A Discovery channel all by himself

Mykola Khriienko is preparing a private photo exhibit under the title “Ukrainians beyond the Urals. Beginning of the 21st Century.” It is the fruit of his large-scale and unprecedented project in Ukrainian history, which covers three stages, six years and 118,000 kilometers. That is what the journalist needed to follow the traces of Ukrainians who found themselves beyond the Urals, voluntarily or not. He used 341 films and made 12,246 photos, out of which 300 were selected for the photo exhibit, a photo album and a book.

Khriienko came up with the idea to study the life of Ukrainians beyond the Urals while studying the lives of those in Ukraine. In the period between 1997 and 2002, within the framework of the author’s project “Ukrainians in Ukraine,” he gradually covered 3,247 kilometers from Ukraine’s north-east to south-west. This allowed him to see the disparities and similarities between the Ukrainians living in different parts of the state with his own eyes.

“The Ukrainian diaspora in Russia is in many ways cut off their native territory. Previously they were living far away, yet in one country with their fellow countrymen. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, they were cut off from us. I took interest in how they were living there, how they were realizing themselves, whether they remember about their origins,” Khriienko explains his idea, “they live at a colossal distance from Ukraine. There are 9,000 kilometers between the Commander Islands and Ukraine. I wanted to study this absolutely living Ukrainian diaspora, which is linked by many threads with today’s Ukraine.”

Thus, in the style of the Ukrainian Discovery channel, though only with a camera, Khriienko set out on his journey. Mass media did not take special interest in the journalist’s life. Only the crew of the First National Channel shot a three-series documentary about him. The state channel lacked money, and the private channels were unwilling to do anything.

The history of Ukrainian’s resettling beyond the Urals is already over a century long. Though Ukrainian villages are now mixed with other nationalities, Khriienko claims that there are several external attributes that help to distinguish a Ukrainian family or at least a Ukrainian mistress: the house is whitened, the garden is in order, and there are many flowers in the yard.

When Khriienko came to The Day’s office and started telling incredible stories about incredible Ukrainians, laying out hundreds of photos, I could not believe that only one person was able to do such a colossal work. It was even harder to believe that there is a person, who in the epoch of the Internet and information technologies, dedicated six years of his life to searching Ukrainian traces in the boundless lands of Siberia, Kolyma, Chukotka, Sakhalin, and even beyond the Arctic Circle.

Unfortunately, newspaper pages are not enough for all the stories and human destinies the journalist met on his way. Like Mykola, we will split our route in three stages and later present several special stories. All of them will be followed by the shots kindly provided by Khriienko.

The first stage lasted from July 7, 2004, to February 11, 2005. In this period Khriienko, using various kinds of transport and partially on foot, went from Kyiv through the Urals, Altai, Khakassia, Eastern Siberia, Far East, Yakutiya, Kolyma, and Chukotka to the village Uelen and Dezhnev Cape. The road there and back is equal to the length of the equator!

Four shots from this first stage were on display at the photo exhibit “Den-2006,” and were included in The Day’s photo album. However, there are many important photos, like those from the chapter “Stalin’s Kolyma,” which our readers have not seen yet, like the amazing monument Mask of Sorrow by Ernst Neizvestny, which is 15-meters high and takes up 56 cubic meters, and was erected to commemorate the

GULAG victims. Khriienko ascertained that even in severe frosts, fresh flowers lie on the snow near the monument’s pedestal.

The journalist also visited the places of Vasyl Stus’ imprisonment and exile (Perm oblast and Kolyma). In the place of the poet’s first interment, Mykola scattered the soil from Ukraine’s Geographical Center and laid rushnyks that were sent by Stus’ aunt.

“It would be good if they marked that place with a cross,” Khriienko noted. Some time after he came back to Ukraine, he received a letter with photos: in the spot where the tortured poet was buried, the employees of the museum Perm-36 erected a nice oak cross, with embroidered towels and Ukrainian flag tied to it.

The Ukrainians, whom Khriienko met during the first stage of his research, include the members of families resettled during the Stolypin reforms, repressed for helping the UPA, engineers, sailors, managers. They all live a hard life beyond the Urals. Magadan’s mayor (elected for a second term), the head of the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka Duma, the head of the Chukotka government — they are all Ukrainians managing a foreign land that has become native for them. And Khriienko remains in constant contact with them and regards his task unfulfilled unless he sends his heroes the photos and newspaper publications about them.

Although most Ukrainians living beyond the Urals don’t feel any support from the capital of their homeland, they remember about it: they speak Ukrainian, support the activity of cultural centers or simply sing Ukrainian songs. When Khriienko met an old woman in Primorye, he was surprised, “You speak such good Ukrainian.” “Should I speak German or what?” the woman wondered in return.

Interestingly, the journalist was able to reach the Dezhnev Cape only on his fifth attempt, with the help of experienced hunters. As a result, Khriienko made a unique photo, perhaps the first in history: Dezhnev Cape in winter.

“Many people whom I met in 2004-05 already died. Fortunately, I had time to capture them when they were alive, record their extraordinary stories, so that their memory remains,” Khriienko says.

Unfortunately, we can show only a small part of the journey on which Khriienko has spent so much time, effort and energy. Read about the second and third stages of this journey, incredible encounters with Peter Demant and Natalia Koroliova (the daughter of the outstanding scientists), and descendants of the de-kulakized families in the following issues of The Day.