Yuriy Zirchenko
“They bring up Janizary there”
Yuriy was born to a family of former political prisoners punished for participation in the anti-Soviet resistance movement. His father, who came from Zhytomyr oblast, survived the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as a child. Fleeing from starvation, a five-year-old together with his younger brothers crossed the Soviet-Polish border and came to Rivne town (then Poland). He worked at a farm there. When the war started, he joined the UPA [the Ukrainian Insurgent Army]. Soviet authorities arrested the father when he attempted an illegal crossing of the Soviet-Slovakian border; though he was a minor, they sentenced him to eight years in GULAG correctional labour camps.
Yuriy’s mother also was sentenced to seven years in correctional labour camps for having supported the Ukrainian resistance movement. His parents met during forced-labour logging in Stalinsk (Novokuznetsk) town in Kemerovo region (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic), where both were serving their sentence in a correctional labour camp. It is where Yuriy was born in 1950. To avoid being separated from the child after it turns two years old, Yuriy’s parents sent him to Western Ukraine with a friend. In several years’ time the family reunited in Lviv.
“THERE ARE TWO REASONS…” – THE RETURN OF A TWO-YEAR-OLD BOY TO UKRAINE
The narrator’s father – Petro Zirchenko, was born on July 20, 1927, in the village of Veselivka, Korosten district, Zhytomyr region. His father died before the Holodomor of 1932-1933, and his mother died during the Holodomor. Together with his brother Volodymyr he reached Rivne, where he found refuge. At the age of fifteen, he joined the insurgents and worked in the kitchen. Later, while distributing campaign leaflets, he was arrested and imprisoned in Dubno. Other prisoners helped him escape. After that, he returned to the forest and later decided to flee to Slovakia. He was arrested for the second time, in 1946, for attempting to cross the border illegally and sent to a labor camp in Stalinsk, Kemerovo region, RSFSR.
The narrator’s mother – Sofiya Zirchenko, from the house of Terletski, was born in 1927 in the village of Ulychno, Drohobych district, Lviv region. After graduating from Drohobych Pedagogical College, she worked as a primary school teacher in the village of Dobrohostiv. She kept in touch with the UPA – “she passed food, some notes, passed something orally to someone – it was through her. And at the elections, she was given the task to put up leaflets in the village against, of course, Soviet candidates for deputies – and she did it.” After that, on September 13, 1946, she was arrested and on February 15, 1946, sent to Siberia – to a labor camp in Stalinsk.
Anna Chaban, from the Chernivtsi region, worked with Sofiya Zirchenko on a logging camp. Imprisoned for her religious beliefs, she was released in 1952 and, at the request of a friend, took out her son, Yuriy Zirchenko. In January 2019, the respondent was able to search for Anna’s relatives; she died in 1986. Anna Chaban’s family recounted to Mr. Yuriy the memories of his rescuer about the road, about the train station, about how she later came and looked for him in Truskavets and dreamed of adopting him.
(photo: Yuriy Zirchenko after arriving in his grandmother’s garden)
The respondent’s parents met in the camp: “Well, they already met there, because they worked at the logging, they were in that zone. There were some barracks – women’s barracks, separated, and other barracks – for men. And there were joint works at the wood felling. “After the choir was organized in the camp, Petro Zirchenko was appointed as a leader of the choir – “My mother was a chorister, my father was the leader of the choir, that’s where they met, and in 1950 I was born there.” Before the witness turned two years old, his mother agreed with her friend Anna Chaban that Anna would take the boy to Ukraine – “There are two reasons why we had to be returned [to Ukraine] – we would either be sent to boarding schools so that parents would never find us, or we would have died of the disease – the mortality of children in the camps was very high. “
At the Lviv railway station in 1952, Anna Chaban passed Yuriy Zirchenko to his grandmother: “Grandma was a stranger to me at that time, we arrived at the train station, and the stranger said – You are going with this woman. And I didn’t want to go anywhere with that old woman – Mother, I will stay with you – I already called Anna Chaban my mother”.
MOTHER’S RETURN FROM SIBERIA – CANDY PILLOWS AND POSTCARDS WITH A GOAT
A year after Yuriy’s return, in 1953, his mother Sofiya Zirchenko returned. She came to Truskavets, to the grandmother.
The respondent does not remember the moment of the meeting, but remembers the episode from home: “My mother brought a lot of sweets. The pillow candies they were called. In a large volume, there were a lot of those pillows. [These were] caramels sprinkled with sugar. Indeed, those were small candy pillows, sprinkled with sugar, square. But there were many of them, it was a great luxury. She brought some postcards… There was a little poem for each card. I remember a goat on the postcard. (tongue twister) “Goat the flour grinder, whose flour did you grind? And whose flour you did not grind? From the one whose flour goat ground, the goat received custard pie. From those for whom he did not grind, he got a bash on the bonce”.
(photo: Mila Terletska and Sofia Zirchenko, 1950s)
Petro Zirchenko returned from prison in 1954. After returning, in 1960-1962, he studied at the Polytechnic Institute at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, but after four courses, he never graduated.
Mr. Yuriy knew that his parents were imprisoned like him, but this topic was not discussed in the family: “They did not tell anyone about it, because it was taboo. I knew they were prisoners. This topic was forbidden, even in the family. After the 90’s we spoke freely but after the 90’s my parents got old… and so did I – there was no time.”
In the 1970s Yuriy Zirchenko began his studies at the Faculty of Geology of Ivan Franko Lviv State National University. After that he served in the tank regiment in Ovruch, Zhytomyr region: “I did not drink, I performed my duties, I was persuaded for six months to stay in the staff. And I had a dream to go somewhere… Transbaikalia, Sayan Mountains, Yakutia – that’s what happened, I resigned and we went to Transbaikalia.”
After the army, together with a classmate he began to travel and look for work. They arrived in Chyta, in the main territorial department of geology of the Trans-Baikal district. They found out that the headquarters would be formed only in the fall, so the guys decided to explore the Taiga on their own by the fall: After the trip, they decided to try to get a job in the Department of Geology in Yakutsk: “When we went to the main department of geology in Yakutsk, the chief geologist, we went to his office, told him who we were, that we served in the army, graduated from Lviv University. It [the university] was respected. He says, “Let’s go.” A huge office, a map of Yakutia on the whole wall: “There is coal in the south, here is Western Yakutia – here are diamonds, here is gold, rare metal, behind the Arctic Circle, a rare metal deposit, exploration is underway, are you interested?”.
After expeditions to Yakutia, the narrator returned to Lviv, where he was offered a position as a junior researcher at the Faculty of Geology. In parallel with his work, he studied in graduate school and prepared a dissertation: “It was around 1984. And I was expelled from the university. And I already had a dissertation ready, the articles were published, I passed all the candidate exams, it was possible to do the final variant and defend the thesis. ” He was fired from the university for being careless in making a remark during the break: “Sooner or later the empire will fall apart, no empire will last forever, and this one will fall apart.” After that, on the next day, he was summoned to the KGB, where the secretary of the party commission said: “Yura, write a statement, calmly, without any scandals, we will release you.”
PUBLIC ACTIVITY IN INDEPENDENT UKRAINE
In 1990 he joined the Ukrainian Republican Party of Levko Lukyanenko. During the August 1991 coup, he was in the Kherson region with fellow party members, where he talked to local residents and imposed cooperation between the West and the East of Ukraine: “The URP traveled all over Ukraine. An oblast was assigned to each district organization. They rented a bus, traveled, talked to people, told how we live in the West, what our views are, shared with people.”
During this period, unions of political prisoners and repressed people were also established, Yuriy Zirchenko became a member of the Lviv Regional Union of Political Prisoners of Ukraine, and later – a deputy of the regional council.
Хто записував: Бліхарська Ліана
Де: Львів, Україна
Коли: 20 травня 2021 року
Хто працював над записом: оператор Томаш Ґажинський
Проєкт: «Втрачене дитинство»
Інституція: Меморіальний музей тоталітарних режимів «Територія терору»
Біографію підготувала: Ольга Муха
