For Hannah, one of the main matrons of the Forecourt, the most difficult thing was to find the keys to this People’s House, usually reserved for large but very rare cases. “We have not received guests in the village since the end of the 20th century,” smiles this still young grandmother. It’s time to learn how to run, and that evening it was too late for Olena and her two children aged 4 and 10, who had landed on foot from Lviv, the big neighboring city. Caught from the early night, running out of energy and food, the small family will have stopped before their forced march here, just ten kilometers from the world in peace. It took a long time before we left, my husband could not leave us closer to this border, where we will have to …
For Hannah, one of the main matrons of the Forecourt, the most difficult thing was to find the keys to this People’s House, usually reserved for large but very rare cases. “We have not received guests in the village since the end of the 20th century,” smiles this still young grandmother. It’s time to learn how to run, and that evening it was too late for Olena and her two children aged 4 and 10, who had landed on foot from Lviv, the big neighboring city. Caught from the early night, running out of energy and food, the small family will have stopped before their forced march here, just ten kilometers from the world in peace. “It took a long time before we left, my husband could not leave us closer to this border, where we will still have to wait a day or two in the cold. When the shops around remember the Soviet era, Hannah happily warms them with cabbage soup and a few eggs from her hens. “We can no longer find any essentials, although hundreds of trucks stuck on the side do not know where or what to deliver. »
Returning to his village of Predviriya, 18-year-old Pavlo says he is ready to die in battle, as in 2014 his heroes in the Ukrainian army. “Since I was born, Putin has been trying to provoke us. Now he is killing innocent people. »
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run or die
Because while a million Ukrainians have already left the country after the Russian invasion, on the seventh day they are still crowding thousands at the gates of Poland, which has suddenly become a haven in the absence of Eldorado. In buses, taxis, official convoys, luxury 4x4s or rocking carts, all or almost all get into the same kitchen in front of Korchova’s inaccessible border post.
Run or die, this is the question that Olena no longer asks herself, convinced like all her unfortunate comrades that the bombs will soon fall from east to west. “It is not clear what Putin really means, but the fighting is approaching and nothing seems to be stopping his dream of a great Russia. I hesitated for a long time and then I couldn’t stand the idea of taking my children to the bottom of the basement every night. Now I hope it will not be a one-way trip. »
In the Forefront, when men are ready to take up arms, women prefer to call on the sky in the shadow of the small Orthodox church.
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Nazis with Mickey Ears
Candidates in spite of themselves for exile, first and foremost women and children, in the sad rattling of suitcases on wheels, painfully dragged along this main road, turned into a trampled and dirt-covered road. Men between the ages of 18 and 60 who can mobilize have already been ordered not to leave the country. “Mine volunteered to join a self-defense brigade to pursue Russian saboteurs who were cutting down targets in Moscow. And then you see all these fathers turn around after kissing a small army of colorful down jackets and hats with Mickey’s ears for the last time. So this is how the “denazification” invented by the Kremlin master looks a little closer.
After the closure of his construction school, Pavlo returned to the village of his grandparents, swearing that he wanted to protect their piece of land.
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“I do not judge those who flee abroad, but we will still have to be a few to defend the country.”
Lost at the end of a dirt road, from their homes from another era, the 285 inhabitants of Predviria thus distrustfully witness the eviction of these frightened compatriots. Two Ukraine whose path or destiny has never had to intersect. “Only old people and cannon fodder will remain,” complains Orestes, an agricultural worker in his forties. When city dwellers hold their feet and children around their necks, those in the fields say they are waiting coldly for the flood of fire. “At my age, 58, where do you want me to go and especially what to do?” repeats Hannah, a strawberry picker in her spare summer time.
“I’m not judging those who are leaving, it’s their choice, but there will have to be a few people to defend the state,” said Pavlo, his 18-year-old grandson, who returned to the village after the construction site closed. school. Later I want to build houses or maybe build them again, alas. “If his grandmother relies on the sky three times a day in the shadow of the small Orthodox bell tower of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, he brags in front of a large poster in honor of his heroes who once fell in Crimea.” Putin is just a little girl hiding in “Moscow, since I was born, he has been trying to provoke us, now he is killing innocent people. But he will lose his army and his head.”
The Cross-Trail Psychosis
At the border, the few male candidates for exile are often from ethnic minorities. Ukrainians between the ages of 18 and 60 have been ordered to stay in the country.
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Elsewhere, in the Khlintsi parish, others are already on the battlefield to prevent the neighboring border from becoming one of Russia soon. The peasants, who will not go to the front, are convinced that the front will eventually come to them. So many workers or peasants, armed with patience and old weapons, good enough to scratch a tank. Unlimited, however, these people assure that they will defeat the second army in the world, visibly less stimulated by President Zelenski than by their endangered identity. And the big cans of beer, once emptied, are recycled one by one into a Molotov cocktail. “We will drink as much as we need,” laughs Mihailo in front of his miserable arsenal.