Friends from Baryshivka: "We've had war for eight years"

Created: 02/23/2022, 09:00

By: Andrea Kästle

Women from Baryschivka and Beresan with local specialties and in traditional Ukrainian costumes at one of the many festivals that the friendly communities celebrated together.

In the background the maypole, which the people of Pullach also erected in Baryschiwka at some point.

© Andrea Kästle

The members of the twinning association between Pullach and Baryschivka are following with concern how the conflict in Ukraine is developing.

Pullach/Baryschivka

– Monday was another evening when Otto Horak and Barbara Kammerer-Fischer sat in front of the television, worried.

Followed how the conflict in and around Ukraine develops.

The two are chairmen of the Pullach partnership association, which maintains much more than just official relations with the country between Europe and Russia.

Close friendships have long since formed, across the Carpathians.

Even on that fateful Monday evening, when Putin then, as feared, recognized the separatist areas of Luhans and Donetsk as free people's republics, the people in Pullach still received emails from Baryschivka and Berezan, the friendly regions.

Nobody knows what will happen, everyone is dismayed by the development that the whole thing has taken.

In addition, Ukraine is also slowly running out of steam economically.

13th grade at school

In Baryschivka, the friends there write, it's eleven degrees at the moment, at school the thermometer has just climbed to 13 degrees, "they can't heat it anymore," says Horak.

At the same time, this is also the latest news, the hospital in Kiev was converted into a military hospital.

No more patients are admitted, only discharged.

"They're expecting the worst over there." At night, helicopters fly non-stop over Kiev.

War returnees traumatized

On the other hand, the current situation is not really surprising. Horak says that if you ask the partners from Baryshivka and Berezan whether they are afraid of war, you would get the answer: "We've been at war for eight years." Come on Maidan has been the site of days of demonstrations ever since Putin annexed Crimea.

Young men from Baryschivka were also repeatedly drafted, they received basic training for a month and then were sent to the crisis areas for two months, not all of them returned.

And whoever came home was changed forever, had started drinking, treated their family badly.

"Marriages broke up." More than ten men, also from Baryschivka/Beresan, have already fallen in the conflict. Their names have been engraved on a stele that has been set up next to the war memorial.

Emergency case always ready

Since Christmas, reports Barbara Kammerer-Fischer, doctors, nurses and teachers have been instructed to always go to work with an emergency kit packed – in the event of a sudden recall.

All other adults were also advised to do the same.

In Baryshivka, Horak reports, a territorial defense battalion has now been set up whose task it is to quickly prepare volunteers for any defense of the region that may become necessary.

Women can register too.

Two years ago, on his last visit over there, Horak was shocked to learn that weaponry is now also being taught in schools.

"It made my hair stand up, I said you can't show the children how to clean weapons."

Mayoress had a visitor from Ukraine at Christmas

It is true that Baryschivka and Beresan are relatively centrally located in the large country that is almost twice the size of Germany.

It is 300 kilometers to the crisis areas in the east, and Kiev is around 70 kilometers away.

But there is an international airport roughly halfway between Kiev and Baryshivka, and a major road that opens up the country horizontally runs right past Baryshivka.

According to Pullach's Mayor Susanna Millennium (Greens), who had a visit from her Ukrainian friend Wasi at Christmas, the conflict has always been felt in Baryschivka - if only because someone else fled there from the East knew who somehow could.

And in the meantime, of course, people in and around Baryschivka are packing their things and running to safety.

A retiree who the partnership association knows well has moved to her daughter in Berlin. "The oligarchs have long since left the country anyway," says Barbara Kammerer-Fischer.

"In my opinion, the source of the conflict," fears a friend of a thousand, "won't concentrate on the two areas in the east."

Small gifts for Ukrainian children

Recently, the people from Pullach have been sending packages to different addresses in the Ukraine every week.

With coffee, canned goods, small gifts for the children.

They have received emails asking them to pray for Ukraine from their friends, with whom they have met so often in their 31 years of partnership.

Thank you for your sympathy.

Whenever Otto Horak was in Baryschivka, he stayed at Valery Nitzak's. The two thought it was funny that their surnames sounded alike and have long been close friends.

"If the Nitzak should escape one day, of course he'll sleep with me," says Horak.

Otto Horak with his colleague Borys Skoryk on Maidan Square in Kiev.

Skoryk is still a city councilor in Berezan and is well informed about the political situation.

And exchanges ideas with the pullachers.

The photo was taken opposite the Victory Column, which stands for Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union.

This is where the "Revolution of Dignity" was crushed in 2013 and 2014.

©ak