Memories

By Walter Kish

For the past month or so, my wife and I have been unpacking and organizing our new house.  The experience has been more interesting than one would expect in such circumstances because of the fact that most of our belongings have been sitting in storage for over four years, during most of which time we were living in Ukraine.  As my wife Daria stated on several occasions, it has been akin to opening presents at Christmas time, since after such a long period of time we had lost track of what we had packed away.  In addition, much of what we had brought back from Ukraine over a year ago had also been sitting in storage while I sought a permanent job and subsequently, a new home.  For the past year we have been living temporarily with parents-in-law, making do with a minimum of our own possessions.

Subsequent to repatriating our belongings from long-term storage, the opening of a box invariably resulted in a pleasant surprise or discovery of some treasured item. Each instantly brought back memories of a specific time or place that marked our frequent explorations of every corner of Ukraine.  I recall finding a fur-lined leather skull cap such as the original Mongols wore when the hordes first invaded Ukraine some eight hundred years ago.  I had purchased it from a Tatar on top of Ai-Petri, the highest peak in Crimea, after sampling some of his excellent homemade wine.  He was the descendant, some thirty generations removed, of the fierce warriors that had undoubtedly plagued my ancestors some eight centuries back.  Time and circumstance had healed old animosities and today, Ukrainians and Tatars are now allies against another common oppressor, the Russians.  History is full of such ironies.

Some days later, I opened another box which contained a veritable treasure trove of memorabilia from the Orange Revolution, everything from orange scarves, orange cups with a bold “Tak” imprinted upon them, to several CD’s of revolutionary music that characterized so well those memorable weeks of protests on the Maidan.  The memory was both moving and painful.  I had never before in my life been a witness or participant in what was truly a world-shaking event.  The experience had filled me with tremendous pride and incredible hope, a hope that within a year would be shattered and replaced with a certain measure of disillusionment when the so-called Orange Revolution collapsed in the wake of a sorry trail of greed, egotism, disunity, small-mindedness and betrayal.

Fortunately, most of our Ukrainian acquisitions hold more positive meaning.  My wife and I brought back many things from Ukraine.  We were fortunate enough to acquire a significant collection of Ukrainian art, ceramics, sculpture, wood carvings, embroidery and assorted souvenirs and “knick-knacks”.  The pride of my collection is a large assortment of bulavas, the ceremonial maces of the Kozak hetmans.  Most are made out of wood, though I also have some glass ones, as well as several real metal ones in steel and bronze, including an antique one of uncertain age and origin.  All told, I have some two dozen bulavas.

Although much of our collection of Ukrainian artifacts may not particularly be of any great value from a dollars and cents perspective, most hold a special place in my heart for the memories they evoke.  Behind each of them is a story.  Many of them we purchased; many more were given to us as gifts.  I learned early on from visiting my many relatives in Ukraine not to admire (at least out loud) anything that they possessed, because invariably they would then gift it to us, no matter how strongly we protested. 

My wife and I now have the pleasant dilemma of what to do with all this stuff we brought back from Ukraine, since there is no way all of it will fit on our walls, shelves, display cases and closets.  We have enough to start our own little personal museum, and I suppose that’s what our new house will soon become.