In the spring of 2023, there was an opportunity to travel to Ukraine with a group of people from the Carpathian Society. I decided to go despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.
It was my way into the past, following the footsteps of places described so many times on the basis of photos, imagined so many times - a return to the past. I thought that if I could touch even individual details from the past, reach even one place, it would be a success. I didn't have high expectations, maybe because it was mainly about this expedition ending happily, after all, there is a war, I'm going where there is war, where people are dying, for real.
I prepared for this search - I printed brochures with archival photos typical of the places I hoped to find. I wanted to have these images in front of my eyes and try to superimpose them on what I found there.
This was achieved on an unexpected scale - I reached all the places and was met with great kindness from local people who helped me a lot.
The story of my search ended with a magical journey to the "places found" during a trip to Ukraine in August 2023. Indeed, this touching of places, views and emotions encountered there closed the stage of many years of writing down the history of my family, in the name of my spiritual need so that the fate of my ancestors would not be lost, because I could not allow it.
This was my life's journey, it will never happen again because I have no more stories like this to discover. Wherever I may go again, to the farthest corners of the world, there will never be such a journey lasting only nine days again.
The report from this trip is available in e-book form here
Below are boards presenting archival photos from the archive compared to places visited in 2023.
The map below shows the location of Horodenka - the author's hometown, visited during this trip to Ukraine in August 2023.
