Kharkiv

A man kneels in front of a tank, delaying for a few moments its inevitable path toward the streets of Kyiv.   A young couple, the bride wearing a crown of brilliant flowers, pledge their love to each other and then, cradling rifles, pledge to defend their country.  Crowds hunkered in a hotel basement sing the Ukrainian national anthem.  “Ukraine has not yet perished nor its glory or freedom.”

So many heart wrenching scenes of resistance, of power, of resolve. and yet my mind keeps coming back to a single, haunting image.

 Several women, five or six, I don’t remember exactly, are kneeling in a circle on a square made of cobblestone in Kharkiv. No one else is there.   Another tall woman wearing a head scarf is standing. It is a few minutes past seven on a frigid February morning. What are their stories?  Are their children still in bed, waiting for their mothers to come home and feed them breakfast? Are the women remembering sons or husbands or lovers lost in war?  A small boy, perhaps the age of one of their sons or grandsons, had died the day before in the shelling outside Kharkiv.     

Kharkiv is the second largest city in Ukraine, which is the second largest country in Europe, which is the size of Texas.   Its Annunciation Cathedral is the largest in Eastern Europe, a blend of Byzantine and Gothic. Trip Advisor rates the cathedral the second most popular tourist site in this city thirty miles from the Russian border.

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 Built in 1689, the Pokroskyi Cathedral is a small church, originally a monastery.   When Kharkiv and Ukraine were under control of the Russian Empire, the orders came from the capital of St. Petersburg to restore the Baroque façade in the style of Russian classicism.  Tall columns, subdued architectural elements.   Determined to  safeguard  the monastery’s uniquely Ukrainian elements: pear-shaped domes, lavish ornamentation, the highly decorative style that causes 21st century visitors to gasp, the people of Kharkiv… refused.