For those who live close to Romania’s border with Ukraine current times are just a figment of a more complicated history “There’s more of a panic with y’all in Romania than over at ours!,” Viorica laughs She’s one of the peddlers who’ve come in from Chernivtsi to sell their merch at the weekly market in Vicovu de Sus This is a town in Suceava County located right next to the Ukrainian border It’s not the first time we hear this on our trip through the villages that line the border We’ve come here to see what the locals have to say about the Russian-Ukrainian crisis and meet the Ukrainian Hutsuls in the mountainous parts of Bukovina Before our arrival to Vicovu de Sus, there was already talk in the local press of a Romanian Army military convoy having crossed Suceava County of the military camp set up over the past few days in Suharău commune a village in Botoșani County also located on the Romanian border with Ukraine as well as of an American Black Hawk helicopter that had flown over the Siret customs point and landed in a nearby field.  Yet the atmosphere at the Vicovu market is somewhat more relaxed people have come here to buy or sell merchandise The war doesn’t seem to be a subject of great interest to them you discover that their life stories reflect the area's complicated history in one way or another These people understand full well the consequences of war and the ways in which community and family structures alter alongside borders It has the reputation of a well-off town (where “unemployment remains a mystery”) but also of a frontier hotbed teeming with black market cigarette networks (drones play their part in this).  you get the sensation you’re downtown in a big city not in a remote corner of Bukovina; everything here vibrates and shines like brand new as if an entrepreneurial genie had descended upon this place simultaneously with the cigarette-stuffed drones where you can get a Flat White and a halloumi burger and the Spartan fast-food restaurant and approach the market lined with hundreds of stalls loaded with wares SUVs and horse-drawn carts parked all in the same spot This whole ruckus is enveloped in folk music and the smoke coming off the grills which seems to expand all the way to Ukraine You can quickly tell the Ukrainians apart by their merch (and sometimes their head scarves) The colorful labels on the bottles and cans and the bags of braided yellow cheese all catch your eye a spirited woman, currently appeasing a suspicious customer questioning the quality of her sausages I’ve been selling and eating these here for ten years stepping back with her arms outstretched like a performer at the end of a show He buys the sausages and scurries away in silence in the same tone she uses to reprimand her customers “I’ll have you know the situation over in our country [Ukraine] is very good he’s got no business in these here parts.” There's two types of merchants here: those who live in Ukraine and only come to Romania for the markets and those who moved over the past 10-15 years and settled permanently in Vicovu (they swing between the two countries; they visit their relatives in Ukraine and also buy their wares there) The woman in her forties lives in Vicovu but hasn’t lost her connection with Ukraine “People in Romania are more stressed out because of this war It was the same when this whole epidemic started: in Romania people were completely lost How should I put this… People aren’t as fearful there Let me tell you what has changed: the situation has changed ‘cause everything’s become more expensive no one’s going to go there,” says a voice from the adjoining stall a retiree from a neighboring village who’s come here to do her shopping She was born in Romania and has lived here her entire life “Don’t you see that these Russians are doing military exercises at sea I don’t think they went there for no reason And I’ll have you know I’m prepared to help my brothers everyone’s going to be running for their lives And we have two houses and my sister who lives in Austria called me up and told me to prepare the keys to the other house Somewhere at one end of the market, some older locals If the market was the scene of an ancient tragedy I don’t think there’s going to be a war… So long as our guys don’t meddle with it…,” says Ion “We pray to God that nothing happens,” adds Ecaterina It’s not as if they ask you anything beforehand They kick you in the behind and that’s that because if there’s peace you know you can go out and hoe your fields without a care “All it takes is one nuke and you’re finished you start crawling like a bug,” another merchant intervenes “Just let God make the world’s bigshots wisen up and make peace but I’m telling you they’re not that tough You don’t go on holiday anymore–and those are for the youth anyway– ‘Cause those Russians sure are stubborn–didn’t you see on TV they want to take out all that stuff from [the NATO camp at] Deveselu “The Americans butted in here and now they’re at each other’s throats and we’re the ones who have to suffer,” Ion mutters after a few minutes' silence Let them mind their own business in America.” The market is about to end for the day and we start off not before exchanging a few words with Mirela a dairy producer who lives in a village 15 kilometers away from Vicovu She has us taste sheep’s cheese and cow curds then takes out her phone and gestures to us to hold on a little while longer All these things were known beforehand–epidemics everything must happen as it was prophesied,” she says while scrolling through her phone Matthew 24: You will hear of wars and rumors of wars There will be famines and earthquakes in various places All these are the beginning of birth pains.” Though the sky stays cloudy for the rest of the morning and a bouncy song is pulsating in the background (love is more beautiful than I thought it could be) some kids on bikes make their way down muddied paths an old man is pushing a cartwheel carrying a dog cage and other one makes you an offer for some New Balance sneakers.  Translated from the Romanian by Ioana Pelehatăi. Read the original here Photographer. Together with Ioana Cîrlig, he is documenting Post-Industrial Stories and Fairies Acest site web folosește cookie-uri prin intermediul cărora se stochează și se prelucrează informații, în scopul îmbunătățirii experienței dumneavoastră. Mai multe detalii aici The hieromonks of Putna Monastery commemorated last Saturday the thousands of Romanians massacred at Varnița (Fântâna Albă) on April 1 in the so-called “Romanian Katyn” onslaught The service was held at the “People’s Golgotha – Fântâna Albă” Memorial Portal The monastery fathers were joined by clergymen from Putna village representatives of the following institutions laid wreaths: Putna Town Hall “Ion Nistor” Vicovu de Sus Technological High School the Association Suceava branch of the Romanian Orthodox Christian Students’ Association A song and poetry recital by the vocal-traditional group “Ai lui Ștefan noi oșteni” (“Prince Stephen’s New Servicemen”) from the “Ion Nistor” High School in Vicovu de Sus followed spoke about the transformation of the Fântâna Albă into a mass grave for thousands of Romanians killed because they were in search of their country Melchisedec Velnic presented the message of Mr Secretary of State at the Department for Romanians Abroad is a day of tragic memory for the Romanian people more than 3,000 Romanians were killed at Fântâna Albă when they tried to cross into Romania after the annexation of northern Bukovina by the Soviet Union We will keep alive their memory and the sacrifice they made in order to be forever close to their kindred,” the official said The archimandrite recalled that he has not been able to pray at the massacre site since 2019 Discussions are currently underway to make the Fântâna Albă – Climăuți border crossing The Abbot of Putna reiterated the need for the Fântâna Albă massacre to be included in history textbooks and expressed his hope that a church in memory of the victims could one day be built at the site After the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in 1939 so many families began to cross the new border and come to Romania One such group was made of the thousands massacred at Fântâna Albă on April 1 000 Romanians from Bukovinan villages along the Siret Valley left for Romania: from Pătrăuții de Sus They had decided that they would rather die than live in the Soviet Union Those at the head of the group carried three crosses They told the Soviet authorities that they wanted to leave without taking anything with them When they reached the border they were met with machine-gun fire the wounded who remained alive were thrown into mass graves along with the dead Those who managed to escape were tracked down in the surrounding area around 13,000 families from their villages were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan with only about 10% surviving the deportation April 1 was designated in 2011 as the National Day for Honouring the Memory of Romanians – victims of the massacres from Fântâna Albă and other areas and other forms of repression organized by the Soviet totalitarian regime in Herta County northern Bukovina and the whole of Bessarabia Putna Monastery’s “People’s Golgotha – Fântâna Albă” Memorial Portal was consecrated on July 2 The whole ensemble – including a monumental gate spaces for laying flowers and lighting candles and inscriptions with the names of the martyred villages – has a profound significance and a symbolic message the cross marks a place of sacrifice; placed before the gate it shows that those killed laid their lives in passing towards their beloved Romania which was also a passage to true freedom in God The fountain is the symbol of the life that springs from sacrifice The portal was built by the monastery on the site of a cross erected on April 1 in memory of the Fântâna Albă massacre victims at the initiative of the Romanian Government’s Department for Romanians Abroad the Patriarchate of Jerusalem solemnly celebrated the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women... 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