Ukrainian Countryside

From the capital of France, I’m going to take you to a completely opposite world – a tiny village in Ukraine. My grandparents spent their entire lives there, raising their children, working on the land and tending to farm animals. A simple way of living. And a very difficult one too!

They are long gone, and with their passing away destruction began to take its toll. It’s hard to believe that this empty estate overgrown by trees and grass once was a happy place filled with life, children’s laughter, mooing, bleating, clucking, etc.

   

In this small hut, which now has almost collapsed, my mother and her five siblings grew up. I spent many summers here too. There were only one room and a kitchen with an earthen floor. The water always came from the well. Luckily, during my time, there already was electricity, but it wasn’t there when my mom was growing up.

Despite the lack of daily-life necessities, I remember it as a very happy place.

  

My grandfather built another house (I remember it being referred to as “the new hut”) on the estate in hope that one of his children will make home there. But no one did. Yet “the new hut” was practical when there were family reunions. My grandparents, however, never moved in there; they preferred their old tiny hut.

I love visiting my grandparents’ place whenever I go to Ukraine. It holds so many happy memories. I feel a bit sad that all that once was there is now gone forever. But that’s the way the life is!