Women's Information Consultative Center

"Lithuania has already seceded - now it's Ukraine's turn" The Chernobyl disaster called on people from all over the world to somehow join the problem. Valya, a Ukrainian woman who lived in Lithuania for more than twenty years, received the surname Kukenene after marrying a Lithuanian man. She was friends with Nadezhda Samulyak, who worked on the radio, was a co-chair of the Kyiv Union of Ukrainian Women, and actively participated in various good deeds. And so Valya came up with this idea - she went on Lithuanian television and said that she, a Ukrainian, has lived in Lithuania for more than twenty years, knows and loves Lithuanian culture, speaks Lithuanian, but her soul hurts for Ukraine, and in particular for the fact that the Chernobyl problem in Kyiv is no less than in the 30-kilometer zone, but who will rehabilitate a city with a population of more than two million? She asked if people would agree to take in children and families from Kyiv, and in Kyiv she gave the same information on Nadiya radio. The preparation for the summer was full of emotional experiences, because people from all over Lithuania called, told how good it would be to have a rest, said they could come to Vilnius and pick up guests, there were many other details that moved us.

Yes, one collective farm, which still existed in Lithuania at the time, suggested that a whole group come and settle in a kindergarten that closes for the summer. One day Valya called us at home and said - this address is just for you! A hamlet, a museum of booksellers on the farm (when all languages ​​except Russian were banned in the tsarist empire by Valuysky and other decrees, Lithuania developed a system of booksellers who carried books in Lithuanian from West Prussia across the border), and the landlord was excellent. and welcomes guests from Ukraine. Why for us? Because at that time we had just bought our first car - Izhevsk "Muscovite", and to get to Julius (so called owner) without a car was problematic. Only after finishing the courses and driving a car from Moldova, the man decided to drive a thousand kilometers, and we did not regret it. As we approached the administrative border between Belarus and Lithuania (there was no other at the time), we were stopped by Lithuanian police. Then the police were dressed in other, "Lithuanian" caps. My daughter looked at it and said a sacramental phrase that we often remember in the family - Lithuania has already separated - now it's Ukraine's turn.

We smiled, because, although we wanted it with all our hearts, we did not know how long the "Soviet monster" would resist. Staying in Lithuania would be incomplete for us if we did not visit the Mountain of Crosses, which from the XIX century will be filled with crosses of various shapes, materials and sizes. We came to the mountain, bought a small cross, gave it to Nastuni and went to the mountain. They found the place where we wanted to put it and asked our daughter what she wanted to ask for (because the Mountain of Crosses, they say, fulfills wishes). My daughter didn't even think - I want Ukraine to be as independent as Lithuania! It was the end of July 1991… And finally… I wrote a statement to leave the PSA in late November 1991, just before the presidential election. Why? I saw that I was a non-partisan person. In what? That the party already then acquired those features for which we so criticized the Communist Party.

Talks have begun about the need to talk seriously with those party members who do not attend the meeting of primary cells. I did visit, but I said that in Soviet times I tried not to go to trade union meetings, and now you are talking about "party discipline." Is this the purpose of building a party of a new European type? There were other signs of "bureaucratization". However, the latest impetus was the presidential campaign, when two democratic candidates, Chornovil and Lukyanenko, were transformed from allies into allies. On both sides, the staffs sought out and presented arguments and facts that would reduce the chances of each of the candidates winning. My conversations in the party did not yield anything to this topic - the accusations continued, and I decided to leave the party. When I brought a statement to Mr. Mykola Horbal, the head of the city organization, he told me a phrase that I still remember - well, Ms. Olenko, that the time has come when you can apply to leave the party, and it doesn't matter to you. threatens.

Ambiguous phrase… and because it is really good that such times, and because the party saw no other tool to work with personnel than reprimands, expulsions and other repressions, and because the problems of the national democratic movement in Ukraine were already serious and deep that we had and have the opportunity to see to this day. My memoirs contain few grades, not because I didn't have them or not. Estimates are set by life, and sometimes they change even for a short period. The main reason I wrote this is because I really don't like mystification, mythologizing and other "actions". So I tried to remember the facts, my emotional state at the time, our family life, which was closely connected with the desire to gain independence. Ukraine gained independence. Now it is important that we do our best to make it happen indeed with a capital letter - both for us and for the world.