" We were growing up together..."

Taras Shevchenko

There are periods in life when everything changes rapidly: on February 13 you are in Kyiv, which you could not leave for two years due to quarantine, a day later you are in a town in the Carpathians, and ten days later you get to Budapest via Krakow, as a direct bus did not arrive at the bus station because the war started ... And here you are on Acacia Street, you live in a strange city, and you seem to be surrounded by white noise like the color of the same acacias - a completely unfamiliar language that roars around with incomprehensible noise. Maybe that's why I wanted to write about something unchanging, dear since childhood…
I grew up in a boyish environment, and the most interesting thing is that everyone - both my brother and my cousins - were a year younger. Well, almost everyone, because there was still a Slavko, two years older, but because he was a "thing-in-itself", I did not take him into account.
My favorite of all the cousins (and I had four of them) was Vasyl'ko. What adventures we haven't gotten into!
In the summer we were taken to Kaminna Gora [Stone Mount], which my father for some reason called the Devil's Swamp (because we often got stuck in at least two trouble spots after the rain). But my father's "gazyk" [GAZ-69 four-wheel drive similar to Willys MB], made by himself, overcame these sneaky pits, and we would find ourselves in a large green grandparents' yard, overgrown with velvet "otava" (short grass grown in place of the mown one).
There was a house under the thatching, the main entrance was called the porch [ganok], and the back - "back" [zatyllia; tyl - rear/back]. On both sides, guests could get into the so-called "siny" [entryway - at the front entrance of a house], from which to the right and left were rooms - "hata" [house] and "halupyna" [hut]. Grandfather Hrynyk, grandmother Tan'ka, uncle Vasylyk lived in the house, and my mother's sister and her husband lived in the hut. All life revolved around the "house": there they cooked food, sat at a large table with carved legs, prayed, baked bread in the oven, bathed and slept - some on the bed, and some on the "bombetl" [a bench bed, from German "Bankbettel"].
But who will keep the children in the house in the summer? I remember the fields with cornflowers and poppies, we all follow the path to Kornika - a small forest nearby. Strawberries ripened there, and we strung them on long, thin and dense stalks, which we called "syl'ky". It was a kind of sport - who will bring home more of such "syl'ky". Those who were impatient did not bother with it and sent all the berries straight to the destination. As a rule, those were my brother Volodya and Vasyl'ko, whereas Slavko and I politely followed the rules we invented. Although then it was also all eaten, however a little was given for the benefit of these two impatient hungry guys... Can you imagine what strawberries smell like on a sun-baked lawn?
We were allowed to go to Kornika, although we were still preschoolers: it was really nearby. But more often we spent summer days in Berezyna. We had to go to "zatyllia", pass the gardens with rhubarb, past the barns and the "summer kitchen", run along the narrow path between our field and the neighboring fence. I still dream of running down that path.
Cherries and apple trees grew there. Cherries are tall, so they put a ladder near them. The apple trees are low, some of them very sloping, and we climbed them like goats. Goats, by the way, were also there - they were watched by grandpa Hrynyk, and sometimes he drove us one by one on a big white goat.
When we were a little older, we started playing soccer in Berezyna; it was spacious, so it was enough to make an improvised gate. However, we had to have other cousins come for the holidays, because it was impossible to form two teams out of the four of us.
We would also go on long hikes, for example, to Lake Zhydivka. Well, it's very small, and it was full of frogs. Before the rain there was a real concert! There were some swamps nearby, and we went to our knees in this mud to make our perfect "knee highs." Well, that was something! Consistency was on point...
And elsewhere grew mulberries, i.e. silk trees. One day we went there and ate plenty of delicious mulberries, and even brought them home in the "kanka" - a [milk-charn-like] container.
For Volodya and I, the summer at Ivantsi (that was the name of the household and the whole village end) was still rich in linguistic discoveries. We lived in town, went to kindergarten, my parents were teachers, and the language around us was mostly literary. We learned from cousins that the pencil turns out not a pencil, but a "kredka" [from German kreide - chalk], and an eraser - "redyrka" [German radieren - to erase]. The pencil case was a "piurnyk" [Polish piurko - feather/nib (pen)] and the inkwell was a "kalamar" [kalamus - via Latin, from Greek (box for) reed]. There was a "fosa" [a ditch; fossa - via Pl, via Italian, from Latin fodio - digging] outside the barn, which we were not allowed to approach, and the chickens drank water from the German helmets turned upside down, which were actually called "hel'my" instead of [Ukr. literary] "kasky".One day Vasyl'ko said that doctors should come and give children "zashchyky" [? - resembling "pinching"], i.e. injections. We sat in ambush all day to see if these ominous doctors with their mysterious tools of torture would come. Turned out to be a false alarm.
This is how we lived. Then dad and mom came, we, tanned, jumped into the car and went [back] to Maheriv. In the summer, my dad took off the [tarpaulin] car roof-cover, and it was very interesting to ride, as if in a military pickup truck. I loved watching the road disappear behind the wheels. It was also nice as it let us see Slavko and Vasyl'ko running after us and waving at us for a long time. We also waved both hands intensely until everything disappeared behind the horizon…
… One day we went on a swing seat to Uncle Oleksa, who lived nearby, across the street. Uncle Oleksa, the youngest brother of grandfather Hrynyk, was the principal of a school in Krakówets. Well educated, but very strict, he sent his children, Olya and Oles’, to a boarding school, so the swing was at our disposal. I was rocking, and Vasyl'ko also wanted to, because it was his turn. But I wanted more, and I began to sway harder just as he ran up behind me. And there was trouble: "hityavka" [sway sit] hit him hard on the head. Sounds of crying, broken head, I'm scared. Baba and Vasylko's mother hid me so that I would not fall under the hot hand of the "victim's" father and receive punishment. I heard his outraged yelling and threats, but it worked out this time as well. However, I also suffered a few years before that. Slavko pushed me off the chair where I was standing for some reason, and I was badly injured. I only remember the night we drove to the hospital. Then I lay on the operating table, a light so bright above me in the dark, and the doctors bowed over me. I don't pay attention to them and just cry with all my might. When I asked my mother about this many years later, she was very surprised that I remembered, and told the whole story. Interestingly, when I had an X-ray during the COVID disease, the doctor asked about old rib fractures. And I remembered a distant childhood…
One day we were driving from Kaminna Gora on a country road and saw a woman with two boys: they were returning to Maheriv on foot from their relatives' home. Dad stopped, and they sat down next to us. I was changed before the trip, and had already a beautiful summer dress on, a straw hat and real white knee highs. One of the boys had straw-color hair and the other was black-haired. I didn't remember anything anymore because I was watching the road disappear under the wheels. But then, years later, my husband told me about it: how my dad drove them home with his mom and brother, and how he remembered me wearing a hat. But this is a completely different story…

This is only a beginning because I have ambitious plans to write a long story of my family. This is my long-cherished dream which has not been realized yet. Special thanks to my son Yuriy Koshulap who made this wonderful translation; I did only some editing.