Sparky's Notebook - Writing.Com

Nov 15, 2025 at 5:41am

RIP
Whatever “side” it is so utterly sad the cost of war. Oh the humanity indeed
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AAHUXgsyv/?mibextid=wwXIfr
The war unleashed by Russia took the life of Natalia Khodimchuk - the wife of the first victim of the Chernobyl disaster Valery Khodemchuk, a woman who carried through life love, loss and nezlamníst

It is with deep sadness and sincere sorrow that we announce the death of Natalia Domanivna Khodimchuk, wife of the first victim of the Chernobyl disaster Valery Khodemchuk, mother, grandmother, woman of a great heart and great destiny.

She passed away on the night from November 14 to 15, without surviving the severe consequences of the "shaheda" strike on a residential building in Trinity.
Mrs. Natalia was 73 years old.

We bow our heads in front of her loving memory, her path, her resilience.
Our sincere condolences to the family and friends who have lost the most precious person. We wish the family strength and resilience to survive this loss, and warm memories of Natalia Domanivna let add support and light.

During Russia's massive missile-drone attack on Kyiv on the night of November 14, a shahed hit a house in Troeshchyna, where former employees of the CHAES and their families lived. The locals called it "Chernobyl", or "Station House".

Here lived and Natalia Domanivna Khodimchuk - the widow of Valeriy Khodemchuk, the senior operator of the main circulation pump of the 4th energy block of the Chernobyl, the first victim of the 1986 crash. Valery Illich's body was never found.

Natalia Domanívnu was quickly transported to the care center on m. Chernihiv. Her apartment burnt to the ground.
On the same day, representatives of the organization "Ray 5/2" and the Zelentsovy family arrived to the hospital. They managed to talk to Mrs. Natalia - despite the serious condition, 45% of the burns of the body she was conscious and held on courageously.

On the night of November 14 to 15, her heart stopped.

November 25, Natalia Domanívna had to go to Pripât for a photo session within the project "Chernobyl: Women's Destiny" to the 40th anniversary of the tragedy.
A year ago, we recorded the story of Mrs. Natalia - now it has special value.
We lost a woman who went through Chernobyl hell, lost her husband, raised children, endured tragedies that could break anyone. But not hers. Natalia Domanívna lived with dignity, love and a quiet power that inspires everyone who knew her personally or through her story.

Comment

Sparky

Aug 22, 2024 at 7:52am • Edited

I am still alive.

And as in the rumours and rumblings of war, so it is when a mothballed writer feels that stirring. Has it been a has been? A failure? A dream?

And the research even more inaccessible than ever - the madness of brother against brother in Ukraine and and Russia.
It is said these are only brothers when passed out on the floor.

Feel the past gobbling us up, generations flashing past like Yaniv train carriages. Our memories lost as vapour from the last cup of tea.

Even more the need, urgent need, to cast these glimpses of before to record.

But, as Ecclesiastes holds, is it all vanity?

Comment

Sparky

Mar 6, 2022 at 12:38pm • Edited

An article everyone should read

Kyivan-Rus -
Why the invasion of Ukraine matters to us all and our freedom everywhere

https://www.facebook.com/676168863/posts/10159751691183864/?d=n

The article seems to be behind a paywall. So.... here is an excerpt

Students of Russian and Ukrainian literature could have seen Putin coming
Russian Slavophile ideology continues to confront Westernization.

By Debra Romanick Baldwin

1:30 AM on Mar 6, 2022

Many people might be watching the horrific news from Ukraine and wondering: Why? Why would Putin gratuitously invade an independent country and its capital Kyiv in the face of a united world condemning his actions — actions that, even if he is militarily successful, will result in the ruin of his economy, the strengthening of the opposition within his own country, and the universal condemnation by all decent countries and people of the world? No one believes his claim that Russia, a nuclear power, is actually threatened by Ukraine, a peaceful country that openly and deliberately gave up its own nuclear arms for peace.

Here is where reading 19th-century literature and grasping one historical fact can offer insights that political commentary and news coverage alone cannot.

There is a paradox at the center of this region’s long and complicated history: the principality of Kyiv, or “Kyivan Rus’,” was a separate state founded in the 10th century, well before the creation of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1283. Yet it was Moscow that later appropriated the name, changing “Rus” into “Russia,” and expanding across Eurasia to create the Russian Empire. The Russian Empire took the city of Kyiv by force in the late 17th century.

Kyiv, one of the largest and most cultured cities in 10th century Europe, was also the cradle of Christianity in the region when its Grand Prince Vladimir I converted in 988. It holds a unique importance for the Eastern Christian Churches — Ukrainian Catholic, Ukrainian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox and others.

That fact is important when we turn to a 19th-century writer to help make sense of Putin’s seemingly irrational war: Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was a leading proponent, or as some called him, the prophet, of the Russian Slavophile movement. The Slavophiles were Russian nationalists hostile to “Europeanism,” as Dostoevsky referred to it, seeking instead to strengthen Russian…
See link for full article or refer to publication The Dallas Morning News

• 1 comment

Comment

Kåre เลียม Enga

Mar 6, 2022 at 2:48pm

Although I think history helps understand conflicts like the Catholic/Calvinists in Ireland and Catholic/Orthodox in Croatia/Serbia it all comes down to splitters wanting a fight (or being left alone) while lumpers want to unite (or subjugate). Brexit/EU and US/NATO splits (attempted under the previous US president) comes to mind. Few people rarely want war, but they'll sure support it!

and

have stated their neutrality and with all due respect this IS another European War. And very much a Christian War (The Ukrainian Orthodox split from the Russian Patriarchy in 2019) that in some ways does not involve those of us who are not Christian.

The War in Ukraine though does upend stability and although isolationists (like here in Montana) oppose any involvement the globalization of knowledge (google), social media (facebook etc), markets, travel, cellphones (eyewitness updates) does not allow anyone anywhere to remain unaffected (untouched) by current events.

At risk: the right to a national identity. In the US this applies to Hawai'i and Puerto Rico, in Spain to Catalonia, in the Balkans to Kosovo, in Morroco to the Sahrawi, in Asia to Taiwan. These conflicts are uneffected (not settled).

Thanks for posting on the Newsfeed, Sparky.