On Tuesday I finally met my friend Savita (I previously posted about her here). This was the special kind of Ukraine 2020s meeting where one of you just smiles serenely because she’s a photograph standing in for the body buried below, and the other one sits on a nearby pallet, has a cry and swears to continue to work, in her own way, for the victory.
Lukyanivske cemetery in Kyiv is almost full, mostly of older graves, but along one side there is a clean and clear strip, brightly shining with flags and tributes. This is the ‘Avenue of Glory’ for especially honoured heroes of the current war.
At one end is a wall with plaques, including plenty of room for people dying right now as I type/you read this. Then a long path with graves on either side, mostly of Ukrainians but also a few foreigners.
Savita Wagner – callsign Snake – was a German who came to Ukraine not long after the full-scale invasion, initially as a volunteer driver doing humanitarian work. By the end of 2022, she had become a combat medic working on the front lines. According to a comrade1, ‘Snake was just crazy and fearless, she pulled guys out of such hellish situations that it's hard to imagine.’
I only knew her online, as she was seldom away from her unit, but she was hugely supportive of my efforts to embed myself in the volunteering world here. Unbeknownst to many, she also blogged about her experiences, in an unconnected forum, and in my opinion hers is the best writing about the war any foreigner has produced. You’ll get the chance to decide for yourself, as her husband, Karl, is collecting and shaping it for a book; I’ll be doing some editorial work on it.
(I’ve also just received my first two acceptances from professional magazines for the poetry I’ve been writing about my experiences in Ukraine and finally sent out to editors a few months ago. With Karl’s blessing, I’ll write about Savita when the time is right.)
For all the bright loneliness of the cemetery on a sweltering June morning, it turned out I wasn’t the only one visiting Savita. I passed two women slowly wandering down the path looking at all the graves. When they saw where I stopped, they came over, and asked if I was a friend of Diana (her middle name which she used for opsec reasons, as Savita is an unusual name in Germany). Lyudmila and Natalya told me she’s well known in Ukraine now now - ‘everyone’s read about her’ - and asked why she was buried here, not in Germany. I explained that her family thought she would want to be here, as she was so committed to Ukraine and her comrades. Karl and her mother intend to visit the grave yearly, on her birthday.
Lyudmila and Natalya explained that they have been volunteering with the families of the deceased for ten years, and Lyudmila has relatives buried at Lukyanivske. ‘Today we decided to come here because we saw that one man Natalya knew had no plants on his grave, which is no good,’ said Lyudmila. ‘So we came for him and for Diana because I know she has no relatives here… My heart calls me to do it.’
Yes, some fighters here do say ‘comrade’ in all seriousness; there just isn’t another word that conveys the intensity of the relationship.
Dear Ana, I prepare a radio programme about Savita, and especially about her war diary. It will be broadcasted on Deutschlandfunk, 21.1.2025, 19.15 Uhr. I cooperated with Karl. Interesting that you do some work for the book, the Ukrainian edition I think. - Thank you for your moving articles about Savita, and for your work for Ukraine - and us!
What an intense face. The eyes shine with determination. I count on reading her blog and your poetry at some point: let us all know when and where.