already barricades before the Regional State Administration and the SBU, at the entrance to the city there were checkpoints and the Kremlin agency began its multilevel penetration into all structures of the future occupied territory.
Then, in Donetsk, on the territory of the former factory, the literary-artistic and philosophical festival Isolation was held. There, I got acquainted with the interesting local intelligentsia, including the descendants of the forcibly deported Lemkos.
After the Vistula, Lemkos were scattered over different locations but the Donbas turned out a hell for them. Firstly, they were trapped in the frankly hostile environment, which fiercely hated “western people”, secondly, they were totally incomprehensible for locals who mocked at their language. That’s why Lemkos preferred to remain silent. The bravest ones flew. “To Donbas with bags and sacks, from Donbas with naked ass”. Few of them have settled there, strangling their longing for mountains.
Those of them who got in Siberia and then to Donbas, told that even Russians from the Siberian middle of nowhere were more tolerant than riders from Donbas. For many years since Holodomor when Moscow rural working horde flooded Ukrainian villages and the cities of Donbas and merged with locals, there was created a special environment with no less special mentality. Borys Grinchenko’s The Sunlight, forbidden in Soviet times, described this moral decay and denationalization of local people.
I’ll never forget a severe glance from under the brows of the ordinary sellers in the shops and supermarkets. A steel “Speak!” – the first word of the seller addressed to a customer. And this piercing look as if under interrogation.
The artistic space Isolation where military captives are being held now, located on the street with a bizarre name Svetlyi Put (The Bright Way). Actually, the street didn’t look bright, it was an industrial area – grey and unwelcoming, at the weekends – deserted.
You were taken from the hotel on the bus and advised not to wander anywhere. But I missed my bus and called a taxi. An African-Donbasian arrived. On our way, he was speaking unintelligible Russian, I was murmuring in response. Suddenly, Luybko Deresh, an organizer of the festival, called me and I answered in Ukrainian. After that, the taxi driver was silent the rest of the way. Maybe, he decided that I’m some Junta envoy.
And there, in the thick of festival, a desire to buy some wine awakened in me. I went out on the Svetlyi Put Street to look for a shop. But there was nothing within one or two hundred meters. Finally, at the very end of the street, I stumbled upon a bleak building with a word Market on it. And right there, I was met by a moody glance of a seller. And not only her – a local customer was standing nearby. He was also looking at me interrogatively-piercingly. It seemed that he hated me because I interrupted his sweet conversation with the seller by my appearance.
It seemed that they unmistakenly recognized a stranger in me. Someone who ruined their space and intrudes on their idyll. And so, under these crossover wary looks and in my eternal endeavour not to show up, to hide from strangers my origin (no-no, I’m not a writer, no way, at most, a journalist), not to dare to speak Ukrainian. In particular, we were warned to be careful and not to leave the territory of the festival.
“I’ll watch”, I answered to her Speak!, glancing through the rows of bottles. But there was no wine! Only vodka and hooch.
Having heard my answer, both continued watching me even more attentively. Pinning their eyes on me. “I’ll watch? What do you mean by that?”, they thought. “It doesn’t work like that with us. We all know what we want”. I was getting embarrassed under those looks. I craved to run from there head over heels. But I couldn’t come up with my choice of the bottle.
The doors swung open and another woman came in. Her loud and joyful “Good… ” suddenly stopped mid-sentence and got stuck between the teeth when her eyes caught the sight of me and then – exchanged the tense glances with the seller and her acquainted. She froze on the spot and stared at me expectantly. Two of them didn’t answer. A woman, for some reason, didn’t come up to the counter, but stood somewhere sideways and joined them in their curious watch.
In the end, I couldn’t stand it any longer and poked my finger at the “Artemivske” champagne. And it, as should be expected, was sweet. Shortly, Lurë for lumpen. “Do you have dry or semi-dry?”, I asked and saw that I was screwed. Stieglitz was revealed. He is near to be fried. What dry? What semi-dry? Nothing similar to this, after all, as everywhere in our God-saved small towns and villages. Only hooch and sweet drinks, mostly smuggled.
“Don’t have”, the seller answered strictly and no less strictly added, “Would you have something?”, drilling me with openly hating look, her left hand groping something under the counter: a gun? or an axe?
A man, standing half-turned, got strained and faced me. His hand in the pocket. What was there? A shan? A screwdriver? A woman came closer from behind. I heard her heavy horse-like breath. She’s rustling in her sack, looking for something: scissors? a bottle with sulfuric acid?
“Yes”, I said hastily, despite I had No on the tip of my tongue, and put money on the counter. The seller’s left hand as a naughty cat climbed under the counter grabbed the money and searched the change. I hid a bottle in the backpack. Another fail – a backpack. See, everyone carries a sack here. A backpack is for city residents and for youth. And here… a suspicious bloke… wants dry… the accent is strange.
I came out and felt three pairs of eyes on my back, felt the fire. There were silence and dullness ahead.
The dusk broke out. Not a soul around. The lampposts didn’t work. I went and thought that I was an absolute fool. Why the hell would I have gone there? Wasn’t it clear that in this jungles a good wine was impossible to buy? As in any other jungle.
I heard the screech of the shop doors and – silence. They weren’t closed.
Someone was standing near the open doors and watching me leave. I didn’t look back. I was picking up speed and listened in to the silence. Someone’s quiet steps were within earshot. Whisper, rustling, cracking of branches. The cats were mewing somewhere. My steps echoed in the dilution air.
Finally, a former factory. Before the entrance, I finally looked back. In the still darkness, no one was seen. Far away, a blind eye of the Market blinked.
“Where did you go?”, my friend asked, “To buy some wine? You’re lucky that it’s Saturday today, and there are no people on the streets. Strangers are immediately recognized here. Everyone is wary now, in anxious anticipation. What did you buy? Oh, I don’t believe that you bought it.”
“There wasn’t a choice. However, I asked for dry.”
“Dry? You lost your vigilance. The dry wine is only in supermarkets here. Well, let’s go.”
We found a cosy bench and drank a hideous warm champagne. It’s grudging, foaming, trying to break back. Break free. Like me. Never to return.
Yuriy Vynnychuk
