The bird found bread and shelter at an artist’s studio and wants a part in the election campaign’s publicity show
Petko did not migrate with the other storks for the winter and stayed at the studio of the local stadium artist Oleksandr Teriokhin in Netishyn. He made himself a nest on the window sill. He leaves it every morning to fly over the steep bank of the River Horyn, doing circles, then landing on the meadow for his regular hunt. He returns home toward evening.
It happened late last summer. Oleksandr Teriokhin was working on a poster when he sensed being watched. He looked through the studio door (kept open at that time of the year) and nearly dropped his pen. A stork was standing just over the threshold, very still, like a statue. The artist could not believe his eyes. He had not heard the bird, and there it was, motionless as a taxidermist’s pride. He thought it was someone’s practical joke, quietly placing a dummy in the doorway, but then the stork moved his long legs and confidently stepped into the studio, moving toward Teriokhin. Overcoming his surprise, he said, “Come in...”
A hospitable man, Teriokhin tried to figure out what to offer the buzko (vernacular for stork). The choice was limited as he often had to make do with the simplest of foods. He found a chunk of dry bread, but the bird scornfully turned away his long beak, so the artist had to go to the street market to buy fish.
Netishyn, formerly a Soviet center of the so-called peaceful atom in the form of a nuclear power plant, is a small town and the market (or any other store) was a short walk from the stadium. Teriokhin returned with a plastic bag of carp and the stork accepted the treat, first taking the fish tentatively, then with growing confidence, eating with gusto.
That was the beginning of their friendship. The freedom-loving bird became attached to the man the way a stray dog does to whoever shows it kindness and care. Teriokhin called him Petko, a diminutive for Petro, “perhaps because I remembered the old movie Chapayev and the celebrated revolutionary commander’s aide,” explains the artist.
The bird quickly learned to respond to Petko; he would accept any name so long as Teriokhin let him stay and took care of him. A week after their first meeting the artist made a nest of dry twigs on the window sill at the studio. “Petko likes it and returns every evening, the way you return to your hotel room,” he says with a touch of humor (Oleksandr Teriokhin is known in Netishyn as always friendly, never meaning any harm to a fellow human being, animal, bird, even an insect. Perhaps the stork chose him after sensing his virtues.)
After returning from Africa, storks usually build new nests atop trees, posts, or roofs, keeping close to bodies of water and to people. But they pay little attention to the neighborhood, preferring to mind their own business. People regard this philosophically, believing that storks bring good luck on their wings, and leave the birds alone, watching them build nests and families at a respectful distance. Incidentally, the storks never breed in Africa. Perhaps this means that they are our birds.
Petko somehow turned out different. He sleeps in the nest until morning, meets Teriokhin who brings fish from the market, has breakfast, and takes off. Wherever his flight takes him, the bird returns in the evening. If the studio door is locked, Petko flies over the stadium and perches on the highest stand or on the roof of the swimming pool, patiently waiting for his breadwinner. He did so in September, as though hunting for frogs, lizards, and insects was not enough. Perhaps he got lazy, accustomed to regular free meals.
Every morning, hurrying to the studio, Teriokhin calls out at a distance, as though to a dog, “Petko! Over here!” And the stork instantly responds clicking his beak loudly, spreading his wings, taking off and landing at his master’s feet, following him to the door, running ahead and into the studio if the door is open.
One is hard put to explain what made the bird act contrary to the instinct, not flying to Africa for the winter, staying behind the flock, missing its scheduled flight, and sleeping in his nest on the window sill. Had he lost all family contact? Unlikely, because in company with two other storks. Teriokhin could only gawk at the visitors in helpless desperation.
With his miserable pay as a stadium artist keeping even one stork was a problem. He had even asked local party leaders for help. So far the Democratic Union was the only one to have responded, but he was told a full payroll was impossible as “financing has not started yet.” Mykola Zarytsky, head of the local DU office, said full ration was a possibility. Perhaps closer to the election Petko and the other two storks would be in great demand. Campaign PR experts would think of something to put the stray birds to good use. Of course, participation in the campaign would last them through the winter.
The idea is being worked on, while the poor artist cannot afford enough food even for Petko, so he decided on a stratagem. He took the stork to his native village, but the result was not what he had expected. It was even dramatic. Once at the village, the bird, his feelings obviously hurt, took off and landed on the roof of a neighboring house and would completely ignore Teriokhin from then on, pretending not hear his “Petko, come here! Now!” Dramatic negotiations followed, lasting all night and finally the stork returned to the studio.
With time, Petko learned to share a beer with Oleksandr. In fact, he enjoys it, so the brewers should now keep this in mind that days are getting colder and effective advertising is necessary. One thing the stork strongly dislikes is smoking. He watches for the man to pick a package and a box of matches and instantly runs over, trying to kick them from his grasp with his beak.
All of Oleksander’s friends and acquaintances know that Petko can get angry and hit with his beak. One story has it that a stadium cleaning woman, outraged by Petko’s flights and landings, came to the studio and started bickering. In the heat of the argument she was careless enough to approach the stork and got hit between the eyes. It was a classic knockdown, whereupon the adversary beat a hasty and shamefaced retreat. After that the woman always kept a good distance between herself and the studio. She is loath to remember the incident and pretends not to notice the bird.
The Day’s correspondent visited the regional ecological safety department and asked the experts to comment on the Petko phenomenon. Everybody was sure that a stork acting contrary to its basic instinct and not flying away for the winter could mean only one thing. The bird was sick. They even remembered the case when a stork with a fractured wing stayed in the yard of a home in the village of Shchurivchyk, Iziaslav district, coming to terms with the fowl, eating from the same trough. But no one knew about that particular white stork, his age or when he had started flying, or even whether he had ever flown away for the winter. If he had, what was there to prevent it on that particular occasion.
Oleksandr Teriokhin does not think that a medical diagnosis is necessary. It is just that he and the bird have made very good friends. Now he is anxious about the other two storks. Both seem healthy enough. But perhaps something is changing in nature, something people are still unaware of.
