Why the schoolteachers wrote a letter to George Bush
There is a grade school in Chornomyn, a village in Vinnytsia oblast; its condition is as lamentable as that of countless other such schools in Ukraine, yet it is probably the only one whose teachers mustered the courage to overcome their misery. They did it in an original manner. After classroom ceilings started caving in during classes and the district public education department responded by stating that the school required major repair like no other school anywhere in Ukraine, the local schoolteachers addressed a letter to President George Bush, asking for money.
It happened several years ago. At the time, the Ukrainian American Oleksandr Verbytsky, former student of Chornomyn school, was visiting Kozlivka, a neighboring village. Asked by the teachers, he used his video camera and the teachers had a footage showing the school. They sent a parcel to President George Bush, complete with a video film and a letter reading that the school was badly in need of repair, and that the US Chief Executive should heed their request, as the school building was a smaller replica of the White House in Washington. They also appended expert findings and wrote that the US President’s aid would strengthen Ukraine’s ties with the United States.
“You have to start from scratch to accomplish something big,” says Chornomyn Grade School Principal Ruslan Brol, “so we emphasized precisely this striking resemblance in our letter [to the US President].”
There is no telling whether Mr. Bush received that letter, but school students and teachers composed a feature addressing their school’s history and legends concerning the Palace of Chornomyn. It was carefully studied by the regional authorities. From among many student stories about the schools, the one about the school of Chornomyn was selected for the 100 Wonders of Ukraine nationwide contest.
THE EIGHTH WONDER OR THE OUTCOME OF BROKEN LOVE
In the early 1800s, Sofiya Hrechanka, for whom the Polish magnate Potocki built the famous Sofiyivka Park in Uman, had a quarrel with her treasurer and lover Mykola Chornomynsky. She had learned that he was stealing money from her. He was promptly fired, but without any confiscations, so Mykola Chornomynsky had enough money to buy parcels of land in the vicinity of a settlement called Rozbiynytske [best translated Robbersville]. He wanted to civilize the neighborhood. He built a mansion for himself, destined to become the eighth wonder, but the populace tagged it as the Outcome of Broken Love.
The project was designed by Francesco Bofo, an Italian architect from Odesa. Twenty years earlier, the Irish American architect James Hoban built his White House in Washington. The two architects did not know each other, yet both structures are strikingly similar, and historians attribute the similarity of their projects to the then prevalent architectural trend. Mykola Chornomynsky had his mansion built in 1810-20.
A luxurious palace with a twenty-meter underground passage to a chapel in a princely graveyard. Depressions here and there are the only mementos of past architecture, and garages in place of the coach house. Mykola Chornomynsky was a known collector of coaches. All neighboring noblemen could only dream of taking a ride in one of his collection vehicles, and all ladies were eager to attend his parties held in what could only be described as royal style. Khivonia Yaremenko, a local old-timer, recalls her grandfather’s stories about the landlord’s banquets. As a small boy, he would run around the estate, hiding from his parents and trusted servants, stealing glances at the feasting nobility.
Once they had caught him in the act and must have given him a sound thrashing, but then a kind-hearted lady had interceded and they had let him go, giving him a ten-ruble gold coin. It was quite some money at the time and his father used it to buy his freedom, but first he had had walloped the boy but good. No one in the village will tell you what had come of the landlord and his retinue. People at the Village Council say the estate was converted into an orphanage under the Soviets, and that it has accommodated a grade school for the past 75 years.
However, the owner of the palace seems to have never left the premises. None of the Chornomyn residents doubt that the place is haunted, that the landlord’s spirit occupies the school, yet none is scared to explore the grounds, even in the middle of the night.
“Assuming that the place is haunted, that the landlord’s ghost is still there, he was a good guy and hasn’t changed since then. Probably this is why the estate survived the [Second World] War and none of the students has been killed by the ceiling caving in,” says Ruslan Brol.
Others believe, however, that the phantom is there to guard his treasure, what Mykola Chornomynsky must have stolen from Sofiya Hrechanka during her lifetime, and that the treasure is secreted somewhere on the premises. In any case, the ghost seems to agree with the spirit of true democracy prevalent at the “White House” school, matching that in Washington, DC.
THE TRUE PRESIDENT
Inna Vasilaka, student of 10-A Class, Chornomyn School, is the current President of the local White House. Students are elected to this post every year, on a competitive and truly democratic basis.
The list of presidential candidates is unlimited and every [democratic] campaign procedure is meticulously observed, along with canvassing, secret ballot, and sealed ballot boxes. Inna got the better of six contenders, among them two young fellows. The school electorate has no complaints about the elections’ fair and transparent nature. Inna’s second year of presidency serves as eloquent proof of keeping every campaign promise. The female President of Chornomyn is already working for the next campaign; no signs of impeachment so far. Impeachment has been practiced at this school; in fact, even the school principal can get a D minus from a recent poll turnout — if he fails to do his homework on his professional red-letter date. Every year, on the Schoolteacher’s Day, all of the thirty teachers on the Chornomyn school staff take their seats at school desks while their places by the blackboard are taken by boys and girls elected by the student body. The same goes for the school principal’s seat. During the academic year the students can have their rights protected by turning to the Students’ Committee and to their President on the pages of the school newspaper, the only one of its kind in that administrative district. This school also practices IQ tests and encourages school parties. The Day ’s reporter visited the school just as they were getting ready for an autumnal ball. Yellow leaves were plastered to the flaking walls of the Dance Hall (known as the Conference Hall under the Soviets). Its vault had caved in several years ago, revealing ancient frescoes with valiant medieval knights bowing in front of ladies (some of them posing in the nude). These old works of art will soon be painted over, not to protect the students from evil temptations, but because of the meager school budget. Completely restoring the palace costs at least UAH 10 million, whereas the central budget recently allocated UAH 200,000 to make repairs, the school being listed as a government-protected architectural site. This money will suffice to replace the roofing and to plug in some of the holes. Old-timers say that one of the cupolas of the hall used to portray the Deluge. Nothing will be done to remove the layers of Soviet paint to reveal the original work of art, courtesy of scarce official subsidization. This, however, does not seem to dampen the local teachers’ enthusiasm.
Remarkably, when a Polish historian exploring former estates in Ukraine visited Chornomyn and voiced his disappointment, the fact only added to the schoolteachers’ resolve. On seeing that “Outcome of Broken Love,” the Polish researcher exclaimed, “Mother of God! What has happened to this palace?” To which the residents of Chornomyn responded with a firm resolution to have its original beauty restored at any cost. And so they sent another letter, this time addressed to George Bush, Jr. The bureaucrats at the local directorate for the protection of historical monuments view the whole thing rather skeptically. Mykola Kushnir, head of the historical reconstruction and restoration department, says that the similarity between the structure in Chornomyn and the White House in Washington, DC, is no reason to receive subsidies from another country, even if to finance a restoration project:
“So we have chickens looking very much alike in different household, so what? There are some fifty architectural sites in Vinnytsia oblast, all kept in the classic and Moresque styles; it doesn’t mean that they must be restored by countries where these styles originate from, or where they have similar sites.”
Mr. Kushnir seems to have a point there. One’s own country should take better care of its history, to say the least.
