Living under the fire: everyday life of a family farm from Kherson region on the front line
"My husband is deafened, the hay is burning, I'm screaming, I can't get through to anyone. Thank God the goats are all alive - the Lord is protecting us. Now, we don't know what to do, we feel like giving up. My husband is injured, we have no strength to clean up, there is no one to help us rebuild. What if it will be attacked again?" Olena Bielozorenko gestures emotionally, pointing to the place where a Russian shell landed in her own yard.
She lives in Stanislav, 50 kilometers from Kherson. It is a large old village with breathtaking cliffs or, as they are called here, rocks that hang like abysses over the Dnipro-Bug estuary, cutting through like a sharp wedge.
It is a perfect place for green tourism, creating craft food, and simply for spending time alone with nature. That's what Olena and Valentyn Bielozorenko thought when they moved from Kherson to Stanislav 10 years ago. They had never farmed before, but this atmosphere inspired the family to get goats. Over time, Olena mastered various cheese-making techniques. Regular customers and the first tourists started arriving.
"We welcomed guests, and organized degustations of 20 types of cheese: Adyghean, Khalumi, Cachotte, Belper Knolle... I was talking about each one: how it was made, where it came from, what it tasted like. And then, guests would go to the goats to take pictures and cuddle them. My husband would tell everything about them, he loves them very much," Olena recalls the happy time before the full-scale war.
Soon, the hobby grew into a small family business with regular tours, cheese and local wine tastings, photo shoots, and "goat therapy," as the owner says. The tourist farm was named "Lyman Goat." Everything changed on February 24, 2022.
"They came, took everything, and ate it."
"The first time we walked down the street, I remember it was a Sunday, and APCs were driving. They jumped out, 12-15 people at a time, and headed to the houses. They came with assault rifles and broke down the doors. I was on my knees, praying that they would not come in. Luckily, they missed us," Olena recalls the first time she saw Russian soldiers. We enter a rectangular gazebo made of reed where guests used to gather. I was also once lucky enough to visit this place.
Of course, during the occupation, tourism no longer thrived. However, the family decided not to leave the large farm of several dozen animals. In fact, this was the main reason why the Bielozorenkos stayed in Stanislav.
An old road to Mykolaiv runs through the village, which the Russian military used to reach the southern outskirts of another regional center in south Ukraine immediately after the capture of Kherson. The occupiers faced strong resistance in the neighboring Oleksandrivka. Heavy fighting continued here, damaging or destroying more than 90% of buildings. The soldiers of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade named after the Knights of the First Winter Campaign defended this section of the front for a long time.
No wonder Olena and Valentyn were worried about their goats. The woman says that in the village of Muzykivka, 10 kilometers from Kherson, the occupiers killed the entire animal farm of a local farmer.
"They came, took everything away and ate it." Olena says while a shadow of sadness falls on her face. Recently, they gave this farmer a couple of goats for breeding. They did the same action for the locals: they offered to take the animals for free. One family responded.
"We lived here, grazing goats, and they were standing there, across the garden," Olena recalls. The Russians did not reach their yard. However, the family soon felt the consequences of the invasion. A cluster shell landed in the yard where the goats were walking, one of the fragments of which killed a goat, while others damaged the fence and the room where the horned cattle spend the winter. The light gray frame of the killer metal still gleams in the yard, stuck with its sharp end in the ground.
"If I know that the goats are dying, I won't be able to live"
Today, Olena and Valentyn have a guest from Kyiv: their daughter has arrived. Vlada Bielozorenko is a well-known theater director, the founder of the 11 Theater Studio, and a popularizer of Ukrainian art.
Vlada tells us how worried she was about her parents when she learned that the Russians occupied Stanislav, how hard it was to accept that her closest people were on the front line, and how they decided to stay at home.
"I was hysterical. I was crying, asking them to leave. But then everything settled down inside. I realized that they are adults who make their own decisions about where to be. Once, my mom said, "If we leave, and I know that the goats are dying here, right now, from hunger, or they are being killed, I won't be able to live." I understood her and thought: this is what humanity is. Then it transformed into a great respect for them," the daughter recalls her experiences, looking at her mother with love.
The authorities decided to help Olena somehow survive in those conditions. They created a group on Telegram, where regular buyers of goat products, friends, and volunteers gathered to keep in touch and visit each other, passing through dozens of Russian checkpoints. This support kept the farm afloat.
"Everything was happening under fire: animals gave birth, we milked cows and made cheese. We distributed a lot of food to people in need. We imagined that when the war started, there would be no money but an exchange," Olena reflects, "We still have three neighbors here. They have chickens, we have milk. I remember making brynza for Easter. There was no electricity, I had an electric stove but no Easter cakes. I was riding my bike, and my neighbors went out. I asked them, "Do you have any Easter cakes? I'll exchange them for brynza." One of them said, "The explosions started, and the Easter cake failed." "Well," I said, "I'll give it to you as a gift. And that's how we became friends. We hadn't talked to each other in 10 years."
Children
Today, Stanislav, along with other coastal villages and the regional center, is practically the front line. The day after we visited Olena, another shelling killed two local residents in the village. And in the neighboring Shyroka Balka, the Russians killed an entire family: parents and two children. The youngest of them, Sofia, was only 23 days old.
In early August, the Bielozorenkos' yard was bombed. Valentyn was just doing some housework with Ruslan, a local boy whom the family hired for various odd jobs.
"They were near the garage when it happened. The man was thrown back, a brick hit him right in the side, and he fell. Ruslan's spine was badly injured, and he required surgery. We will raise funds and need a good doctor," says Olena.
The destroyed goat huts that still stand smashed here remind us of that incident as if it has just happened. There is also a wide striped bandage on Valentyn's body, which is supposed to secure the ribs injured after the impact. Despite the injury and pain when walking, the owner is very friendly and invites us to see the "children" as he calls his goats.
As soon as the gate is opened, they surround the man like family. Valentyn speaks to each one, asks how they feel, and bends down to hug and pet the goats that rub against his legs.
"This is our main goat, Mask. She is very skittish. She goes to eat first, and the others follow. And God forbid you take someone for milking before her - the dinner will be terrible, it won't work. And this is Strelka - our first goat; she is nine years old. She's an ordinary goat from Stanislav, and these girls and boys are purebred," Olena gives a tour of the large fenced area overlooking the estuary where the animals walk.
There are also small goats that were born recently. They are two pitch-black jumpers who play with the adults, run around the yard, and are still afraid to approach strangers, unlike the older ones, who are tamed and used to people.
"During the occupation, I learned another type of cheese"
The sun is so hot that even the hay the cattle are about to eat seems to catch fire. They need somewhere to hide from the heat, so the hostess invites us to see how the intimate cheese-making process goes. For years, the woman has been collecting equipment and improving her skills, learning and experimenting.
Of course, now the production volumes are not the same as before the full-scale invasion. She makes little cheese; almost everything is made to order. Sometimes, there is not even any left over.
The family looks after the neighbor's house, and Olena has set up her workplace in one of the rooms. It is bright and cool. In the refrigerator, newly cooked heads of pale cream are ripening.
"We bought all this with grant funds: furniture, a vacuum cleaner, a freezer... Here, the milk is frozen, and then its density increases. The cheese yield is lower, but the texture is oily, and excess moisture and bacteria are killed. This won't work with cow's milk," Olena shares the specifics of the process, adding a starter culture to the milk container.
Then, she explains, a vegetable enzyme is added to curdle the milk.
After a while, the frozen mass is cut, heated in molds, put into warm whey, flipped, salted, dried, and left to age. This is how a new batch of cheese is prepared.
"During the occupation, I learned another type of cheese - canestrato. It's a hard, tasty cheese, and I really like it," Olena says, stirring the milk with a special colander.
"It hurts a lot for Kherson, for the south"
It's lunchtime, and Valentyn invites us to have cold milk with freshly baked, fluffy rolls waiting on the table. The man is not a big fan of giving interviews, but it's hard to keep emotions inside.
"It was scary. We survived the occupation, and now we are experiencing shelling. It is painful. But it's even harder to watch people who helped the Russians make heroes of themselves. Here, we have a farmer who mowed other people's fields, gave interviews, and transported grain to Crimea. I rescued dogs, fed them, and they slaughtered cows. Now, he tells stories like he was a guerrilla fighter," the man says with bitterness in his voice, sitting down on a chair near the table.
"I feel so much pain for Kherson, for the south. I never thought it would hurt so much when your city is simply being destroyed. This is the city where I was born, went to school, and lived until I was 18. It's like an open wound for me, a huge pain that I don't know what to do with yet because the shelling doesn't stop, people are dying," Vlada continues.
She also recalls the incredible joy she felt when she learned about the liberation of Kherson right bank. She says she would like to bring her students from the theater workshop to her native land. Someday, in a safe future.
"After the incident when a shell hit us, you realize that only a few centimeters separate the lives of your closest people from death. I wanted them to leave. But again, it was up to them. They have been through so much here. No one knows where it is safe. People are dying in Kyiv, too," Vlada reflects.
After the shelling, the question of moving arose again. Perhaps moving the entire household – they were even offered this option once. However, to be honest, neither Olena nor Valentyn want to leave their home yet, hoping that it will soon be calmer here.
"What else can we do? We will live and do what we love. I am very worried about the goats. And for the people. It's clear that this is story will last for a long time. There are so many mines left, and all sorts of things attack us..." Valentyn tries not to lose his cheerful mood.
After finding out that my mother used to keep a goat when I was a child and feed me milk porridge, the owner convinces me to take a bottle of their milk home: "Make yourself some oatmeal in the morning," Valentyn says, walking me to the gate. "And be sure to come back for a glass of wine and cheese."
This text is part of hromadske special project dedicated to the Independence Day of Ukraine.
Author: Ivan Antypenko