Trubaitsi

The village and the boloto

Vlada: 'I would come here all the time in summer, in winter, in autumn, for school holidays, in spring. This village is so connected to nature, and I was so connected to nature here. There is a river on one side of the village, a forest on another side of the village, and boloto, wetlands, right by my house. It takes one minute to get from the house to the wetlands, to boloto, where I spent most of my time. I thought that behind the reeds, where the water and the lakes are, there would be nature spirits: rusalkas, mavkas.'

How the boloto has changed

The boloto has become smaller, because parts of it have been taken for growing crops, and it was damaged by fire early in 2025.

Vlada: 'To my eye it's not as beautiful as it could have been without the fire. We used to have reeds that were higher than me, and really beautiful trees here, and the frogs would be croaking, and the birds would be singing. But it's still amazing and I'm so so glad to be here.'

Interview with a spirit

Vlada: 'Coming here with my two British friends, I feel like I'm being interviewed as Rusalka, as a nature spirit, by people with microphones, cameras, phones. And it is a really interesting feeling, because I do feel like I belong to this place, and so connected with this nature. It's an honour, actually, talking about boloto, about wetlands, about forests and about Ukrainian relations with nature spirits.

'We also had some air spirits tonight, but those spirits were not as nice.'

Demons in the night

Marek: 'In the middle of the night, I'm thinking that's a really loud noise, and yeah, I know what it is. When you're a little kid, you're scared of things that, as they say, go bump in the night. This is very different. It's real. I found myself thinking of what it must be like to hear that sound getting louder, and to think that it actually could be coming for you.'

What I heard was a succession of drones passing overhead, and in the morning I was woken by the sound of cruise missiles exploding in the city of Kremenchuk 90km away. I went straight out to the boloto and recorded the peaceful sounds of the countryside that you can hear at the beginning of our video.

In a safe place, but not at peace

Vlada: 'I remember the beginning of the full-scale invasion, when I was about to go to the UK, I came to Trubaitsi to say goodbye to my granny, to my place. We have this part of the village called Kupalnia; meadows and river and open space. I went to walk there, and I heard the air siren from the nearby village. That was really surreal – that place where you grew up, running with friends, cycling with friends, swimming in the river, herding cows, going for walks, and then just that surreal sound.

'We always talk about safe places in Ukraine, but even in those safe places you will still hear the sounds and explosions and sirens, and you can't really feel truly relaxed and at peace here.'

Don't tell us to give this up

Vlada: 'I also think about all those territories that are now occupied, about other girls and boys growing up there and going to their own forests, spending time with their grandparents, having their festivals, and I imagine that all being taken from them. 

To foreigners who argue that territories should be given up in order to get a peace settlement:
'Just tell me which of your territories we need to give them. You want to give them your house? You're very, very [expletive deleted] welcome. Don't make us give our childhood and our families and our houses and our fields and our bolotos,  because something's wrong with this. A lot of things are so wrong with this.'