Bogdan Logvinenko: Greetings to everyone!
We will tell you a little bit
about such a project, which is called Ukraїner.
I think that one of you has already heard about it.
In fact, we are not only two –
we have a huge team,
more than 200 volunteers.
But in order to tell how it all started,
I will start from my own history.
Actually, when I was a little boy,
I drew such maps,
where Ukraine was very big
well, the rest of the countries – less.
Actually, I was very ill and did not go to school,
but I read a lot of books and I was terribly wanted to travel.
And I could not have realized it,
and so I traveled with these maps.
Then, when I have finished school – successfully –
then I started hitching around the world,
because, in fact, in my student years I did not have any money,
and just like that, I still wanted to travel.
And so I traveled several dozen countries by hitchhiking.
And I noticed such a thing
that in every country they are asking me
about the same thing
In general, all people in the world ask you the same in the beginning
– is “Where are you from?”
And this is “where are you from?” always caused me to do that
incomprehensible little effect
because I did not know how to talk about Ukraine how to represent it.
And I would like to show something, share something about Ukraine,
but very few associate some kind of pieces,
which are connected in the world with Ukraine.
Fortunately, at the time I traveled,
we had a very popular character,
such Ukrainian Charlie Chaplin
which you know, because he was also famous in Frankivsk,
and so I showed this video for a while.
[Video]
(Laughter)
This, in principle, is the most presentable video
about Ukraine was at that moment
which tells what is happening in Ukraine.
But after a while –
(Laughter)
(Applause)
I was terribly eager to do something for myself
and to show that Ukraine is not only that
– Ukraine is very different.
Mykola Nosok: And I was born
in a small town in Zhytomyr, Korostyshiv,
and, in fact, since childhood, too, was very fond of traveling.
And we with our parents, when they went to the south of Ukraine or in the Crimea,
then I often come from grandmothers who gave us a house,
Have heard “West”, or there somehow in another way we were called.
When I traveled with my parents to the west of Ukraine,
then often heard “Moscals” or “East”.
And that, in fact, then I was very excited.
And, actually, even then the question arose: “Who am I?”, “Who are we?”.
“And really, so many people do not know about us
about their neighbors, those who are absolutely close, within their own country,
What are they just afraid of? “
Actually, there is also such a sad statistics,
that in Ukraine people often do not go beyond their area.
I also did a design experiment called “28 liters”.
This is a lifestyle modeling
when a person drinks alcohol every day.
And, actually, I also drank a liter of beer every day.
(Laughter)
And I made certain notes and also filmed a documentary about it.
And all this problem of alcoholism I spent through myself,
that is why it was interesting to me to see how a person can live in this state.
And it is so great, in fact, this problem, which becomes commonplace,
that is so much so that it becomes a standard of living.
Actually, UkraС-yerN –
This is also a project that tries to talk about phobias
and contributes to solving them somehow.
BLL: And, actually, we started to travel around Ukraine
and began to investigate what Ukraine is at all.
Explore the same way as Nicholas explored
in his project, drinking a liter of beer,
we began to explore too through ourselves.
Actually, what motivates us to tell you about the fear of change,
– it’s one small village,
more precisely, it is a few villages in Podillia, in the Savransky district,
where the brooms are made.
Well, you know, the brooms are such that they sweep the floor.
Actually, this village of us in fact struck by the fact that
that when we arrived, we saw
some incredible potential in this village,
because every hut we went to
– We were just there driving, showing, by huts,
and we very often take away people
so we’re just starting out
and ask how life is going on here
what is happening here in this place.
And actually, we tried to find a house where brooms do not.
And it turned out that people were saying to us:
“But we do not know those who do not make brooms here
in principle, we have brooms doing everything –
unless someone is very old, young or maybe not have a hand. “
And, in fact, it turned out that everyone is doing brooms
and we immediately saw
that it can be master classes on the production of brooms,
it may be some kind of festival,
Well, that is, in fact, it’s such a thing –
we do not even think that these are all brooms
– they are from one village or from several villages.
And the next day – what just got us off –
we went to the bazaar in Savran, such a small town,
which is a unique bazaar for Ukraine
because he is probably the fastest bazaar
– It takes only 20 minutes.
Why do you think?
Because all the people who come to this bazaar
sell one item – it’s a message.
Because all the brooms do, and they sell nothing more, do you understand?
And because of the surrounding villages gather people
and all sell the same brooms.
To my question – because there were both grandparents and great-grandfathers engaged in viniculture –
“Have you been upgrading these brooms for a hundred years?
You know, people in space have already taken off, different things happen …? “
they replied: “Yes, we have improved the broom and we now have a new kind of broom
– This is a gift broker
(Laughter)
– Brother is the same, only he is tied up with a gift ribbon “.
Actually, it really shocked us,
because the potential in such stories is enormous,
and we ask: “Listen, well, so maybe you will do such or such a message?”
and people say: “No, you know, nobody will take, then nobody needs to.”
“Can you make a festival or a cafe here?”
– “That does not need anyone, then it’s not interesting.”
And, in fact, there are very different stories.
There is a village Utkonosovka in Bessarabia,
which looks like this.
And this is also very similar village, only here do not do brooms
– here grow tomatoes with a spout.
And the village is called Utkonosovka,
and for some time they were afraid that it was a tomato from the village.
And they were on all the boxes that were sent to the bazaar,
wrote “Ishmael”
because it is the closest city to Utkonosovka.
And actually, after a while they realized that, hmm,
Tomato with a spout, Utkonosovka
– it can be a brand.
And now the entire region is asking tomatoes from Utkonosovka
and, in fact, they are beginning to develop it there
as such a separate absolute story.
And in this village it is impossible to find any person,
which does not deal with tomatoes.
And when we ask: “And you know at all, how did it begin?”
because they are in trouble around the village
and then it just strikes.
when you arrive at Utkonosovka.
And people say: “No, we do not know the story.”
And we are: “Blin, so think of this story.
There must be some legend.
Thousands of people will go to your place
just look at such a unique village.
MN: Actually, yes. About the history of change.
Before each expedition, we make a post,
that we will go to a certain region,
and there is a certain announcement of the cities and villages where we will be visiting.
And now, before going to Poltava region,
when we made a post
One girl did not see her village there
and, in fact, very much got stuck through that.
And then she thought:
“Actually, yes, and what’s to look there?”
There is nothing to watch, there is nothing to show. “
And she began to more actively engage in her hobby.
She began to do what she loved very much.
We went to the expedition,
we drove into the village
but she wrote to us after Poltava region,
in which he said that even the fact that we did not drove into the village,
but she started doing her favorite thing.
This is her life’s job now.
that is, its this hobby turned into work
and she now enjoys her work.
That is, the project became such a motivator for this.
Also, very often, in fact, we write letters
and for our team this is probably the biggest motivator.
We all then revisit it again and again.
And our favorite letter – when the girl wrote to us
that she looked over the whole evening
and admired our heroes
read their stories, replayed the video
and did, in his life, probably
one of the crucial moments
– she decided not to move to another country to live.
She is so inspired by the heroes’ stories,
who do something in Ukraine
what makes it possible for her to do her job in Ukraine too.
We also often visit our heroes
once again after the expedition.
There is a castle in Saint-Miklos in Transcarpathia,
where Mr. Joseph Bartosh makes a museum and art school.
And after we released the material,
we visited him in winter
and he told us: “You know, you have influenced me
so that I continue to deal with this a little bit in the other direction. “
Because he saw some kind of frame in the video,
who inspired him to make some other movement in his life.
And actually, we did not plan to do this, but that’s what happened.
BL: Actually, we felt that with every story we could change something,
can we not just talk about something
and every story is a driver of change.
And, actually, in the beginning,
when we just started the project, we wanted –
that is, the first one idea, it was very commonplace –
we just wanted to tell the usual human stories
and we did not plan that these stories would inspire
hundreds and thousands of other people.
And we are often accused
that we are some kind of boys and girls with pink glasses –
that we reject all bad things around
and talk only about good
but in fact, all that bad is happening
we hear every day
we hear it every day from news,
we hear it from virtually all of our heroes,
to which we come
because everyone begins with fears, with phobias,
Everyone with whom we communicate first tells us,
how bad is the state does not help, corruption, betrayal, etc. etc.
These words that we hear every day, going somewhere in the subway –
in Ivano-Frankivsk there is no metro –
in the tram, in the shuttle bus
(Laughter)
And actually, every day we hear it,
and we, in fact, understood in the project,
that we perceive it as such an unchanging constant –
know what everyone says in principle
because everyone works on this self-defense,
because to look successful
and look like a superhero in us is not accepted
– we have to be sorry.
MN: Also in our project
we understand that we are archiving data.
That is, these momentary stories, which are now,
we actually document them.
For example, I think that very few people know
but in Polesie there are such villages, and there are plenty of them
where there were about 15-20 people in total.
And, for example, there is one such village,
we shot there a couple – a man and a woman –
they are the youngest villagers, they are 75 years old.
But this material is so important
maybe it’s not so fascinating,
but it is so important to take away the life in which they live,
remove and record the language they say
look at their huts
how they move from one place to another
that is, there are very often no roads there
and can swim just by boat.
And we in Polissia, in fact, did the same.
It is also a very important technological monument.
For example, now in Ukraine in almost every region,
not a region, and in each part of Ukraine there are narrow-gauge railroads,
for some more than a hundred years, right?
And they are now in a state that is not known simply,
which will be 10 years later with them.
And it is very important now to fix them while they are still working,
and how they actually develop or not.
BLL: And, in fact, ethnographers can deal with this very often,
but they do it for themselves, for archiving,
and we are trying to make this a popular product,
show that there are such people
and there are incredible villages, as Nikolai said.
This is a grandmother, in fact, from the village of Svalovichi.
We recorded how it floated on the boat and sings.
And this video is, in fact, in our 360 format –
you can look around, how it happens and listen.
And actually, she asked us one such little thing:
just send her a jar of honey
because in the village there are about 16 people
and no apiaries left.
And after a while, when we returned from the expedition,
I decided to write such a post on Facebook,
what we want to send some grandmother’s gift
and people gathered only honey, some other things,
and we sent her this gift to the village.
And a few weeks later I received a letter from her granddaughter.
And it was very so .. –
We are very happy with this.
And there were several such stories,
when we came to terribly lonely people,
and this loneliness is very common
not due to the fact that there is nobody around
– this loneliness is due to the fact that
that somewhere is the one-only beekeeper who is doing something
somewhere – this is the only shepherd, etc.
And very often they are disappearing works.
And these people –
From literally a few days ago we were a shepherd in the valleys,
because we are currently in an expedition to the Carpathians,
and in fact, this shepherd – the last in that region, Kosivsky.
And we, in fact, felt very much
how much he was already tired of people
for they are not around; he has abandoned them.
And he has his wife, sheep,
with whom he communicates every day,
and with these sheep, he has a very active dialogue all the time,
and we for him already, in fact, were not so interesting.
And we felt him some loneliness,
because he does not have with anyone [talk] on equal terms
because we are not at all the level at which he would like to talk about his sheep.
Or there was another situation in Poltava region,
when a man who has an apiary
in a village where also 16 people live
first refused to speak with us
and then, when it became known that we –
because we called him
and he immediately put the phone and said: “I have no time”
and then he told us: “Oh, sorry
I just thought that it was calling from the bank,
some sort of “divorce per million” “.
We then started talking with him and he simply did not let us go:
we were already sitting in the car and he was so over the window
– it was November last year –
snow fell right in the window
and he just stood there and continued to actually hold us
and continued to tell something.
And when he said, “Well, will you come back to me?
Come sometime in the summer “,
we said: “Well, of course, we’ll come”
he said: “You know, only get really, and not like everyone else.”
And our heart just caught us
because we felt that we are doing not just some kind of media, some history,
and for many people we are the same people,
who were not afraid to do something
and so we can talk to them at some one level.
MN: All our heroes are strangers.
Oddities are not because they are, in fact, such
but because they are perceived in their place so.
That is, in this community, where they are,
they are like the other planets.
People are usually very skeptical about some new beginnings,
but usually these eccentrics then become the main motivator
in order to make certain changes in this place.
For example, we have a story about Transcarpathia:
tea-house, where until recently, always
tourists were treated with tea bags,
and, in principle, it suits everyone,
but there was a tea-mill where they began to collect herbs
and do both local tea and others.
And people very much encouraged them to
in order to change, in fact, in its place the rules of the game.
They began to collect herbs in Transcarpathia
and also to make such a tea.
Or cycling, which once was a Soviet grain storage facility,
and when people began to make a cycling cottage from him,
very skeptical before being treated because they thought:
“Well, who will go there? There are rats running, there is dirty.”
And in fact people went
and now it turns out that in this village
half of the population, in principle, works on this bicycle place:
that is, someone plays, someone is a cook, somebody is doing something at night.
And it turns out that people who start to do
then pull up the others.
BLL: So do not be afraid of changes
and act as your heart tells you.
Good luck!
(Applause)
”
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