Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

Sweet Darusya

control over the people. And since the past autumn, from the time the Poles, beaten by the Germans, withdrew from that land, more precisely, from September 17 in 1939, in the Cheremoshne reflected as in a mirror across the river, the Soviets maintained control. They, to Mykhailo’s surprise, in that year celebrated Christmas and Easter on the same day as on this side of the river. …Mykhailo sits on the dam and, if not for the first time, looks with mute hostility, and, perhaps even with wrath to the other side of the water, where everything can be seen as though it was in the palm of his hand, and without binoculars. How much is there of that river? A frog can jump across from this side, especially when the

river grows shallow, and the frog wants to scratch himself on a stone on the other side. In two particularly shallow places, there, where the stone is visible above the long-maned wave, striped border poles guard over the river, one of which the Soviets recently changed, but it was almost the same as during Polish rule, just more rickety, because it wasn’t very well fastened. From time to time on both sides of the shores in unhurried steps the border guards with carbinesmeasure the gravelly sand, silently glancing at one another across the water as they pass each other on duty. Although, if you want to be totally and entirely exact, then on this Romanian, side, it’s not so simple for those who want to reach the river at this spot fromwhichMykhailo

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