Mospanove: the class of '24
A prom in the rubble
My previous post about Mospanove was about how outsiders are helping; and we have an important role, but the people who bring villages back to life are the local residents.
Alina
Alina is a super-volunteer of the kind you often come across in Ukrainian villages. She builds chemical heaters as well as producing dried rations (nuts, fruit and biscuits) for soldiers, including reconnaissance groups who infiltrate Russian territory and rely on such rations for up to a fortnight at a time. She even produces mosquito repellent from a special oil that she purchases and adds ingredients – a product in great demand at this time of year – and dry showers, a type of soap you can use without water. Dry showers can be bought, but this is the first time Sashko has heard of someone making them in a domestic kitchen.
Alina told us - in Surzhyk, so Sashko summarised for me afterwards - that the village tries to offer as much support as possible to their neighbours who have joined the army in various capacities from reconnaissance to medical units. Thirty people from Mospanove are currently at the front line. Alina has a large following on Facebook, who actively support her in various ways, including raising funds to repair a car in just four days. That’s very quick work these days, as people have less and less money to spare.
Mospanove Prom
We happened to be present on the final day of the school year, for an event known as the prom, though it wasn’t that close to the US concept of a school dance.
From some angles, Mospanove school looks like this:
But it can also look like this:
These are Violetta and her friends, the five students graduating at the age of seventeen. The ceremony took place in one of the rooms that remains in use as a gathering place for the children of the village, though there’s no heating so it’s only useable at this time of year. Unfortunately there are holes in the walls even here, so there’s concern that the school may have to shut entirely if the building is discovered to be unsafe. But for now: village celebration!
The event was particularly poignant because due to government reforms the school is having to reduce its age range from six-to-seventeen, to six-to-fifteen. With only five students graduating this year, this kind of decision is understandable, but at the same time the villagers hope one day to be able to resume what in the UK we would call sixth-form education.
I was firmly directed to sit at the front of the audience, in the traditional place for the bemused outsider, for the ceremony, which took the form of songs and speeches, with much emphasis on hope for the future. Sashko was invited to give a speech and hand over the cake we’d brought for the graduating class.
Community leader Ekateryna oversaw the ceremony, which mostly took the form you would expect, with the teachers graduating the students on completing their schooling, and the students thanking the teachers. Starosta Ivan Oleksandrovich gave a speech; Violetta sang a song and did a dance with a younger girl. There was a bit of waltzing. The adults were presented with flowers, and certificates were handed out to all five students - to the stirring accompaniement of the theme to Dallas. I sat there with my now practised ‘I’m trying to understand what’s going on and occasionally succeeding,’ expression.
The adults all looked genuinely delighted, and indeed choked up. Because this event had more resonance than most graduation ceremonies. As well as the above it included:
Welcoming the new generation of adult Ukrainians. ‘They have had to spend their childhood in bomb shelters - but they are the future. Ukraine will win!’
The national anthem was sung.
Violetta: ‘We are the class of 2024, the year of Ukraine’s victory! Hail to our Ukraine!’
All the students gave short speeches about ‘my Ukraine’ (except one lad who forgot or mangled all five or so of his sentences so badly that Ekateryna passed over him out of kindness).
A minute’s silence was held for the war dead.
Violetta: ‘We look to the future! We look forward to the day when we can delete the air alert app from our phones!’
The event was celebration and survival; survival as celebration; celebration as survival.
Finally, after an hour or so, we emerged from the building to… of course, the inevitable sound.
This is the last of the reports from my recent trip to East Ukraine. I’m back in the UK for the summer, earning a living but also continuing with activism and hopefully posting here about once a week. I intend to return to Ukraine in the autumn.
Hope manifests all over, like a peacock shaking its luminoous tail open...