The cost of war.....

Today I visited probably one of the largest cemeteries that I've ever been in. The Zakhidne cemetery in Odesa. Literally stretched for kilometres. To take  your car into the cemetery you had to pay 4p!!

It was so lonely and sombre here. The sky a perfect blue, a gentle wind.

For me the most poignant was the area for recently fallen soldiers of the Ukrainian army. The flags were flying, snapping in the wind, ropes slapping on the poles. A most haunting and sad sound. A reminder that everyday the casualties of this war continue to mount.

Men, some still boys, lives cut short are buried here. Some older, probably hoping for a peaceful end to their lives. I walked between the graves looking at their pictures. Trying to envisage how and who they were? Their stories? Lives destroyed. Families never to be the same again.

Another 7 civilians, women mainly, died in Kharkiv today, when the largest printing plant in Europe was hit. 7 people died. 15 missiles hammered into Kharkiv and region as well as glide bombs Fiona heard some of them. Russia doesn't care who it hurts, maims or kills.

The saddest part of the cemetery was this.

Freshly dug graves. The small white gravestones give some small indication of who they might be. This is for bodies too unrecognisable by trauma of war, to say for sure who they were. I can't even begin to imagine.

The reason I was there, at this cemetery, was due to the woman who cuts my hair. She invited me to go with her to visit her father's grave. Apparently, after Easter, it's traditional in Ukraine to visit the graves of relatives. You take bread,  horilka         (vodka) and fruit, and leave it by the graveside. On this vast, flat cemetery, I felt humbled that someone allowed me into their history. 

Sadly I think more victims of the war will be buried here.