‘Ukraine is magnificence itself’:  Bosnian author Faruk Šehić’s journeys journey to Odesa

In Odesa, I grew to become conversant in plenty of medical phrases. They included “tourniquet”, “HALO chest seal” (a sophisticated dressing for unhealthy chest wounds) and “BIG” (bone injection gun).

Such issues are of nice significance for a severely wounded soldier on the battlefield. As soon as through the Bosnian struggle [in which the author fought], I improvised a tourniquet with my long-sleeved shirt. It stopped the bleeding of a person hit within the thigh by a 120mm grenade that had not detonated. The projectile was so small that it had handed by way of the roof, a prefab panel and two concrete slabs (the scene is described in my e-book “Below Stress”, Pod Pritiskom). When one other man, Ćerim, was severely wounded within the chest we didn’t have a specialised patch however we did have a very good group of paramedics, corresponding to Enes Hasanagić, in my unit. This was in direction of the top of the struggle in 1995.

In Odesa, we delivered white waterproof physique baggage for the corpses and neoprene drysuits with boots. Part of Kherson was flooded by the Dnieper after the destruction of the Khakovka dam.

A weak point of the written phrase is that it can’t totally characterize the fact one skilled for a number of days in Ukraine. However it’s nonetheless value making an attempt to place that actuality into language.

As soon as over the border between Poland and Ukraine from the Korczowa-Krakovets border crossing, on the huge freeway I really feel an incredible sense of calm pervade me. A calmness that towers over us, simply because the bushes towered over the highway. Every thing in Ukraine appears totally different, although Poland was comparable in so some ways. We journey quick by way of the Ukrainian panorama, and the sights rushed by at lightning velocity.

It could have been the greenery, the lushness and the dimensions of the bushes, cities, villages, rivers and lakes that made me really feel extra immersed in actuality than if I had been in Berlin or Sarajevo; or it could have been that magnificence actually is within the eye of the beholder. However Ukraine is magnificence itself. It obtained into my eyes and into my reminiscence. It actually was love at first sight. We keep in a single day at a roadside inn within the small city of Zoločiv, close to Lviv. Within the night it rained like God himself had despatched it, and within the morning we set off once more in direction of our vacation spot.

I jotted down some ideas about Ukraine within the notes on my telephone whereas we had been there:

“Even earlier than I set out, I knew what awaited me in a war-torn land. When you expertise that, it stays with you ceaselessly. A compass, a tool to navigate in an uncommon actuality. It’s deep inside you and activates itself when needed. Individuals who observe struggle on their cell phone and laptop computer screens suppose {that a} nation at struggle is in a magical, distorted state the place horror reigns repeatedly and all over the place (as in Bakhmut). This isn’t completely true, however there may be admittedly a modicum of reality there.

The distinction is made by the context. While you stroll the streets of Odesa, you’re acutely conscious that your life might finish at any second, that supersonic rockets might fall on you. When you find yourself there and also you see that life, like a plant, is decided to withstand all adversities, you realise that this additionally happens in locations with out struggle, like Berlin or Sarajevo. However it’s exactly this struggle context that decrees the upcoming hazard of life. Solely in struggle can one perceive the worth, the fragility and the nullity of life.

I breathe naturally in Ukraine, my coronary heart is extra at peace than in Berlin. It was a paradox I anticipated. But my companion is fearful about behave if a scenario arises that arouses struggle trauma in me. However one thing else occurs: a standard acceptance of the state of struggle. As a result of in these conditions I understand how to be wise and keep away from waking the sleeping canine. You may enter the identical river twice, as a result of struggle is identical river.”

It’s unusual to have a look at what individuals publish on social networks: you see totally different realities the place issues are perceived in several methods. The truth past the Ukrainian borders was alien to me. It isn’t that I really feel contempt for strange human aspirations, however I see their banality extra clearly. Within the face of mortal hazard all the pieces turns into secondary to survival.

In fact, on my first evening in Odesa, I imagined a rocket getting into proper by way of my window. However these rockets are made in such a means that they might wipe out the whole lodge constructing if that had been to occur. So I ended imagining my dying and fell asleep peacefully. My good friend Kathrin went to mattress with headphones on in order to not hear the rockets and drones. She had extra braveness than I did: she was afraid, however persevered nonetheless. Through the struggle within the Nineteen Nineties I conquered worry in the same means and discovered to manage it.

In Ukraine all the pieces works, there is no such thing as a signal of chaos or disorganisation. And sure, the struggle is in its second yr, however the cleanli…