The real thing

Today we will talk about the town you won’t find on any map. However, it does exist – on pages of the novel NeprOsti (The UnUsual) by one of the best Ukrainian writers Taras Prokhasko. After all, any town is not just some geography, but also an image of human coexistence; therefore, is it so important what material it is made of — stone, wood, or writer’s fantasy?

How did the town of Yalivets appear?

“When I was writing the book, I very much liked the idea about such an artificial world, about a life strategy when you are not to be involved in a certain cultural environment, a surrounding with its burden, but simply, as in primeval times, start your own world.”

That’s what the characters of the book, the founders of Yalivets, do.

“I wanted to provide them with this opportunity. Moreover, Yalivets is very typical of precisely the Carpathian approach. Since the history of last centuries in the Carpathians is actually a history of colonization and claiming the mountains from nature, for Hutsulian psychology such things are close and understandable as a getaway, an escape from a bigger accumulation of people, and as a longing for autonomy where you can build life your own way. That is why in the Carpathians there are not many villages that are similar to those in the rest of Ukraine.

“So the mere appearance of Yalivets was very organic. I decided that they would build the town in the way Hutsulians build their dwellings in wild mountains. Then I started thinking in more practical, more economic terms, because I know very well the place where imaginary Yalivets is located. By all geographic, geodesic, and engineering characteristics, it is very suitable for such a chimerical small town to grow there. All the mountains, every forest and stream described there are real. If there is a number of mountains seen from the house porch where the characters live, they can really be seen.”

So did you grow Yalivets in a real place or assembled it from separate images?

“I’m very visual-minded. It resembled an imagined excursion or even something like strategic games in which you build a civilization. It started with a sense of some detail: a porch or balcony from which something is seen, which is very personal and much liked. Then the view’s going outside, to the town, into a wider space. There details were accumulated in the logic of dreams, when you dream about something you saw or know, and each separate fragment is real, but their uncommon space or time combination creates the so-called unreality of dreams.

“I invented Yalivets in a similar way. There are places, houses or feelings not described on paper, but I know them, really experienced them and finally put them together in one place. The need for this invention process appeared because of the keen feeling that the environment close and native to me is being constantly suppressed, and cruel changes are being introduced into it, and they are painful from the viewpoint of my personal nostalgia. I understand that partly it is the path of development and formation of urban culture, but meanwhile a lack of civilization still prevails. I lived for quite a few years in certain places to feel their painful ruination. So virtual Yalivets is a kind of escape from this aggressive traumatism.”

Do you remember the moment when the town already acquired its distinct features?

“It’s difficult to convey, but I saw it as if in a photo; moreover, I know the background, and I know what is behind the town; how mountains and valleys are located there; I can easily imagine the location of certain houses and streets. Besides, I’m fond of towns with water inside. That is why I imagined many canals, streams there, which flow from higher places to lower. This is one of the most pleasant things one can use in literature: create feelings and circumstances at your own discretion.”

What would we see, feel, or hear if we happened to be in Yalivets, say, on a spring morning?

“In spring it’s a bit uncomfortable there, because the snow does not melt away until approximately mid-April. However, I’m telling this without any exaggeration, the air is absolutely different, even compared to a bit lower towns and villages, even if they are in the heart of the Carpathians. In Yalivets winds are very changeable, and they smell different. They blow all the time. And one more characteristic feature – the sun shines extremely brightly there. The air is rarefied enough, and the light is very intensive. When the thermometer shows 20 degrees above zero, one can get seriously sunburned.

“There are no forests; it is a subalpine zone; a lot of different herbs, and when a warm season comes, they, as if in tundra, live very intensely in order to get through their cycle during this not very long summer, and in this sun they exude extremely strong fragrances. There is something like a concentrated extract in the air, as if these scents were caught in some cans. And very bright colors of flowers. They have to protect themselves from the scorching sunlight, and so they have lots of pigments: they are bright red, bright violet, and bright yellow.

“And a lot of water sounds are heard, since I located Yalivets in a hollow between mountains, so some stream constantly come down to this big valley; they merge in bigger ones, and water is constantly whirring as a background. This is not a very loud, but constantly present sound.”

What is the town’s architecture?

“These are not big two-storey villas, wooden huts, not in a genuine Carpathian style, but some resort boarding houses preserved from the time between the wars or even older. A typical house in Yalivets is a spacious two-storey building with many rooms and four sloping sides of the roof. There must be one balcony on the second floor covered by the roof, as a loggia. All this is mainly wooden. However, there are many low waist-high fences assembled of broken piece from mountain stones without cement. They serve not to protect but to mark the space along the street or limit the yard.”

Are there any special monuments?

“Yalivets is built with architectural imagination. Many projects were elaborated by amateurs. The point was in making the kind of architecture that would correspond to completely different town scenery. And the only town monument is a high bridge thrown across the cavity edges of the valley where the town is located. This bridge from a mountain to a mountain is not functional; it’s just for promenades, walking along it and being closer to the sky. Besides, there is a cinema built specially for films of one of the characters: he made cartoon films and they were demonstrated there. There are also institutions for treating with a special Yalivets’ gin.”

By the way, the very name Yalivets (Ukrainian for juniper) is the most appropriate one for this botanic mountain resort.

“In those places it is the most important and significant plant. In ecological terms it is called crooked forest, the Hutsulian or Carpathian name is zherep. And Yalivets resembles to me the names of other towns. There is a zone of subalpine crooked forest, when there is no forest and separate tall trees, but instead there are tangles of low crooked junipers and mountain pines. The word yalitsivka (juniper liqueur) originates from it because its berries are used to make this strong drink.”

Who lives there? It seems to me that citizens of Yalivets are a bit fey?

“In essence they are a bit weird, but at the same time they have style, and they managed to organize life according to their taste. So one can’t say that they are helpless and vulnerable. But yes, they have an atypical worldview. And it was one of the reasons to found a town where they could live a bit differently, not to be under the constant pressure of misunderstanding. Besides, in addition to a few permanent residents, the protagonists, there are many holiday-makers from different countries. Like many resort towns, Yalivets is designed to accept many times more guests than the number of citizens. As it happens in such cases, the main citizens are those who support the everyday life of the resort, hired workforce from the surrounding lower villages, Hutsuls.”

In other words, there is some class stratification?

“Yes, for there are people who work, and people who come to rest. After all, one can’t speak about inequality in this case; this is one of principles of social order and labor division. There are people who provide living and those who use those benefits, especially when it deals with health and vacation resorts.

“One more important quality (I like it extremely in the psychology of mountain dwellers, I experienced it very much myself when I worked as a barman, so I attributed it to all town residents) – non-humiliation of serving. If you accept guests, you shouldn’t have a complex of humiliation. I don’t speak about losing your self, but just normal, noble serving can be joyful and not onerous. There is an exact Hutsul notion hostytysia (hosting). It means that they feed and accept everyone who comes to the far mountain house, and it’s not unique to Hutsuls alone — it’s characteristic of all mountain dwellers who live in isolation. Since under such circumstances, when a lot depends on other people and neighbors, openness and hospitability are a common practice. I assume that town citizens who serve guest clients, ‘bourgeois’ from other cities — they are not humiliated. They fulfill the role of hosts. I know from my own experience it’s possible.”

However, in Yalivets there is one more, very special group of citizens. Who are NeprOsti?

“This is a category of people gifted in some qualities. Different magicians, healers, and soothsayers. There have always been a lot of this parallel, so to say, science in the Carpathian culture. Such people were considerable mediators between ordinary people and, first, natural and then supernatural forces. They played different roles, from simple treating to psychotherapy and even prophecy; they were bearers of knowledge and memory. So if there is a strange town, it means such collective wisdom can be collected there, let’s call it a universal creative team competent in all those fortune-telling specialties. On the whole, the point was that stories, plots, and tales serve as a very powerful engine and a part of each of our lives. And NeprOsti were, first of all, the bearers of these plots.”

As far as I remember, the plot of NeprOsti is tragic — they were destroyed by the Soviet government. For Yalivets, obviously, this is a major catastrophe.

“Wars, famine, poverty, and repressions were nothing new; this land generally endured a lot of violence. After all, as experience shows, the vital force got over, and people managed to settle their problems. This has been very peculiar to mountains for centuries. On the one hand, a terrible pressure and destruction, but after each fire something survived and continued. The Soviet period was also characterized by the fact that many things were changed in people’s minds.

“Therefore, destroying NeprOsti, these bearers of people’s ecology, is a serious catastrophe. A significant harm was done to the psychology of the entire people. I understand that it is connected with the general world development, and that humanity gradually abandons old foundations. But here it is most noticeable. The Soviet government, unlike all other regimes, took mentality very seriously. And burning NeprOsti was not accidental, for they needed to liquidate the bearers of ideology.”

Does Yalivets possess features similar to the towns you visited as a traveler and as a reader?

“The method of an invented town is often used in literature. One can remember Utopia island or countries to which Gulliver traveled. I was repeatedly reminded of Macondo from One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Regarding Yalivets, it is somewhat similar to a mix between towns and villages that appeared at the beginning of the 20th century throughout the Carpathians, when ordinary mountain settlements were suddenly transformed into resort zones.”

And what about the comparison with Macondo?

“I fully realize that the scope of Macondo and the scope of Yalivets are very different. Macondo is a much broader image, a reflection of the whole world, while Yalivets is a tiny stroke. But at the same time, I’m not afraid of this comparison. I don’t consider Yalivets to be a copy or plagiarism. Because, as I said before, it is a very widespread and handy device for some kind of narration in addition to the classical unity of time and space. But I understand that it’s far from the level of Macondo.”

Is the metaphor of town as a book close to you?

“Yes, I agree with it. In fact, I live this way. One of my ways of seeing the world is placing the events and impressions in space. When I walk down the city, I read what I put there before. For me spatial imagination is very important. Seeing the city, I like to remember many stories, episodes, and impressions connected with this city. And I like finding similarities and dissimilarities. There are many cities with the same walls, flora, similar squares, town halls, or cathedrals. I’m enchanted in those similarities by inner yards, stairs, and front doors. At the same time, I like finding the mood of a particular city, which is totally different, for example, in Lviv and Odesa. Doing it in small towns is especially interesting, finding the mood peculiar only to them.”

Do you agree with the statement of Oscar Wilde that art is primary and it influences the reality and not vice-versa?

“No. I understand that it resembles a snake holding its own tail, but it’s so with many other things as well: with time it’s very difficult to discern the beginning and the ending, the cause and the consequence, and the mirror and the reflection. But I still believe that the reality precedes art.”

I mean, did the reality near you change after the appearance of Yalivets?

“It’s a very broad question. I want to mention one thing, a very subjective one. After I have created Yalivets, when I come to the place where it should be located and see that it is not there, that everything is left only in imagination, and that there are no any changes, no paths, and no settlements — I feel real joy.”

Why?

“Because an ideal town depicted somewhere is one thing. And a real town can’t but harm a reserve area like this. And for me it would be a big sin if someone would want to settle there, for instance, because I described it.”

To conclude, what is Yalivets: an ideal town, a cultural reservation, or your personal utopia?

“I guess Yalivets is actually one more embodiment of my idea about the force of narration. This perfection, even if doomed to remain forever unrealized, can be very personal or unite many people; but, similarly to the past and experienced impressions, the ideal becomes history, a story, and thus a part of a human — not a material but real part of each of us in particular and all of us together.”

Do you currently visit Yalivets?

“Very rarely. Sometimes some fragment in another place resembles to me something that could be in Yalivets. But the truth is everything that was to happen there already happened. After all, it’s a bit painful to return to the places where you felt good, because you have doubts whether you’ll be able to repeat it again. Certainly, there is this inclination, but at the same time there is fear. The behavior concerning that place depends on the balance between the inclination and the fear. I’m not mature enough to return there.”

Does Yalivets have future?

“I can’t say. That’s done; I let it go. Its future depends on itself.”