Man in black

The monument is referred to as the town’s guardian angel or talisman. A working municipal service chimneysweep served as a prototype and model for the monument erected in downtown Mukachevo. He is honorably called Berti-bachi or Uncle Berti. The 61-year old Bertalon Tovt now jokes that a Hollywood star would find it easier to make his way through the city’s center than he would. When going to work on his old-fashioned bike, everyone he meets wants to touch his buttons, firmly sewn by his wife, and make wishes. Some even chase the old man across the roofs.

The work parish of Tovt counts 380 houses. He checks up on ventilation systems and chimneys in a hundred multistory buildings once a quarter. He also visits private houses due to municipal service orders. He cleans soot, smut or cobweb. To do everything thoroughly, he takes an assistant with him. The old man works “up in heaven” while his assistant listens to the sound of a weight in the kitchen. They determine the extent of soiling by it. After the examination Bertalon descends to the apartment, removes grates and bolts, and penetrates secluded corners. The draught becomes as in the nozzle of a space craft. Though there is no wind outside, a drone appears in the brick chimney.

The master works between the Earth and the sky. He received all the tools from his late father-in-law, who taught Bertalon the profession. And he inherited it from previous generations. Uncle Berti himself tried to involve his son in the work, but he wasn’t interested in the profession. Currently Tovt gets 1,300 hryvnias of pension and in addition to them 600 hryvnias for chimneysweep work. While free from work, he supplements his income by cleaning heating systems in private houses.

Earlier Mukachevo citizens mostly heated their dwellings with coal and wood. In the past appropriate services ensured that all buildings had good inputs-outputs in ventilation systems, funnels, and chimneys. And now it’s often difficult to reach them. Sometimes he looks for a lock key for hours. Or there are no ladders. In the past he never tied his bicycle with a chain. He started doing it when the third one was stolen, though they were all about half a century old. He never complains about his life or fate. If someone criticizes his job, he just smiles.

During the 37th year of his work Bertalon appeared as a monument downtown. It is just being set up. Two municipal workers are carefully washing the hands, head, and nose. Rudolf Lautner, the head of the amateur people’s circus, is the chimneysweeper’s neighbor from Hvardiiska Street. He captiously compares the original and the copy and says: “This is him, Berti, his stature, his all-seeing eyes and uplifted nose, as if on military duty. When he is called, he doesn’t see anything under his feet, he can even fall into an open manhole because he looks at roofs and evaluates smoke from chimneys, in some places it goes up in a straight column, and in some it slightly eddies – so a ‘surgery’ is needed.”

It took three weeks to make the 240-kilogram bronze sculpture in Kyiv. At the plant they said that the sculptor was quite easy to make, as it had been designed by an talented artist, one with whom they had worked before. The 82-year old resident of Mukachevo, people’s artist Ivan Brovdi stresses that he tried to create a generic image: “I just made it, as they say, based on memory. But it’s very good that Bertalon came out as a result. He is a well-known character. He didn’t visit my workshop, I didn’t make a mould of him. I see the chimneysweep all the time during his ‘patrols.’”

Tovt feels some relief. People are now harassing the buttons on the monument. They already glitter. He assesses his twin positively. The only thing would be to add a bike, for he never goes on foot. And the cat near his feet looks as if it were tamed. There, on the roof, they are wild and angry, thinking that he came to seize their skies. Suddenly a boy breaks the spell. He holds a dove in his hands. He says: “Uncle, my dove knows you, saw on the roof, you should remember it rather than the cat. They are not kind to doves.”

Bertalon has recently been troubled by high pressure. Someone jokingly suggested sitting on the bench near his “namesake,” entertaining tourists, and thus making a living. He took it seriously, therefore he said resolutely: “No, no, I like working. I don’t like a sedentary lifestyle. I do my job and do it well.”

At present in Mukachevo there are four chimneysweeps: three classical and one metal. The city’s authorities decided to go a bit further to keep this ancient profession alive.