21. August
I grew up on 23 August Street – a date that few outside of Kharkiv say. On this day the Nazis were finally driven out of the city. Nowadays, one should definitely also mention the year, namely 1943, so that it is clear: It is about the Second World War, about the German Nazis and not about the Russian ones.
My father was a passionate photographer. He developed and printed his films at home, in the bathroom of our three-room apartment on Strasse des 23. August, house 43, where we all lived together for a while: my parents, grandparents and I. He photographed us often and a lot. When childhood memories fade, his pictures are always there, in several photo albums and now also in Google Drive, scanned and sorted by year. We all look a lot younger and happier on it.
In the last few months, one of these photos has stuck in my mind. Then we walk hand in hand with my grandfather down our street, you can see our house on the right: a 14-story prefabricated building, built in the early 1970s. The sun is shining, we are both in a good mood and smiling, a red flag is waving in my right hand, grandpa is holding a cigarette in his left. We are both formally dressed, for my age – I am no more than four in this picture – I look extraordinarily clean. We’ll probably go to the demo, otherwise I can’t explain this little flag.
I probably know this street better than any other, and I know behind us should be the monument to the Soldier Liberator; it has always been there as long as i can remember… but this photo is proof that i am wrong. It wasn’t actually built until 1981, when I was six. Behind the soldier (yes, we Kharkiv people just call the monument “the soldier”) two huge cannons were set up. The local boys loved them and came back every day hoping to find the button or lever to fire them. But we searched in vain.
In 2016 I was back in my hometown and had an appointment on August 23 of all days by the guns behind the soldier. I noticed a new detail: the soldier was now holding a yellow and blue flag in his right hand next to the machine gun. I came to Kharkiv to rehearse with Serhij Zhadan and then go on a mini tour.
But first we wanted to celebrate, because August 23rd had now been set as the date for the town festival. It was also Serhiy’s birthday and he presented his new book of poems at the opera that evening. It was packed, as is always the case with Serhiy’s readings in Ukraine, and the birthday party at his house went on forever. At some point I left to sleep at least three hours, because the next morning we were supposed to leave at six in order to arrive in Mariupol on time, where our opening concert was to take place.
Since February 24, my street has been in the news again and again – not only in the Ukrainian, but also in the international media. Sometimes I can even spot our house in the photos. But it is not in the focus of the photographer: sometimes you see a newspaper kiosk with broken windows and a crater next door, sometimes the corpse of a random passer-by in front of the market entrance opposite the soldier, killed in a Russian rocket attack.
Kharkiv continues to be bombarded daily with Russian rockets. During this week, when Liberation Day and Ukrainian Independence Day are celebrated, there are often warnings of possible provocations, but also of heavy shelling.
