Apple Day massacre

On the way to the city centre this morning, we passed a church with men, women and children outside, wearing the traditional "vyshyvanka" embroidered, linen clothing. People were carrying baskets of apples, and women were selling bundles of dried flowers and apples - like this wonderfully cheerful pair, standing in the blazing sunshine, one of whom greeted us in French!


An older woman, who spoke English, saw Bob's T-shirt with the Ukrainian and UK flags, and came up to thank us. She explained that today, August 19, is Saviour of the Apple Feast Day for Orthodox Christians, who prepare for it for two weeks. During this time they don't eat apples, especially women, because of the 'sin' committed by Eve. On the day, people bring apples, honey, and peas to the church to be blessed. After today, it's considered that all apples become healing.

The woman said that she had lived in Toronto, Canada, for about a year under the sponsorship scheme there, but she recently came back to look after her friend who has macular degeneration. However, just a couple of nights ago, she heard the explosions from the missile attack on Lviv, which brought back memories of the terror of the first months of the war. She confided that her daughter had brought her a ticket back to Canada.

This morning we had a news "blackout" because it's my 60th birthday. So it wasn't until the early afternoon that we heard about the Russian missile attack on the beautiful, historic, central square of Chernihiv which killed seven people, including a six-year-old child, and left more than 120 injured. Chernihiv has no military significance and is more than 300 miles away from frontline. So, again, this was pure terror.

Bob drove through Chernihiv's central square just the day before yesterday and, in his blog, commented on the positive developments in a region that we supported last year. People perhaps felt a bit of hope and optimism, maybe even security, but now this...
We feel devastated, outraged, sad - no adequate words, really - on behalf of our friends in the Chernihiv region.

Towards the end of the day we met up with our friends, Igor and Svitlana, and had a bit of a singsong in one of the parks in Lviv. Igor writes his own songs and has recently written one about Mariupol, their home town, which is quite emotional. Then, showing the Ukrainians' great sense of humour, he sang a song about a man who was trying to persuade his wife to make vareniki (potato dumplings).

Igor was wearing his vyshyvanka and I was proud to try on mine, a birthday present from Bob, handmade by Koza Dereza in Ternopil.





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