Year 2008

Polina

… “On the 8th of August at the entrance to Tskhinvali were killed … Together with them … of the Tbilisi newspaper … were also wounded and were in the hands of Ossetian armed groups”…

I ran into the kitchen to ask my grandmother for water. The reporter was already talking about a panda born in a zoo, leaving bloody messages behind the scenes. I, twelve years old, didn’t care about anything except books and summer, which was about to slip out of my hands, forcing me to go to school again. August continues.

… “President Viktor Yushchenko said, … to support Georgian independence and territorial integrity”…

The news on TV doesn’t stop. I read books, play with dolls. The only thing I know about Yushchenko is that during the elections there were plenty of oranges like ripe oranges before the new year, and someone paved a good road to our village because the anniversary of the Battle of Konotop was celebrated – now it was easier to go to grandparents.

“Georgia is our friend. Georgians are our friends”: a man with a face disfigured by poison speaks from the TV screen. I know this too because the poisoning of the President coincided with the birth of my younger brother.

“Russians expressed concern about “Kyiv’s one-sided and biased position on Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia”

I am a Ukrainian, I know it clearly because we wore vyshyvanka because “Ukraine” was written on the front of the diary. But at the same time russian was firmly integrated into life: in the language of television, songs, books.

What language do I speak? What language did my ancestors speak? What language did the ancestors of the boy who was shown on the news with his mother speak?

 /////

Giorgi

I don’t remember much

I was only ten years old

Seven or eight

Eight or seven

Nights or days

They are all together

In my memory

But now, I know

I have to say

The war began on the 7th of August

With the Russian invasion

And I can say it in English

What a relieve

I don’t remember much

But the faces of my parents

Silent, quiet, parenty

Already surrendered to destiny

Wrinkled foreheads

knowing that people will die

Face saying: “not again’’

Mouth saying: “we need cigarettes and Vodka’’

I don’t remember much

But the neighbor down the street

Living in a half-ruined house.

“if you enter his yard he will kidnap you’’

Said a boy, a local, older than me.

We were spending our summer holidays there

Near Tbilisi, it was only my second time there

So I believed.

But the boy said another thing

On the 8th of the august

That some people came and took that man

Because he was the only one

Who could use a massive gun.

And there was a hope

A childish hope

The hope of the child

Who believed in superheroes

Who was playing with his hands

The right hand was good

And the left was bad

And all the fights between these two hands

Had the obvious end

I don’t remember much

But the TV show after the war

Way after.

I was fourteen years old.

The Journalist was asking a doctor

A plastic surgeon, 

What is popular in Georgia

Bigger butts or bigger boobs

I remember the whole thing

In detail, in images,

I was sitting and I was listening

When the journalist asked

Restoration of virginity

Is it popular in Georgia?

No

Said the doctor

Not now

But after the war

Raped women…

You know?!

I don’t remember much

But the raped women in my head

The screams that are silent

cause we did not hear them

The evidence of war

The guilt of existence

 /////

Year 2022

Polina

February was February. “PUTIN BEGINS WAR” screamed the headlines. Explosions were heard somewhere far away. Only now you realize that the war, which has been going on for 8 years, knocked on your door. And you lose all confidence and calmness. Because no one can tell you because no one knows how to go through it.

Night in the subway. Somewhere, the dog whines, on the other side – a baby. And you freeze from cold to the bone. Cold from the fact that it is February. Cold from the metal railing. Cold from the marble floor. Cold from the thought that you might not wake up in the morning, or wake up in russia.

///

Kyiv meets with air alerts. Anxiety becomes a constant partner, it seems impossible to imagine yourself without it. Every knock, every thunder during a thunderstorm, makes you cringe and look for shelter.

Cold tiles of the bathroom catch every cold tear. You hear neighbors running water, arguing, having sex – as if there is no war around. And at this time, bombs destroy entire houses, leaving them like burnt teeth of a blossoming city. And white flowers of apricot trees in Zaporizhzhia are covered with dust and drops of blood.

Now the war is visible. Now, looking back, remembering myself as a twelve-year-old, I understand how it feels when your country is being torn apart by the claws of a two-headed eagle.

And when I look at the news now, where a little boy holds his mother’s hand somewhere on the Polish border, I remember the picture on the TV screen, where another boy holds his mother’s hand, running away from another war.

////

Giorgi

***

would they ever love again

women, there

those women

who survived

but keep dying over and over again

A six-year-old child in Mariupol

I heard,

when you are in pain

You have to erase every feeling from your mind… just not to go crazy.

I wish they would have taught you math in advance.

Multiplication,

subtraction,

counting the numbers and such.

A six-year-old child in Mariupol

Her hair is gray now,

now and forever

like a circle of satellites for the earth, as Saturn has,

the largest among the white arcs,

A mark of a crime scene on asphalt.

////

Polina

one

this is Mykola

A red stain on his uniform,

his hands frozen, clutching the machine gun.

and his black eyes only reflect the stars.

His wife and daughter are not waiting for him at home.

they took an evacuation train to Poland,

because he stayed on the border with russia.

– he was shot in the first hour of the invasion.

two

this is Olena.

she was raped in her own bed,

tied with a belt from a summer dress

by eleven devils wearing green uniforms.

penetrated her, turned her inside out,

soiling the sheets with their sperm, their blood,

leaving bruises, leaving burns.

because they wanted to.

three

This is Mykhailo.

They taped his eyes, tied his hands,

beat him with rifle butts, broke his ribs.

raped his wife in the next bed,

searched the cupboards for a blender, women’s panties;

took out the fridge and the TV,

eat cherry pie in the kitchen

while his son hid in the closet with clothes.

In the end, they threw him in the basement, with the same doomed people.

and shot in the back of the head.

Everyone remembers the first.

Their names are etched forever,

written on the tablets of the people’s anger.

And how many dozens and hundreds and thousands more

whose names we will never know.

How many women raped,

how many murdered.

Every other name is just a number,

in black and white.

“it is estimated that over 150 children have been killed in Ukraine” –

they will never grow up.

all that remains is being a faceless memory.

and these hundreds and thousands

Lyubok, Olen, Mykol and Myhailiv

rushing through the gallery,

leaving a burning mark on hearts and retinas,

etched in the memory.

Behind each of them is a story,

that we will never hear again.

////

Polina

I read a story on Twitter that Georgian soldiers kept grape plants in their pockets so that if they died and their bodies were not found, grapes would grow from them. “Every time I look at the vineyards in Georgia, I think that it is one of my friends. It’s sad, but it gives me hope” – the user writes.

And I remember a brave woman in Henichesk at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, who shouted in the face of a Russian soldier to put sunflower seeds in his pockets so that WHEN he died, at least flowers would grow.

////

Giorgi

A memory of the August 2008 war

Vine branches stacked in a row

with riped bunches of grapes

standing and waiting for death.

***

Blue doves are cooing at the window,

I look… I see… deep bulges in their

chests

Where only consonants are mumbling.

A dried piece of bread is sitting behind

me,

And

I am waiting.