Bonus Episode 7

Power Lines Episode 7 Bonus Transcript

Ed: In March I put the news on and there was a little girl on a train with her mother, and her father was on the platform. He put his hand on the train window and she put her hand on the train window. And that was it. I was just, ahhhh!

So I rang my daughters and I said, listen, I've had enough of this. I’m going. 

Jakub: Ed Blackbird is the managing director of a windows and blinds company in Gateshead, in the North East of England. In March this year, he drove to Kyiv with aid for the Ukrainian people. 

Ed: So came at the factory, put an appeal out and said, “Listen guys, looking for some help. I'm desperate to get down to Ukraine with some much needed aid, anybody who want to help?” And within an hour, people will queue up outside the factory in the showroom.

With not just money we had clothes and food, paracetamol. They were queuing up, it was just unbelievable. So, I borrowed a huge trailer and off I went with about 500,000 pound worth of aid. 

Nastya: This Christmas, Ed is heading back to Kyiv with three of his colleagues. On December 20th they’ll load up the trucks, take the ferry to Amsterdam, drive through Germany and Poland, then down to Ukraine to arrive on Christmas Eve. 

Ed: And again We've just been inundated with cash. We've not done a sub-total yet, but it's well in excess of 20,000. Well in excess. 

We've ordered generators now. To date we're up to somewhere like 36 or possibly 40. We've just been inundated with infant presents, children's presents, teenage presents, and moms and dads. 

Everything's been beautifully wrapped. We've had a young football team come a couple of nights ago and wrap, and if I said a couple hundred, that would be wrong. It would be a couple of thousand presents that we’re taken down there for families. It's just, it's wonderful. Really is beautiful.

Jakub: The whole community of Gateshead came together. Even those who didn’t have much to give themselves. 

Ed: This beautiful old lady came into the showroom. She was in her eighties, and she was holding two chocolate bars and she said, “Are you the guy going to Ukraine for Christmas?” 

I said, “Yes, I am”. She said, “I've not got a lot of money, but I would love if you could take these two chocolate bars to Ukraine and give them to somebody for Christmas.”

And I was like, “My God”. You know, got quite upset with that. And she said,” I'm gonna do the same thing next week. I've not got a lot of money. I’m gonna get my groceries in and I want to buy another two chocolate bars”. So she came back again. So I'm taking four chocolate bars from the Northeast, from this beautiful lady, to Ukraine. 

Another guy came in, he was in his seventies and he brought a brand new little jacket, looked about, maybe a six year old’s jacket. 

He says, “If I thought my grandchild was cold, I couldn't live for myself. So will you take that jacket down and give it to a little girl? And he says, “I'll give you the receipt just in case he doesn't like it!” Ha! God bless him.

[Music]

Jakub: For many Ukrainians, holiday celebrations will look different this year. Some are in foreign countries, separated from friends and family. Some will have an empty seat at the dinner table. Christmas lights will be a little dimmer.

From Message Heard and the Kyiv Independent, you're listening to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World. 

Nastya: In this bonus episode, we wanted to use this time of reflection to catch up with some of our Ukrainian guests throughout the series. 

Jakub: Nastya, it almost feels incredible, but we are both at home for Christmas time. 

Nastya: Yeah, it's shocking. Neither of us have really been at home much during these recordings. 

We’ve recorded from DC– 

Jakub: Thailand.

Nastya: –various places in Poland. But yeah, I just arrived home roughly a week ago, and I'm here for a bit over a month and it’s lovely. 

And I don't even go to Kiev, I live on the outskirts, so I'm just literally staying in my room, in our living room, not exiting the place because I missed everything so much. 

Jakub: I just got home about a week ago. I came back from Ukraine and it has been just such a joy to spend time with family in a very freezing London, but still, still it's nice to be back. 

Nastya, how are you feeling now that you are, you have a chance to be back with family? Do you have any particular Christmas traditions? 

Nastya: Yeah this is a really interesting discussion actually, because my family, we never really celebrated Christmas, and then there's this whole thing that Ukraine kind of has two Christmases.

Well, I… Okay, can you explain how it is that we have two different Christmas dates? 

So for our listeners, the majority of Ukrainians have always celebrated Christmas on January 6th to 7th. So how, how is that, why is that? 

Jakub: And actually, it's not just Christmas, it's also about New Years. So, Basically the difference comes down to two different types of calendars.

In the West, we use the Gregorian calendar. In the East, people use the Julian calendar, which doesn't have the quarter day for leap years. 

So over time, over the centuries, there's about two weeks of difference between the two. 

Nastya: Yeah. so we mainly celebrated New Year's, and I think this was the case for the majority of Ukrainians.

This may sound weird for our listeners, but this also has a lot to do with the Soviet legacy that Ukraine has because the Soviet government repressed our Christmas for decades and emphasised the importance of New Year instead, and created a lot of Soviet traditions on New Years. 

You know, the songs that people would sing on New Years, the costumes, our kind of Soviet “Santa Claus”, we call him, Ded Moroz. All of that was really connected with the Soviet propaganda. 

And Christmas, because it was a religious holiday, we couldn't really celebrate it because, of course, the Soviets repressed the church in general, they were very anti-religious. 

They killed a lot of bishops, et cetera. They closed down churches, they burned them down, and obviously religious holidays were a part of the wave of repression.

So I've heard stories from people who lived in Western Ukraine…

Okay, speaking of family, Jakub, your daughter just walked in. 

Okay, Milanka. Say hello. Say hello. She's waving, but she's not saying hello. Say hello.

Nastya: This is the cutest child I have ever seen, Jakub.

Jakub: Yes. Uh oh, and she's so happy.

Milanka: Uh oh. 

Jakub: Oh no!

Milanka: Oh no. 

Jakub: Okay, Milanka, thank you so much for that contribution. You could leave now. 

Nasta: Oh God, forget everything I was saying about The Church and the Soviets. This is prime content. 

So, of course religious holidays were a part of this wave of repression. And I've heard stories from people who lived in Western Ukraine about how it was so tough on Christmas that Ukrainians during the Soviet era had to close down all the blinds because you need to light up candles during Christmas and they had to do this in secret, so nobody sees them.

Because Soviet like NKDV soldiers, and like the Soviet police would walk around on this date checking for people who still follow the Ukrainian traditional kind of religious holidays. 

And so apparently the next morning after families celebrated Christmas, kids could tell. What other children are part of the local traditional Ukrainian community because their fingers smelled like wax.

Because you could tell that, you know, last night they were secretly celebrating Christmas.

Jakub: Oh wow. 

Nastya: It's so sad and tragic, but there's also so much magic in this because, you know, you cannot take our Christmas away from us. So for when, when I learned about all of this, I understood that New Years actually has very little to do with us as Ukrainians.

Just a year ago I celebrated New Year's with my family. We did all of the dishes that are traditionally Russian without really realising that they are as such. It's just that Ukraine has had to like take that in and appropriate that because of the Soviet legacy. It just came naturally. 

So that's how I remember holidays for myself. But then, we're not celebrating New Year’s this year, for the first time in my life. We're gonna be celebrating Christmas and I learned and like read up on all of the Ukrainian Christmas dishes and I'm gonna try to make all of them and it's gonna be a whole thing. So we're going full Ukrainian this year.

Okay, Jakub, tell me about your family. Are you gonna have some sort of traditional Ukrainian celebration or– 

Jakub: On my wife's side it's more… For them because they're very not religious, I would say, it's more about making New Year's your own. 

Nastya: Right. 

Jakub: So a couple of years ago you'd start by actually celebrating New Year's on Moscow time. Right? Like first you had to– you'd watch Putin say something or you know, whoever the president was, but for the last two decades it was Putin.

Nastya: And then you'd watch our president. 

Jakub: Exactly. Exactly. And then you'd celebrate New Year's on all the different time zones. So given that we're a little bit all over the place, we'd usually watch first Putin, then Ukraine, then Poland, slash France, and then finally UK. 

Nastya: That is so fascinating. 

Jakub: But I think now we're making it more and more our own. And you know, this year there wasn't even a consideration to celebrate it on Moscow time. We did, however, think about potentially adding Tbilisi time. 

Nastya: Just out of solidarity?

Jakub: Exactly out of solidarity for the Georgians.

[Music]

Jakub: We usually say “beginning in Kyiv, and following the roads out wherever they may lead”, but in this episode it seems a lot of roads lead back to Kyiv. Our first returning guest has also travelled back to Ukraine. 

Edward Reese is a Queer activist, we spoke to him about Kyiv Pride in the Europe episode. Back then, he was living in Denmark, after a summer of organising pride events around Europe. 

But in October, he came back to Kyiv.

Nastya: So we asked him about his plans for the holidays:

Edward: I am not a Christian, so I celebrate Juul Tide, starting from 21st and up till the New Year's Eve.

I will be going to different parties, if we have some here. And I will be cooking some delicious food. I really hope that I will be able to do some gingerbread cookies because I love them very much. It's like one of my personal favourite on the holiday season. 

And I will be going to the place where is like a big Christmas tree, which is also very symbolic. This year we have a Christmas tree in Kyiv, but it's much less bright than before, because we have to save energy.

And it was paid not by the city as usual, but it was paid by donators, businesses and so it's like more just a symbol that New Year has come in, not like a big celebration. We will not have a Christmas Village, for example. We have it always, but not this year.

I would love to travel when the war is over and I have a little dream to spend Christmas and Christmas time in Stockholm because I love the city and I could do it this year, but it's not the story because when the war in my country, I just can't feel all this Christmas mood and festive mood and so on. So I decided that like when the war is over, when we defeat Russia, I will definitely go and celebrate some Christmas time in Sweden.

Nastya: We also caught up with Alyona Zhuk, who we spoke to in our episode about Ukraine’s history. She’s a Ukrainian tattoo artist and illustrator who left for Berlin at the start of the full scale invasion. 

Alyona: I'm getting adjusted in a way of now knowing where I can buy groceries that I need and how I navigate the roots in between home and work and the school for my kid. 

Also she started school and she started her integration process. I think she's learning two languages now, German and English. 

And it's been kind of difficult, but I hear from her and from her teachers that she's doing okay and she's quite motivated and catching everything quickly and it's stressful but I think we're coping. 

Jakub: Her German residency documents haven’t yet been finalised, so she can’t return home for the holidays this year. 

Alyona: Honestly, I don't have any Christmassy/New-Yeary celebratory mood this year, I think for the first time in my life actually, because usually this season is one of my favourites and I enjoy snow and the decorations and the smells and the tastes and the sounds of New Year’s. 

So we will be here in Berlin and I know that my kid, she's very excited about New Year's and Christmas time, especially about the European Christmas because she's going to school with German kids. So they're talking about these traditions and she wants that. She wants the Christmas tree early and celebrate everything as well as they do.

And I know that I will have to kind of provide this Christmas/New Year's stuff for her because the entire point of me taking her out of Ukraine was for her to have childhood, for her to be able to be happy, even though those awful things are still happening. She knows that, but still she's a child.

So we'll do a Christmas tree. I’m taking vacation for this season and we will plan a celebratory activity for every day of her vacation. 

Like we will decorate the tree, we will cook the cookies, we will cut out paper snowflakes, we will go to the Christmas markets, we will eat something there. We will try to enjoy it as much as it's possible now.

But of course, I think the closer the new year, the more I will miss the idea of spending New Year as I would do it if I would be able to go to visit my parents and to be with them. 

Living so far from home, not having my home, not being able to see my parents and my friends and to not be able to have my routine… 

So I think, I mean the idea of New Year is kind of lost for me, I think, because the  only thing that I think all of us wish for the new year this year is that the new year will bring the victory that we are fighting for. 

I think all of us wish that every day, so that will not be much of a difference for us.

Nastya: And of course, integrating into a new country with new Christmas traditions isn’t always seamless:

Alyona: We had a huge drama situation when I picked her up from school and we were going home and she told me, “You know, tomorrow is Saint Nicholas dayI’m ”. And I was like, “Oh my God, no, I did not.” 

And she was like, “Yeah, so every kid in my class will receive some sweets and gifts tomorrow morning. So I should put up my shoes” because obviously they do that. And it was late and I was tired. And it was cold.

And I realised that probably I should have known, but I didn’t follow and I didn't know that it's tomorrow. 

And I was like, “Yeah but Ukrainian Nicholas, who is Micola, he will come later, on December 19th and she was like, “Yeah, but everyone else tomorrow will get something and I should wait until December 19th?”

And I'm like, “Well, yeah, because he's Ukrainian. He will come to all Ukrainian kids, so you should wait.” And I explained to her that like, Nicholas  was not prepared for tomorrow, so we'll just wait. 

But the next day to kind of support her, I took her to the store and we picked out some chocolates for her from St Nicholas as an apology from me.

I realise now that I need to follow better what traditions are here so that she doesn't miss out on all of that, because her friends now are getting that and she needs to be also a part of it.

Jakub: Look, it's very sad to not be able to come home for Christmas. What did cheer me up a little bit is that because there are so many Ukrainian families spread out all across Europe, they are also contributing to everyone else's Christmas. 

Nastya: Oh, that's interesting. 

Jakub: Them sharing a bit of Ukraine is also something that will bring Ukraine closer to Europe. And people will become more aware of it. The ties will grow out of that. 

Nastya: Yeah, I think this kind of cultural exchange that's happening is I guess one of the few positives that we somehow end up having out of this tragedy is that Alisa’s gonna go back to her school and she's gonna take in all of the German culture traditions, but she's also probably gonna share some of her own. 

She's probably gonna go and talk about how her Ukrainian Micola, you know our St. Nicholas, is coming at a different date because he's a bit late and you know, there's a war in Ukraine, so he's got a lot to do and you know, that kind of stuff.

But it's also interesting though, for me to notice how quickly the kids adapt. Like how quickly they adjust to this whole new reality and the parents having to navigate that as well. 

Because if I had to move to Berlin right now because of the war, I would not, it wouldn't affect me, you know, if I was given a present two weeks late, because I know what my traditions are and I follow them.

But for the kids who don't really have that sense of Ukrainian identity yet, they're a bit lost and they're just trying to take in whatever is around them and, and the parents have to navigate that. Now, with so many of the Ukrainian children being abroad in Europe and dealing with all of these new things, it's fascinating.

[Music]

And what about the diaspora? Because both of us know that they're always pretty extra with everything that they do, that's Ukrainian. Especially celebrations. 

Jakub: Well, yeah, the Ukrainian identity definitely burns strong. 

I got in touch with Andrea Chalupa, who you'll remember we spoke to in our very first episode about Ukrainian identity.

She's a Ukrainian-American journalist, author and podcast host, who grew up in Davis, California in a very Ukrainian American family. 

Andrea: Hello everyone. It's Andrea Chalupa, the writer and producer of Mr. Jones and co-host of the podcast Gas Lit Nation. I'm wishing you all, wherever you are in the world, a very happy holiday season of peace, love, joy and light.

I'm going to be celebrating with my loved ones, my family and friends. Not one, but two Christmases. I'll be doing the traditional 12 dishes that represent the 12 disciples of Christ. 

They are vegetarian dishes, starting with kutia, holubtsi (stuffed cabbage) and vareniki, and all of it, going down the list. And we're doing this on December 24th, Christmas Eve, and then again on January 6th, Orthodox Christmas Eve.

Why? Because that's just what we do. We're very lucky being a Ukrainian family and a mixed Ukrainian family. My dad's family is from West Ukraine. My mom's family is from Donbas and East Ukraine. So we've got a big mix of these Christmas traditions. And so both Christmases are celebrated mostly December 24th and 25th, but we always recognise Orthodox Christmas as a special time as well.

And we alway growing up would leave an empty plate at the table to acknowledge our ancestors. And that they're always going to be with us, and that when it's our turn to go home to the great big star in the sky, we will be with our descendants at the table with them every Christmas. And so it's a joyful reminder that life is eternal, love is eternal, and that we are all one big, beautiful, cosmic family, always and forever.

Thank you and happy holidays to you and yours. 

Jakub: So listening to Andrea actually reminded me a lot about the Polish diaspora that I kind of grew up in. 

So at least a couple of times a month or at least once a month, there'd be a gathering of the Polish diaspora, wherever we were, whether it was, Australia, France, the US, Germany.

And those would almost always be after mass, next to the church where you would have some Polish food and sort of the diaspora organisation and the church organisation, they were kind of almost inseparable. 

And people would come there and they would hold onto these traditions, and because of that you really had to hold them strong, right?

Nastya: Mm-hmm. 

Jakub: Because you were the carrier of your culture. And I think that's kind of what diaspora living meant for me. 

Nastya: I also think it's gratitude and the fact that people who don't actually live in Ukraine don't take these traditions for granted. 

Because they don't have the experience of just sitting in Kyiv at one of our amazing coffee shops listening to Ukrainian in the background, just like having the typical Ukrainian living in Ukraine experience.

So cherishing the traditions is all they have. Right? It's all the Ukrainianness that you can get. It's the only way how you can feel Ukrainian. 

Especially because many of them unfortunately don't end up speaking Ukrainian because it's quite difficult to sustain that language if you live in the US where nobody uses it, for example.

So, yeah, I think the diaspora is always so extra because this is their only avenue. 

Jakub: To sum up, we wanted to end on some notes of hope for the new year. 

Alyona: I just hope that 2023 will bring victory and Ukrainians from all over will be able to come back home and continue celebrating our holidays and pursuing our traditions and being with our families.

Ed: I think that every Ukrainian has one Christmas resolution right now: for Russians just to leave our country for good and stay out of Ukraine forever. 

I would like to remind everyone who is listening that the war is not over. That Ukrainians are still fighting, and while you celebrate Christmas and New Year and Hanukkah and everything, there will still be Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline fighting for the freedom of the whole Europe and dying for it.

So when you are buying your presents or getting the festive food and so on, continue talking about Ukraine, donating to Ukrainian organisations like Kyiv Pride and others because we are still here, we are still fighting and the freedom and the holidays in the whole of Europe, still depends on Ukraine.

Jakub: Thank you so much for listening to Power Lines. We'll see you next week for our regular episode where we'll be speaking to Andy Greenberg about cyber warfare. 

Anastasiia: Power Lines is a partnership between the Kyiv Independent and Message Heard. It was produced by Bea Duncan, Harry Stott, and Talia Augustidis. The executive producer is Sandra Ferrari. The theme music is by Tom Biddle and Alfie Godfrey.