"Love grows from love"—such was the motto of the Literaturny Yaкmarok.Thank you, Kharkiv; thank you, Olena Pavlova and Serhiy Zhadan, for this celebration of life and the Word, and for the chance to be a part of it.
Thank you for all your feedback and hugs. For meeting in person for the first time and for new friendship; for unexpected meetings—like the ones with Virlana Tkach and Julian Kytasty, and even... Angelina Jolie at the legendary Trypichchia.
I have no words to express how I feel when I think of Vasylisa and Mariia from UYAVA. You are so young yourselves, yet you do so much for—and with—young people: those beautiful, stubborn, brave, and creative souls who LIVE and WORK in Kharkiv, despite of ruZZias’s GREAT EVIL AND TERROR.
Thanks to Vasylisa and UYAVA, we were also able to visit Izium. I had been there six months ago, and it is terrifying to see fresh wounds on a town that кussian terrorists are once again trying to destroy. This time, we had the chance to take a quiet look at the exhibition in the Local History Museum—created by Halyna together with artists from Izium who survived the occupation and managed to document the crimes, turning them into a testament. Now, I dream of seeing this exhibition in Germany and across Europe. For it is hard to believe that what is shown there is not the aftermath of excavations following World War I or II, but rather the very "equipment" with which this so-called "second army of the world" arrived on our land in 2022...
Afterwards, we went to visit Ms. Olena, the mother of Volodya Vakulenko. Her words—quoting a poem by Viktor Teren—now shine in my mind: "Life does not end with death if a garden remains." It turns out Volodya had cleared away a rubbish heap and planted a garden. And all the trees took root. Ms. Olena has a garden by her house, too, and a veritable paradise of a vegetable patch behind it. The front line is just 15 kilometers away. People are planting flowers and vegetables. Life is flourishing just 15 kilometers from death.