Witches of Bucha

The presentation

And then, the big deal of the day: delivery of a 4WD pickup to The. Witches. Of. Bucha. Am I enchanted??

The bane of Russian drones

The custom patch of the Witches of Bucha.

I’m not in danger. I AM THE DANGER.

A group of beautiful young women who have lost boyfriends, brothers and much, much more to the Russians when they occupied Bucha early in the full scale invasion. Now, they fight, at night, racing through the streets to chase and shoot down drones.

The Danish ambassador with Witches flags

Kalypso (Lead Witch), the Danish Ambassador, and another Witch

The ceremony included the Ambassador of Denmark, with a letter of commendation from the King, the colonel of the brigade and one of the units of 30 women. Silly me was trying to sneak photos of the women working, not realizing they were mustering up just for us! After potato soup and buckwheat in their modest kitchen,

She might join

speeches were made and photo ops taken. Two of the leaders demonstrated how the flak jackets they wear are fitted for men, they were asking for women’s fit jackets. They cost about $1000 each. I saved a photo of the vest they showed me online. Other than the Mayor of Bucha, and the translator, I was the only non-military woman there. I was star struck. Kalypso is the leader of the unit we met, and Jesper shared a YouTube of an interview with her in our group chat.

Every woman is responsible for their own uniform. Kalypso still wears a men’s flak jacket.


Next, we did some sight seeing around Bucha. As we drove around Bucha and imagined the the occupation, we saw walls strafed with bullet holes all along the road. We visited a sad memorial where nine men were lined up and shot, executed. One survived and played dead until he could crawl to the next house. Russians found him as he was recovering in the vacant house and they brought him to their recovery unit. He survived to tell the story. During the occupation, Russians killed 500 residents. That’s why the Witches of Bucha have to do what they’re doing.

End of the line for the Russian tank parade, not far from Kyiv.

Destroyed tanks.

Maybe someday, this will all be art.


The wall against which eight men were executed.

Driving to Ukraine

6

We love how one thing leads to another in our life.
Similar to a simple email that arrived in our inbox twenty four years ago, inviting us to crew on a catamaran for four months in the South Pacific, this was a direct message from a new friend telling us the Danish group Biler til Ukraine (Cars for Ukraine) needed drivers for vehicles being donated to Ukraine. Could we make it to Denmark next week? And as with our answer 24 years ago, it only took five minutes to decide. Yes, we were going to leave Ukraine by train and taxi, fly to Denmark, and drive in a caravan of ten vehicles back to Kyiv. Why not?
Here’s how it all went down.
Making new friends through volunteering is relatively easy in Ukraine. Kelly had just driven down to Kyiv with Biler til Ukraine, and we met her while she was visiting Mikael, of DIY-Ukraine, while we were all working on the planters and benches for Kontraktova Square. We kept in touch through Facebook and the invitation came a week later. With lots of help from a volunteer who specializes in travel arrangements for drivers, we made the multi-modal trip up to Denmark. Beautiful Denmark.

Danish countryside

My jaws hurt from smiling so much, looking at all the forms of bicycle transport, flower boxes everywhere, and smooth, efficient design. With a couple of spare days, we caught up with Kelly in Copenhagen, had an online planning meeting and relaxed a bit.

Food!


We took a bus and a ferry to Århus, and the next day, a tram to pick up our vehicle. A Hyundai H1 6 speed diesel with just over 300,000 kilometers on the odometer, whose previous life was in service to a mason. It was still on the lift for an overdue brake job, so we waited an extra two hours for the mechanic, Hassan, to finish.

Still on the lift!


The brakes still chuddered, the rear left blinker didn’t work; I smoked the clutch, stalled in a roundabout, and then we were off!
To the Rema warehouse for donated medical supplies. Except by now, it was break time, so we waited. Then, a manager let us in and gave Jesper a quick lesson in driving a forklift.

Happy Jesper!

Loading

Each vehicle was loaded with two or three pallets of goods and by then, I had a flat tire. We limped to a fuel station and Jesper to the rescue, discovered our trouble was a faulty compressor. At the next station, I learned how efficient the European air compressors are: they control air both in and out, for the target pressure!
We’re not even to the start of the trip yet, but Bob and I made our way to the hotel for the night, ate a late dinner and were in bed around 11:00.
After a light breakfast and no flat tire, we were ready to roll at 7:30 the next morning. Our smaller caravan of five cars met up with the Copenhagen contingent north of Berlin. I had been anxious about driving Germany’s autobahns, but it really wasn’t hard. Having a caravan and two way radios helped. I was also concerned about the frequency of WC breaks, but that turned out not to be a problem.

Instructions for the next leg


Our first day of driving was 1341 kilometers, and we arrived at the hotel around 23:00.

Five hours between breaks!

I learned that a late afternoon coffee was a miracle drug.
We’d had no border crossings yet, and importing vehicles to Ukraine involves a lot of paperwork. Jesper handled all of it beautifully and we sailed through to the gathering point, only to wait for one vehicle snagged in bureaucracy. At the fuel station/gathering point, another group from Ireland was also driving donated vehicles. It was really fun to watch the Danes and the Irish comparing notes, exchanging barbs, and finally, trading sports jerseys!
Sadly, the condition of the roads in Ukraine is comparable to some of our roads in Tucson. Yes, really. So I was fairly comfortable with the fast paced slalom through potholes of a backroad. One car took a direct hit, however so our lineup waited on the roadside as Jesper figured out what was wrong. The translation that came down to us was “the motor dropped out” so that’s what we translated to the cute old men and granny’s walking by. Three of our drivers lucked into a horse cart ride while we chatted (through Google translate) with a babushka about her beautiful milk cow. It turned out the truck’s fuel line had come off, so it was another relatively quick fix and we turned back onto the highway.
Driving in Ukraine felt more dangerous with some speeders taking crazy chances and lots of break downs sometimes blocking traffic. Maybe a war zone does that. Driving into Kyiv after dark was the most challenging part of the drive for me, but we made it to a hotel and we were in bed by 11:30. Our drive today was only 650 kilometers and technically eight hours. Glad to have made the trip in two days with no major breakdowns.
Our final day, delivery day, was really special. It started with us meeting the members of E+, whose would be taking the majority of the vehicles to the front lines in the east.

Turning over our vehicles for the next leg to the front

Claire signing the Danish flag

She added USA

We signed our names on a commemorative Danish flag and received two beautifully painted artillery shells. We won’t be able to bring them home, so I’ll keep this photo of them and have passed them back to Jesper.

Hand painted artillery shells we won’t be able to keep.

One of the reminders I learned from this is: you have to ask. If you don’t ask, you’ll never get there.

Holodomor: The Famine of 1932-1933


Holodomor
We’ve been doing as much talking as working in the garden here in Kyiv, because Ukrainians, as with many Europeans are bilingual, at minimum. And they love to chat. So we visit with all sorts of people, some eager to keep their history alive by telling their stories.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know about the famine of 1932-1933, known here as the Holodomor. Holodomor was a preplanned siege by the Soviet Union to repress efforts by Ukrainian farmers to remain independent from the USSR.

A woman told me this story in the garden. I had to go look it up. What I found on the website of the Holodomor Museum filled in more details.

The history of the oppression of the Ukrainian people goes back to the late 1700’s, when the entire left bank of the Dniper River was colonized by the Muscovites as Little Russia. Ukrainian language and culture was suppressed or banned and Ukraine was Russified.

The Ukrainian People’s Republic was established in 1918. By 1922, Ukraine was incorporated into the USSR, with the agreement that all republics were equal.

The spirit of independence however, remained strong in Ukraine and became problematic for the communists. Anyone resisting the collectivization of small farms in 1928 was targeted. Protests became frequent and the communist rulers used terror and propaganda to try to control the farmers who spoke out against the poor conditions and long hours forced on them in the collectives. According to the Holodomor Museum website, over 4000 mass demonstrations occurred protesting collectivization, taxes, robbery, terror and violence in the early 1930’s.

To subdue Ukraine, Stalin forced a famine by implementing a grain procurement plan with impossible production requirements. When farmers failed to meet production, all the grain and other food stocks were seized, creating a famine. Further crackdowns occurred through blockades of any incoming foods, including aid from the International Red Cross.

In January 1933, Stalin signed an order restricting travel of anyone from the famine ravaged area. The famine was at its peak by June 1933, when 28,000 people were dying every day.

One result of the genocide was that large farms in the east part of Ukraine became available to resettlement by Russians. So when confused people incorrectly say that Ukraine is half Russian, they may not be aware of the full history.

Russian propaganda has continued to assert that the famine was non-existent, and the use of “hunger” as the cause of death of death records was banned. How many died in the famine of 1932-1933 will never be known, but it is estimated in the millions; all while the Soviet regime sat on stockpiles of grain.

So, the reason I never heard of this before is that the Russian propaganda machine was as strong as the Nazi propaganda machine. But the Ukrainians still have their history, their family members who died, and they will continue to tell their story.

The Holodomor Museum offers a media literacy class to high school age students in order to learn how to identify propaganda.

In this war, the Ukrainians will never break. They will not acquiesce. Putin wants territory. Ukrainians are fighting for their lives. You may recall that just before the full scale invasion, Russian soldiers were told they were going into Ukraine to rescue them from a Nazi takeover. They found out that wasn’t true and they’d been lied to. Many lost their lives over a lie.

When you hear people try to justify this invasion of a sovereign nation by suggesting the left bank and eastward is culturally Russian, you can correctly remind them that the Ukrainians living of that land were exterminated and replaced by Russians.


Additional details for this history are from Ukraïner.net.

Delivery Bob

Bob delivering wood, tools and screws. Another work day. He was rewarded with a big hug by a passing Ukrainian woman. They love that we care to come. We reap the rewards.
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