...And mallows growing by Lesia Ukrainka’s window

Lutsk-based journalist, reporter of    Uriadovy Kurier newspaper and animalist photo artist, Valerii Melnyk has presented to his compatriots a new photo exhibition, which reveals previously unexplored corners of his native land.

The pictures have gone on display at the editorial office of Volyn-Nova, a regional newspaper; they show regular Volynian nature. However, it took the eye of a photo artist who is very fond of his native land to notice the details that make a picture much more than just a reflection of a particular place “somewhere in Volyn.” These amazingly beautiful mallows are a case in point, being an indispensable element of every flower bed in every Volyn farmstead. Melnyk took a picture of them at the Lesia Ukrainka Memorial Museum in the village of Kolodiazhne. Just as they did more than a hundred years ago, these mallows bloom at the same place: by the window of the so-called white cottage, where the author lived and which her family equipped as a kind of solarium, where she could warm her disease-exhausted body under the rays of the earnest Volynian sun. The same rays were falling on the mallows growing by the window of her room. For years, the museum’s employees have been carefully cultivating them in that very place, using even such minute details to emphasize the authenticity of this location, so dear to every resident of Volyn.

In general, the photo exhibition serves as a kind of a tour of the primeval natural world, of the places which have, unfortunately, become rare on this planet. Thank God, He was generous when allocating such places to Volyn. Melnyk goes a few dozen kilometers from Lutsk every year to take such pictures as well as to draw some power and grace from his native land. His favorite location is the village of Krychevychi, Manevychi raion. He says it has the most beautiful birch wood in the whole Volyn and the most delicious spring birch sap... Meanwhile, even experienced mushroom pickers will find it hard to believe that Volyn soil can grow truly giant mushrooms. It is true, however, for it was a forest in Stara Vyzhivka raion where hunters found a “true fungus” (the local name of the Boletus edulis) that weighed over 800 (!) grams. Melnyk said it was totally GMO-free and radiation-free, because natural and genetic conditions combined to make it so, and the mushroom was also completely worm-free.

The feature of the photo exhibition is an opportunity to see pictures of many animal species that are included   not only in the Red List   of Ukraine, but also the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List. Photos of wild ducks are unique, for hardly anyone else in Ukraine managed to do it, because taking pictures of these birds requires knowing the best places and the best time to sneak up to them and not scare the ducks. The visitors can see a wild duck incubating her eggs as well as the moment when a wild duckling hatches and leaves the clutch... Melnyk keeps secret the exact location where the pictures are taken, to prevent curious humans from breaking the nature’s calm and bringing noise to the area, which is more harmful for wildlife than hunting and poaching taken together.