Streetsheet
DENIS VISITS UKRAINE IN 2011
Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends
AUNT LUDA GETS A LIFT FROM SERJ
XXX
THE FAMILY HOME IN LVIV
DENIS’ UKRAINIAN FAMILY
My Heart, Ukraine
06
THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU
I
arrived in Australia from Ukraine in 1993. I’d just turned nine years old. I had been in a car accident when I was three; I had brain damage. And my dad’s brother brought us here. A lot of our family is still in Ukraine, in a town called Lviv. I have heard from my Aunt Luda. Her daughter Julia and son Serj left for Moldova to stay there for a while. But Luda is afraid to leave; she has a sick husband who stays at home. There’s not much food around to eat. Hospitals have been blown up. Everybody’s packing up and leaving, but the men have to stay behind – a lot of my schoolmates, the same age as me, 37, 38, 39… And kids of 18 and 19 are staying to do their service. It’s heartbreaking. I feel really sad, and angry at Putin at what he’s doing to innocent people. I feel I am supposed to go there and help, but you can’t if you don’t have money. So what I’d like to do is make this story for people to understand how it looks in a world of people who don’t have shelters, who don’t have homes, who don’t have food. They struggle every day. Civilians are killed every day. It’s just so ridiculous. I went back to Ukraine to visit in 2011. I was happy to see friends, cousins, uncles, aunts, my grandma. Lviv is a beautiful city with beautiful people. There are trams, outdoor pools for swimming, you can go walking, or skiing in winter. It’s sometimes poor, but you live how you live. I miss home. I miss friends. I would ask people to support the Ukrainian people and try to help. Talk. Give a bit of charity. Aunt Luda is asking to stop the war, to give it up, go home Russia. DENIS BERWICK, PACKENHAM, CAMBERWELL , MENTONE, WHEELERS HILL CENTRE, BENTLEIGH & STAR PARK SHOPPING CENTRE, ROWVILLE I MELBOURNE
