'Russians exiled my father to Kolyma, and now my grandchildren are fighting them': the story of a 91-year-old volunteer

"Son of an enemy of the people"

Serhiy lives in the town of Yampil, Vinnytsia Oblast. The border with the unrecognized "Transnistria" is 200 meters away.

Moldovan forests can be seen in the distance. In Serhiy's yard, there is a four-meter-long net. He boasts that he is now finishing weaving it. Serhiy says he has woven 62 such nets in a year.

Serhiy invites me to his room and immediately goes to make St. John's wort tea. There are several bags of cut fabric on the doorstep.

Serhiy has carefully prepared for my arrival: he has put on a ceremonial shirt with his volunteer and labor awards, and shined his shoes. There are baked pies and fruit on the table, and in the corner there are more than a dozen cans of preserved food he prepared for the military. Now he can get hold of everything, Serhiy says. But in his childhood, one could only dream of such a variety of food.

"I was born in 1932 in Yampil. It was a miracle that my family survived the Holodomor. I remember my grandfather sitting, cooking potatoes in a cauldron, and a dog howling nearby. I asked: ‘Grandpa, why is the dog howling?’. And I hear the answer: ‘Well, son, he wants food, so he's crying’." 

We had a hard time during the Holodomor, but miraculously, everyone in my family survived. We cooked white goosefoot and everything we could find. Then in 1937, my father was arrested and taken right from the bakery where he worked as a manager and sent to Kolyma. He was sentenced to 10 years in the camps and five years of not leaving as an enemy of the people. I was five years old at the time."

The wife of the "enemy of the people" was left with two small children. Serhiy had to work hard from an early age: herding pigs and cattle, and working as a laborer for the rich.

He recalls that a neighbor, a shoemaker, offered him to learn how to sew shoes and thus earn his bread. The guy agreed and quickly mastered the sewing business. Suddenly, the silence of the sky was broken by the sound of warplanes as the Second World War began. Serhiy was 9 years old.

"My mother dug an earth house to hide, but a shell dropped there later"

"When the Germans started to kill our people in Yampil, my mother said: ‘I'll dig a pit and we'll hide next to the plum tree. I looked at that pit and was immediately outraged. I told my mom: ‘I will not hide, because we will get beaten up here’. 

I went to the neighboring village, 8 kilometers away, to my grandmother. I told her about the pit and insisted that I had to get my mom out of there. My grandmother suggested that we sleep, and in the morning catch the horses and pick up my mother and brother. The next day we did just that. 

Meanwhile, I saw the fighting in the town actively developing. Six Germans were running from Pysarivske field, dragging a cannon, thirsty and hungry. They came across me and asked me to lead them to the water in the ravine. We started walking. One of them saw an apiary and went to it, but he was stung by bees. The other Germans were laughing at him."

Waving his hands, Serhiy recalls how a few days later he decided to visit his own house to feed the chickens. The myriad wrinkles on his face help convey a wide range of expressions.

"I come home and the door is open, everything is scattered in the house," Serhiy says, holding his head. "My grandfather built this house right after my father was taken away. And then I see that the wall collapsed, I looked in the garden and there is no plum tree, near which my mother dug an earth house. 

I approached it, and saw that a shell had hit the pit. A lot of chickens were killed then. When our partisans came, it got easier. I started working as a shoemaker in a military store. I was able to make model shoes, women's and men's boots."

My interlocutor also speaks about the postwar years with a heaviness in his voice. The second Holodomor, in 1946-1947, is etched in his memory by hard work on the collective farm.

As a teenager, Serhiy had to carry 100-kilogram sacks on his shoulders to earn a piece of bread or a bowl of soup. It's hard for me to imagine what this elderly man had to go through, who now talks so cheerfully about his youth.

"I worked with horses in a collective farm. Then all young people were taken to factory training, and after a year of studying, I was sent to work at a mine as a carpenter. And then, in 1949, my father made himself known: he wrote a letter and invited us to visit him."

A long ordeal to Magadan

Serhiy and his mother decided to travel to his father in Russia’s Magadan Oblast. To have money for the trip, they sold their house in Yampil, packed bags of dried apples, cream, onions, and sunflowers, and sent everything to Russia. They decided to pick up the luggage upon arrival.

The journey turned out to be very long. First, they went to his uncle's home in Leningrad. From there, they set out for Irkutsk.

"We were waiting for a telegram from my father. We lived at the station for 12 days. Our luggage arrived, and my mother borrowed money from the station attendant to buy it back. I went to the market and sold dried apples, plums, whatever we had. 

That's how we raised money and bought tickets to Vladivostok. My mother's friend lived there. We arrived, called her, and there was no news from my father. We didn't know what to do anymore. My mother went to the post office every day, and then finally the money came from my father. 

At that time, the only way to get to Magadan was by steamer. There were almost no tickets. My mother was put on the boat, but I was not. I thought I was going to throw off my jacket and jump into the sea, and they would pick me up. It was good that people made a fuss. My mom was crying. Meanwhile, I do a run-up. The attendant shouts: ‘Stop, you fool!’.

So they lowered the gangway, and I was put on the ship. We were traveling on deck. It was cold and hard. My mother got seasick, so they took her to her cabin."

Serhiy remembers the distant Russian taiga for its cold and Ukrainians as there were a lot of them. The settlements were scattered from each other at a great distance of 200-300 kilometers away.

Serhiy talks about his meeting with his father emotionally, wiping his tears with trembling hands.

"I turn on the barrack duty officer's radio, and I see a man come in. He has a long coat and whispers: ‘Is Maria Vozniuk here?’ I answer: ‘She has been waiting for you for a long time’. My mom heard my dad's voice, ran to him, and cried out: ‘Ilyusha, I'm so exhausted!’"

The family lived in Magadan for four years. My father did not have a house. They lived in a stable that was covered with newspapers. It was only later that they were able to build a small hut. They lived in poverty, with very little money. Serhiy recalls that once the Russians beat him and cut his face with a knife. There was nothing good to remember.

"I volunteered for the army and served in the navy in Sakhalin. I was demobilized in 1956, and my family had already returned to Yampil by then. That tyrant Stalin had died, and many Ukrainians were returning from that taiga to their homeland. I also returned to Yampil."

Serhiy has been used to doing something all his life. He worked at a construction site, then in a car fleet, repairing tires.

While he was talking, I unwittingly looked at a black-and-white photo of Serhiy when he was young. Quite a catch for any girl. Thick eyebrows, beautiful eyes. It is interesting that he did not look for a love in Russia, apparently he felt that his destiny was in his native Ukraine. In 1956, he married Olena from Yampil and raised two daughters with her.

"There is nothing worse than a Russian"

I look around the room: certificates and letters of thanks are hung in all corners. He says there are already too many to count for all nine years of volunteering.

"When the full-scale invasion began on February 24, I went with others to the house of culture and started weaving nets. What was there to do? Later I took this work home. 

We were preparing for an offensive from Transnistria, but fortunately, it was calm. The guys from the territorial defense were on duty around the clock. And I brought them canned food. 

Every year I send about 100 cans of compotes and sour cucumbers or tomatoes to our soldiers. I know how hard it is for them there. Just in case, I made a supply of pasta. I bought 120 packs of pot noodle. I have loved pasta since my youth. Might as well have some," Serhy smiles.

He adds: "Times are hard, and I don't want to go hungry in my old age. I'll tell you this: there is no worse person than a Russian, they will raise their hand against their own mother and wife. So, as long as I have the strength and my health permits, I will volunteer and do everything I can to help us win."

Today, two of Serhiy's grandsons are in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, defending their homeland’s borders near Transnistria. One of the grandsons is a soldier who took part in the war in Donbas, and the other one joined the military after the full-scale invasion. In their family, everyone is proud of each other, because everyone shows love for their country through their actions every day.

This article is part of the Children of War special project, in which we tell the stories of Ukrainians who witnessed the Second World War or its aftermath as children and are now experiencing another tragedy in their old age.

This piece was created as part of a project funded by the German Federal Foreign Office to support Ukrainian independent journalism.

Author: Lesia Rodina