The Idler‘s Julia Lasica visits her family in Ukraine and finds love, beauty, hope and resilience among the devastation

When I was growing up, listening to my family’s stories from WWII, I always wondered what life would really be like during war. Would the world outside go grey? Would shops and schools close? Would people still take care of their gardens, or listen to music out loud?

These were childish questions, and I never imagined I would find out the answers. But as spring turned to summer in May-June 2023, I crossed over that dreaded boundary between peace and war. I had decided to finally return to Ukraine to visit my friends and family for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

My first stop was to a small village in western Ukraine. Deep in the countryside, it has become a temporary home for my aunt Olesya and little cousin Pava, after they fled advancing Russian troops in Kyiv’s suburbs last year. As soon as I arrived, I was treated to birch juice in the kitchen, collected from the trees in the fields around them. It was gathered a few weeks earlier by my uncle Taras, a journalist, who lives with them when not travelling around Ukraine with foreign news teams like BBC Panorama. Every year, when spring is just beginning, he drills little holes into birches in the woods and funnels the sap that flows out into bottles. The forests he usually visits outside Kyiv were mined by Russians during their occupation.

Pava, who’s three years old, took me by the hand and led me out on a walk. We went to the lake next to the house, where Pava plays with the other children her age and older. One thing I was struck by were the single-parent families. Most of the fathers and husbands are away: either working in the cities, or fighting. Or, in some cases, dead.

We wandered along the edge of the water and Pava showed me a fisherman’s hut, next to which a family were having their evening meal at a picnic table. The sun was setting and the hilly green landscape was flooded with its warm yellow beams. The nearby churchyard was covered with the cloud-like seeds of dandelions, and Pava picked me a small bouquet of flowers.

Early the next morning, I set off for Kyiv, catching a bus that carried me from countryside roads to the motorways. Soldiers got on and off, and soon the storks on telegraph poles were replaced with burnt-out houses. We were nearing the outskirts of the capital and I got off at my stop: Bucha.

By some miracle, our family home in Bucha was untouched by the Russians during their infamous occupation of the Kyivan suburb in March last year. By an even greater miracle, my family lived through the ordeal without being harmed: physically, at least. So when I entered the house, for a moment, I had a distinct feeling that if heaven ever came down to earth, this would be it. The sun was so warm through the open windows, the garden in full bloom, and my family seemingly so relaxed. I sat down at the familiar kitchen table, giddy with the joy of reunion.

Outside though, the signs of war were everywhere. Although much foreign investment has patched up most destroyed buildings in Bucha centre, shrapnel scars are still scattered across fences. In the park, I noticed bullet holes in the tree trunks. When I went for coffee, I saw the café next door had been blown up from the inside.

The same mixture of war and ordinary life greeted me when I visited my grandfather who lives in another suburban town, Vorzel, that was also occupied by the Russians. We sat at a table underneath a tree in the garden, eating supper and drinking beer, home-brewed by another uncle of mine, Lyubomyr. Someone commented that it was lucky the air raid siren hadn’t gone off yet.

Before dessert, I was shown around the cellar, which has been converted into a bomb shelter. There were freshly made beds, a radio, a camping stove, plentiful supplies of waters and conserves, and of course, more of the home-brewed beer. They hadn’t used the shelter yet but were keeping it ready “just in case things get really bad”.

Later in the week, my grandfather took me for a walk around Vorzel. Leading me along the leafy alleys of the quiet town, he took me to see the wonder of the town: a tulip tree that flowers for a few short days a year. On our way back, we passed a woman, sitting outside in the shade. She said hello as we caught her eye and my grandfather quietly explained that she always sits outside like this, every day, all year, just watching the world go by.

In February last year, she was also sitting outside when the Russians moved in. She stayed where she was and they didn’t bother her – what is an old woman capable of anyway? But the whole time, she was secretly passing on details of their movements and equipment to the Ukrainian army.

“Don’t you work for a magazine that praises idlers?” my grandfather asked, with a smile.

A few days later, I was in central Kyiv, spending my last evening in Ukraine at a concert of baroque music. It had been a long day of visiting exhibitions, shopping, and catching up with friends, so I was grateful for the glass of chilled white wine I was handed as I wandered towards my seat. The concert was being held in an artist’s studio; outside the big open windows, white chestnut flowers drifted across sculptures in the courtyard.

Before the performance, the countertenor explained that all the ticket sales were being given to the Ukrainian Army. Specifically, they were going towards buying his childhood friend’s battalion a new car – the last one was destroyed by Russian fire. Introductions over, the music of Monteverdi, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Salamone Rossi and others filled the studio.

At the end of the concert, everyone began to applaud, and I realised I was covered in goosebumps. Looking around, I could see tears brimming in other people’s eyes. “The Russians want to come here, to make us their slaves, to destroy our lives!” one woman shouted spontaneously. “But we won’t let them – we’re fighting for our dignity!”

Someone thrust sheet music into the hands of the musicians for them to sing as an encore. It was a song from the Ukrainian Baroque. As I listened, I understood it was about a young man parting from his lover because he had been called to fight.

Later when I was on the overnight train bound for Poland, I woke up abruptly several times from nightmares in which missiles were hitting our carriage hard.

On my phone, I read that there had been another huge attack on Kyiv. Outside though, the countryside that rushed past was a calm, beautiful dark blue. I saw rivers pass and trees bent over them, their large white flowers smudged into the darkness of the night. I so desperately wanted to hold onto all of it, the whole country, the hills and the sea, the cities and the people, and not let go. To blanket it, somehow.

We left Ukraine in the early hours of the morning. It was still dark outside and cold. A text lit up my phone, “Are you escaping from Russia’s war? Take comfort – Poland can guarantee your safety.”

If you’d like to support Ukraine, please click here to donate to Come Back Alive, one of the most trusted volunteer-run charities in the country. To read more of Julia’s writing on Ukraine, please click here. 

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