Congratulations on the Independence Day of Ukraine

Ukraine..

Independent Ukraine..

How we want it to be just like that…

How we want not to lose our own, native, special.

How we want everyone in the world to not think of raped and crushed villages full of tears and grief when they hear the word Ukraine.

We want everyone, without exception, to hear the words Ukraine, and storks with their chicks, and this little white house, which protects our roots, which welcomes us hospitably with clean windows and children’s laughter, does not get lost in the midst of super-modern buildings. a motanka doll, and an embroidered towel with images, and a spinning wheel with a craftswoman, and an oven with a wedding loaf, and next to it a forge with a stocky craftsman, and songs and the language of a nightingale…

We want the word Ukraine to bring to mind the taste of borscht, banushka, halushok, varenyki, gambovtsiv, vereshchak, shpundra, vergun, pundyk… to varenukha, hrinivka, kantabas…

Eh, what a high price we are paying for all this now…

Congratulating you on INDEPENDENCE DAY on behalf of the board of the NGO “Association for the Development of Rural Green Tourism in Ukraine”, we address our community and bow low to all of you who now preserve the values ​​that identify us as Ukrainians, to all of you who hold the ethnic front.

You are also fighters, also heroes, because you do not allow the tree of our family to be destroyed.

Peace, good and INDEPENDENT UKRAINE to all of us.

Illustration by Victoria Protsiv.