Andrey Kurkov

Kyiv ‘It doesn’t surprise me that they’re abolishing the Ministry of Education,’ my old friend Dima told me. ‘Judging by what Steve Witkoff said on the Fox channel, neither history nor geography are taught in America.’ Team Trump’s energetic but purposefully misdirected attempts to push the negotiation processes forward have left Ukrainians in shock. Each day reveals new depths in the Oval Office’s inadequacy and we can only shrug when we hear things like ‘Putin is not a bad guy’ or ‘I feel that he wants peace’. President Volodymyr Zelensky said something similar after his election in 2019, when he promised to negotiate a peace deal with Vladimir Putin within 12 months or resign. Neither peace nor his resignation materialised.

Lazarivka Snow has covered the fields and forests of much of Ukraine. When the sun reigns in the sky, its rays gild the scene. All my previous winters, all previous Christmas celebrations, were peaceful, and the snow, if it came, emphasised this calmness. Snow and cold preserve the life of the grass until spring, until the first warm weather. The snow seems to require everyone to rest, to avoid unnecessary movement, unnecessary noise. The acoustic properties of snow make joyful children’s voices louder – or is that just an aural illusion? No, snow definitely changes the sound of nature. It keeps the sounds above the ground as if He does not want them to disturb the hibernating moles and other inhabitants of the rich Ukrainian soil.