Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

Maria Matios

glares like a wolf. Beyond the meadow, where the people’s livestock grazes, along the steep, sheer precipice rises a really long dam – a fortification, constructed from good river stone from times when this side was still Austrian, partitioning off the meadows from the water. More precisely, it’s not even like that. The dam doesn’t so much partition off, as it supports the steep cliff that sharply demarcates the village boundaries ten meters from the border. Old folks say that the fortifications were built over an entire year, and then it took them a long time after that to fill in and even out the place between the cliff and the dam, where bushes now bend under the wind and livestock grazes. The dam beneath the cliff till now

doubly protects the greater part of Cheremoshne from floods, whereas on the other side suddenly rising water often floods the gardens and even houses. But the opposite shore is more gently sloping, more of a plain, and therefore it’s harder for the dam to keep the water away from it. But maybe, simply, there’s no one to organize a good effort. The Austrian dam on the Romanian side was not only old, well packed and reinforced, but for some reason had an unusual – arched form. From the other side of the river it was reminiscent of a somewhat deformed horseshoe that was bent a little from each side. They say that the gazda who organized its construction here was at one time not only a great landowner – a

124