lost childhood

Oleksiy Zakharkiv

“I thought Siberia was my homeland”

 

He was born on October 19, 1944, in the village of Uhortsi. He was the youngest child in the family.

 

The family of Zakharkiv Ivan (born in 1886) and Matrona (born in 1900), from the Demkovych family, had six children: Vasyl (born in 1925), Mariya (born in 1929), Melaniya (born in 1934), Mykola (born in 1931), Fedor (born in 1937) and Oleksiy. In the village, Ivan Zakharkiv “worked as head of the mill because we had two water mills in the village.” During the war, he was in forced labor in Austria.

 

During the raid on the hideout, which was located in the yard, the eldest son Vasyl was killed – due to the encirclement of the hideout and lack of opportunity to get out. The insurgents committed suicide:

 

“At that time, the [military] didn’t believe yet. During those days they were constantly, well, burning all the straw and hay, smoking them out. My mother, she had to go there [into hiding] three times, and when she came there for the third time, when she came in there, she said that there was no one there, those guys had already shot themselves. They already, she said that Vasyl was sitting like that against the wall with a pistol, he had a small pistol and already…”

 

After that, Ivan Zakharkiv was arrested, and in October the same happened to the whole family:

“And that’s why in the [19]47th our whole family was taken to Zolochiv on October 24 in [19]47 and settled in a freight train, and for, well, maybe, I can’t say for sure but up to a month? They were taking us to Siberia.”

 

They were brought to Prokopyevsk, Kemerovo region.

COMMANDANT

 

In special settlements, everyone who was on the eviction list, except for children, had to confirm their presence in the settlement every month at the commandant’s office:

“And when we were there in Prokopyevsk, there was always a commandant above us – a captain, well, his rank was, something like the captain of the NKVD. And every month the people who were, you, they, we went to a special commandant’s office, and every month the people who already had 10 years had to go and sign that they were still in special resettlement.”

The commandant also had the right to grant permission to change residence:

“And that commandant came to my mother and said, “You weren’t brought here for the state to feed you. I suggest you go to the village, you will be able to cope there sooner.”

 

ADDRESS

 

After arriving in Siberia, his parents began to get sick, so they could not get a job. Mykola’s older brother went to work in the mine, but he was soon injured, and the family was left without means of subsistence – “and we, well, five, five children and our parents, well, had no means of subsistence.” After receiving permission to relocate to the village, “we moved to the Guriv district, the village of Novopesteri [Novopesterevo].”

The family moved several times:

“The first year we were staying at… Baliasnikova, she lived with a child, and she had a room there, those buildings were wooden. And even the roof was wooden, they couldn’t… And when they, we, I remember in the winter, cows already had calves, and they then, then took the calf to the house and kept in the house. And we were all here, there were so many of us, and there was a small room, maybe 3 by 4, I don’t know, there was a stove and I don’t know how was it possible to live there.”;

“Then for the second year, they sent us to a small settlement, 12 kilometers from the village. What is a small settlement? It was a separate house, which used to be a grain storehouse, and people lived there so they didn’t go to the village. And so we were sent to that house. […] Then they kept sheep there, and we took care of the sheep. And in the summer, the brigade came there and they spent nights there”;

 

“And later we moved to the village, there was a house, well, I think it was a house that, apparently, in Siberia, they were also de-kulakizing quickly during Soviet times, like that. Because it was a solid house, and there in that house lived five families, but some also lived in one room, two or three families together. But we were given a separate room there.”

In 1950, in the small settlement, Ivan Zakharkiv died – “and he was taken to the village and he buried in the village in the cemetery there, in Novopester.”

AT SCHOOL

 

Oleksiy Zakharkiv went to the first grade in Novopesterevo, then in 1955 he went to the fourth grade in Gorskino, and when one of his sisters got married and started living in Prokopyevsk, he moved in with her and continued his studies in the senior classes. One of his brightest childhood memories are connected with the school:

 

“And on…, when I went to school, I went to the first grade probably, I think. And we needed costumes for the New Year tree celebration, for the New Year. And they dressed me in a Ukrainian embroidered shirt, they gave me that belt, what’s the name for it. And I went to, to the… The school was big, and I should mention that it turned out the school was built on the site of the church. There were absolutely no churches there. There was maybe one church in the whole region, there was one church in Prokopivsk, where there were two or three hundred people, and Kisilovsk was nearby, where there were mines, so they did it. And [my fondest memory is] when I got the first place there for the costume.”

 

Everyone spoke Russian at school and on the street. The parents taught the Ukrainian language to the children by themselves:

“I learned the Ukrainian language only from my parents, I, I still don’t know the literary language, because I didn’t study Ukrainian at school. And what I learned from my parents, my parents were using some Polish words, some of the words people were speaking here. And when I, which is interesting, when I came from Siberia and went with my relatives to… we went to the club. And, and I started speaking Ukrainian, I thought it was normal, and they started looking at me like I was talking like the older people do, but I didn’t know, I didn’t know how to…”

UPON RETURN

 

In 1958, family members were deregistered at a special settlement. Four years later, in 1962, Oleksiy and his mother came to Lviv.

Matrona Zakharkiv told the children about the Motherland and stressed the need to return:

 

“She constantly emphasized that I have no right to stay here and that I have to go to my homeland, to go home, because I… And all those brothers and sisters, they were too. They, in fact, well, more or less, they knew about Ukraine, and I was 3 years old, I knew nothing. I, I did, I had that, I perceived Siberia as my Motherland, I grew up there.”

 

When living in Ukraine, Oleksiy mentally returns to the places of his childhood, as well as the burial places of his loved ones:

 

“And when I came here to Ukraine, and I also had nostalgia for the time I was there. I should say I would like to go there even today. Because I even have, I have a niece there, I have three nieces who live there, but like, for example, the Germans allow all those relatives of people who died in Germany, every year they allow going to visit graves for free, graves of relatives. So people can visit their relatives, to visit the graves. I would, my brother also stayed in Siberia, my father stayed in Siberia. And I know where they are buried, but the graves are definitely gone. So I would like to go there, but how would I do that.”

 

Even before the Russian-Ukrainian war, he managed to visit his brother, who remained there several times:

 

“I had… There was another guy, he was from Volyn. Then we went to the same class with him, his name was Vladyk. We, and they stayed there in Siberia. I used to visit my brother in the village when he was still alive. And his wife was still alive, and I met him, we met. It was just after the New Year, and they came to his house, and his mother and father were still alive, and they started asking me about Ukraine, and I started caroling for them, and they cried. And that nostalgia remained in them for the rest of their lives, although they stayed to live there… “

Хто записував: інтерв’юерка Бліхарська Ліана

Де: місто Львів

Коли: 23 липня 2021 року

Хто працював над записом: операторка Наталя Хасанчин

Проєкт: «Пам’ять України»

Інституція: Меморіальний музей тоталітарних режимів «Територія терору»

Біографію підготувала: Ольга Муха