Dedicated to heroes of the Heavenly Sotnia

The filming team was working with tearful eyes, as they started less than a month after the tragic events in Instytutska Street in Kyiv. The project was realized by Volyn State Broadcasting Company, which decided that heartbreaking as it would be, such films need emotional involvement on the part of their creators. They should become, the company maintains, documents of Ukrainian history, because every nation has its heroes, used as examples for all future generations. Volyn sent four wonderful young men to the Heavenly Sotnia, who had higher education and were doing sports, but could not stand aside when the fate of Ukraine was being decided in Maidan. One of them was there since the first day, another went to it a few times, and yet another was killed just a few hours after his arrival. Still, each of them wanted a prosperous Ukraine and worked for it to become this way throughout his previous life.

All four – Vasyl Moisei, Serhii Baidovsky, Eduard Hrynevych and Ivan Tarasiuk – have had a half-hour film made about them, which cannot be watched calmly. Cameramen (Valerii Fetysov, Viktor Makarevych, and Valentyn Klymovych) and authors of text (Oksana Yevpak and Olena Sobets) did an impressive work. The lads’ funeral alone can become an unforgettable page of history: just imagine that tens of thousands of people participated in Moisei’s funeral, and Lutsk had never seen such a farewell before. Moisei was buried at the Memorial Place, where a monument to Volynian heroes of the Heavenly Sotnia is to be erected, too. His grave is always covered with live and fresh flowers, and there is always someone there. The flag of Ukraine, for which he sacrificed his young life, is flying over the grave of Hrynevych in the village of Derevok, Liubeshiv raion. Tarasiuk was from the village of Zalisoche, Kivertsi raion, he lived a few houses from my in-laws and played soccer with my grandson... When a war comes so close, it is even more terrible. People want to name the school in the village of Sosnyna, Ivanychi raion, where Baidovsky studied, after him. Most importantly, though, as mothers, fathers and other relatives of the fallen lads say in the films, is whether the Ukraine for which their children sacrificed their lives will exist?