A Day in the Life

Pink cottages, Czech lessons, and the relentless force of change in the heart of the Carpathians. by Lucia Nimcova 7 September 2006 Dzembronya is not easy to find on a map. It's a hamlet in the Chornohora range not far from the Romanian border, in the Carpathian National Nature Park, near the town of Verchovyna, under the highest peak in Ukraine, Hoverla.

You get here over mountain tracks and little wooden bridges. From the look of some of these bridges, the next car that crosses over will be the last, but they handle marsrutky, minibuses full of people, with amazing ease. Despite all my fears, I, too, have made my way to Dzembronya.

During the day, horses graze all over Dzembronya. In the evening they find their own way home.
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Oksana works her own farm, does laundry at an elementary school in Verchovyna, and prepares breakfasts and dinners for the tourists who come to her place year-round. Her day begins at 4 a.m. and ends around 10 p.m. when she finishes washing the dishes.
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Dzembronya is a place of wooden Hutsul houses, cowsheds, and livestock scattered over the hills. In the summer especially, animals roam freely, heading for home when they feel like it or when a neighbor leads them. Everyone knows one another here, and everyone helps their neighbor when there is work to be done. It's the only way to survive in the mountains. Nothing can get lost, so there is no reason to corral animals behind electric fences.

Everyone takes advantage of sunny days for cutting grass, raking hay, or airing bedclothes.
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In every house you'll find traditional clothing or musical instruments of the Hutsuls (highlanders long settled in this part of the Carpathians). When they celebrate a wedding or a family gathering, the party can go on for three days or so. Women loaded with firewood scoot up the hills faster than I could ever manage although I could be their granddaughter. They will cheerfully put you up under their own roofs, feed you three meals a day, and do their best to make you feel at home. People here have a natural respect for guests and, above all, for nature.

Preparing a sled for the coming winter.
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Winters are long here and conditions ideal for winter sports. In the last few years properties have begun to be sold to an unnamed investor at very low prices. Often this is the only way for families to raise money to support the younger generation and keep them from leaving the country to find illegal work. No one likes to talk about it much, but the fact remains that in the not-too-distant future the settlement will have no choice but to welcome a ski resort and hotel, even though the area lies in a protected nature zone. A few of the local young people talk of restoring their old houses and renting rooms to tourists, as one woman, Oksana, and her son, Ruslan, have done, but they fear that these little wooden cabins without many modern conveniences will have no chance against a luxury hotel.

Maria went to work in the Czech Republic. She stayed seven years, working as a kitchen helper, but finally she returned. She didn't mind the work, even at minimum wage, but she couldn't live with the fear that one day the police would find her. "I didn't want to hide out like a bandit, so I came back. I married a man from Dzembronya whose wife had died, so I have a son, too. We're satisfied living here, and we don't want anything else out of life."
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Breakfast awaits a group of Polish tourists at Oksana's house.
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In Ukraine, the law of money trumps all other laws. Sadly, most tourist resorts have been built without a drop of respect for the character of the land and local traditions.

Many places in Ukraine have turned into cheap tourist destinations with all that that brings, for better or rather for worse. One mountain village, Kolochava, has become a favorite destination for Czechs, and for their garbage, which ends up in the big communal trash piles. Village children run after visitors shouting in Czech: "Give me some candy!" Scenes like this have become part of local lore. In Jasina you can take a jeep tour through a protected nature zone, past clear-cut hillsides and new, unfeeling pink or orange neo-baroque vacation homes. They have their trash piles here, too, but on the outside of the fences that surround the houses. On the other side they keep the houses clean. Globalization is advancing slowly, but steadily.

When visitors gather at Oksana's and the mood is right, her son Ruslan tells stories of his experiences on Hoverla and advises tourists on local weather and what to do in emergencies. The important matters taken care of, he may play a few Hutsul songs.
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Someone in the village put up this cross in memory of soldiers killed in World War II. I'm slightly ashamed to admit I walked past it for an entire week and noticed it only as I was leaving. It made me wonder how many other pieces of folk art are scattered through these mountains. The thought that someone could level them to the ground without even noticing seems more real and more saddening every day.
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