Odessa is shelled from the sea and from the territory of Russia, but people do not panic. They live almost normal lives. Like all Ukrainians, they have just celebrated tombs or “little tombs.” We call this the special days in the spring, when we honor the memory of deceased relatives and friends. At that time, the whole of Ukraine was dedicated to the care of graves in cemeteries. Some people in Odessa will have removed the old greenery from the graves, and will also repair monuments and fences destroyed or damaged by Russian missiles.
Many cemeteries in Ukraine have been destroyed or damaged by Russian troops, including Berkovtsi Cemetery in Kyiv, near Tupoleva Street, where I grew up. Some cemeteries have been bombed; others were run over by Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs). Russian sappers have also left mini-traps in many of them. This year, authorities tried to persuade Ukrainians not to visit those cemeteries that are or are still occupied by the Russian military. However, Ukrainians are used to doing not what they are told, but what they consider necessary.
Still, they went to arrange the graves of their loved ones. The church has often begged Ukrainians not to carry plastic flowers on graves and instead to bring them alive, but many Ukrainians still wear plastic flowers. Because they do not fade. Some Ukrainians will certainly try to visit cemeteries in the closed area of Chernobyl. There are dozens of cemeteries near villages and towns evacuated after the 1986 disaster. Previously, former residents of these places and their relatives visited from all over Ukraine to mark the anniversary of the disaster and the days of the “little graves”. But this year, visiting the Chernobyl zone was strictly forbidden.
The Russian army captured the Chernobyl station and the surrounding area for more than a month. During this time, they made their way to Kyiv through the radioactive territory and about 10,000 tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military equipment traveled along it, carrying thousands of soldiers to what they hoped would be their triumphant entry into the capital.
Now the Russians are gone and only radiation remains. The Russians returned through Belarus and from there sent home to towns and villages all over Russia the things they had stolen from Ukrainian homes – washing machines, computers, scooters, even toys.
Maybe this would have been forgotten by now if it weren’t for Chernobyl. Shortly after the Russian military left the Chernobyl zone for Belarus, reports emerged that some soldiers were beginning to feel unwell. Several people went to doctors. The investigation showed that they all suffer from radiation exposure. Then the Belarusian KGB launched its own investigation – which will no doubt lead nowhere. After all, Belarus is already a territory de facto controlled by Russia. The International Atomic Energy Agency says it is aware of reports that Russian troops may have been exposed to radiation, but is unable to verify them yet.
It does not matter to Russia now how much radiation its soldiers brought to Belarus or how much they sent in parcels to their relatives. It also does not matter that military equipment that has twice passed through the Chernobyl zone could have become a source of radiation affecting Russian troops. For Russia, the lives of these soldiers are also not important. In all likelihood, they will die on the battlefield, not in a hospital for radiation sickness.
If this equipment remains on Ukrainian territory, it will become a dangerous source of radiation for those living there, who will be its next victims. And again the number of fresh graves will increase in Ukrainian cemeteries. And even more people will come to the cemetery between the end of April and the beginning of May to remember their dead in the days of the “graves”.
Ukrainians will come to the cemetery with baskets and picnic bags sitting on the ground near the graves or on special tables dug into the ground next to the fences around the graves. They will raise commemorative toasts and drink. These traditions are stronger than shelling and occupation. War or no war, they must continue. War can even reinforce such traditions.
Putin would like to kill Ukrainian traditions. Then it would be easier for him to say that Ukrainians do not exist – that they are just Russians who have been deceived, who have been told that they are not Russians, but Ukrainians. But war only kills people. Traditions remain and they strengthen national identity.
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