No truce for the Pascal weekend in Ukraine. Even at the rear, the mayor of this city of Bucovina respected the curfew and cautiously celebrated this popular event tinged this year of patriotic fervor.
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“The peace of Christ.” What are the censures that touring around the churches to bless the city and the faithful? A truce ? A resilience weekend? This is Easter in Chernivtsi, west of Ukraine, the most solemn religious holiday in the Orthodox world. Pasca, or Easter bread, taken from the Thursday Saint, has joined the painted eggs (Pyssanka) in the baskets trimmed. It is to whom will present the most beautiful in front of the religious buildings of this beautiful cosmopolitan city, like what was the ex-Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The feast of the Resurrection always takes out of their homes of the millions of Ukrainians, candles by hand. The more Moscow is moving away, the more royal rites are anchored and intense practice. This year, however, even in bucovina, one of the regions saved from the country, habits are upside down. The 23-hour curfew imposed on the 272,000 inhabitants of Chernivtsi prevented them from looking at an entire night pending the cloud of incense on the baskets. The miracle did not take place. Moscow did not accept the triave claimed. Easter Saturday, bombing killed ten people including a baby in Odessa, this city to which Chernivtsi looks so much. The prayers ended early, the hearts were “without joy.”
Two months stack after Russia has invaded Ukraine, the spring has arrived in Chernivtsi. And with him, some glimmers of hope, back to life before. Cherry trees are in bloom. Since Saturday, we trinque again to the terraces of the city. The municipality of this “little Vienna” as it is nicknamed, again authorized the sale of strong alcohols after prohibiting it at the beginning of the war (and sanctioned hard the offenses of the road code by seizing the 4×4 drivers. faults for sending them to the front). “People were drowing their despair in drunkenness,” justifies the Mayor Center-Law of the City, Roman Klichuk. This 49-year-old business leader, who has several distilleries and six restaurants in Chernivtsi, however, made a fortune in the food and dietary distribution. He had been elected in 2020 at the head of the city by attractive artisans and traders, but the war jostles to the corporatists and imposes new reflexes.
A asylum for displaced people
Here, at the back, the sirens only resound every two or three days: the Russian forces have hit Ivano-Frankivsk airport, but it was 120 kilometers away. Only the ground floor of the town hall and some monuments of the city are protected by sandbags. The one-minute silence suggested by President Volodymyr Zelenski on March 16 “For all those who were lost”, every day at 9 o’clock in the morning, resonates less heavily west of Ukraine than elsewhere. Life takes up, the theater – a copy of that of Odessa – has just reopened. Even though the famous National University of Chernivtsi, a UNESCO heritage jewel serves as “shelter” for the city, it provides its online courses, such as Chernivtsi schools, which also work remotely.
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