Semen Pinchuk, 17 years old

Winner of the 2024 essay contest, 2st place 

Chernivtsi Higher Vocational School of Radio Electronics

Teacher who inspired to write an essay - Dmytro Mykolayovych Leonchyk

 

«1000 days of war. My way»

"For a beautiful song in all voices,

Whatever you want, water fountain, ask"

My war story is not about me but about my older brother. Better to say about my brother and me. His name is Davyd. Do not think this story is about Davyd and Goliath, because my brother was older. Allusions to the glorious biblical story are inevitable, but first of all, I would like to start with the fact that we had an apricot tree in our yard.

Kalirovka, as my older brother called it. This meant that its fruits were large in size.

Brother Davyd was a local star because he loved to sing. Any homework was sung by Davyd. Sometimes, it was from the 'what I see, I sing' category, but it was quite original. But most often, he sang famous hits by Boombox, Okean Elzy, and Ivasyuk.

No feast was complete without guitar and singing in all the voices of our large family. Davyd was the main singer, and everyone else sang along.

It was a real choir, our Ukrainian family choir. Everyone thought Davyd would become a singer: 'You should go to the Voice of the Country.' But Davyd decided to choose a different path, where he could also sing with a guitar.

We live in the village of Zarozhany in Khotyn district. I study at the Chernivtsi Higher Vocational School of Radio Electronics, so you could say I followed in the footsteps of my older brothers. First, my eldest brother Davyd studied there, then my middle brother Ilya, and now I.

When Davyd was studying at the school, I was about 10 years old. My brother constantly mentioned Zhdanivka, where we spent our childhood.

We managed to move to Zarozhany before the war. I had few memories from those times, but Davyd remembered everything. He recalled our apricot tree, Kalirovka, that grew in our yard.

We recalled many stories and were nostalgic for those times. With warmth and sadness, Davyd told us about our house in Zhdanivka, the yard, the street, the school, our painted apricot tree. We used to prop up some of the branches with the most apricots with boards or large sticks to prevent them from breaking.

We remembered our friends, who probably also went somewhere, but we did not know where. We only knew that it had all happened. What is now, we did not quite understand at the time; we did not know what would happen next.

We sang 'I'm going home, I'm going home' at the top of our lungs and in all the voices we could imitate. We were laughing out loud. One day, my brother said to me: 'I'm going to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, I want to eat apricots in Zhdanivka. Do you want me to bring you one from the highest branch?' - "Bring it," I replied.

Then, we were silent for a long time. There was silence in the air and many unanswered questions. I felt proud of my brother and sad at the same time. These feelings are difficult to explain in words.

When we sent Davyd off to the service, his parents had a big feast. Everyone was worried about Davyd but was also proud of him and respected his choice. Everyone sang. Most often, 'Vodohrai' by Volodymyr Ivasyuk:

"Oh, water fountain, play for us, play,

Don't stop your lively dance.

Here's to a beautiful song in all voices,

What you want, water fountain, ask."

Davyd passed away on May 7, 2022. He was killed in a heavy battle in the village of Serebrianka in the Donetsk region.

It is about a hundred kilometres from our Zhdanivka. My brother almost reached our apricot tree to pick and bring me an apricot from the highest branch. Our apricots have fallen off; maybe a swarm of bees is now buzzing above them with all their voices. And in our house, all voices are silent. No one sings because there is no one to sing to...

I often think that if he had asked, I would have given the fountain everything for that song we sang in all our voices. But no one asks, and no one asks. There is silence.

Goliath was defeated by Davyd, who was the youngest son of Jesse, and our Davyd is the oldest, a real hero who defended our home from the enemy and laid down his life so that we could defeat Goliath and harvest our own apricots.