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STARYI SALTIV, Ukraine – Families gather, greet each other and exchange news, or sit around picnic tables spread with candy, Easter eggs and freshly baked bread, reliving village life in an unlikely place: the cemetery.
Outside the cemetery grounds, which are decorated on Sundays with fresh flowers and where children run to collect sweets, the village of Staryi Saltiv is a gloomy place of ruins.
“You can see people coming back to clean the graves, and the village is coming back to life,” said Natalia Borysovska, a seamstress whose house was destroyed last year. They have no home to return to after running away – but still have plans for a family.
Sunday is a traditional memorial day in Ukraine, called Provody. Families spend time at the cemetery every year on the first Sunday after Orthodox Easter, cleaning the graves and leaving food and flowers for the dead.
The tradition of life and death in eastern Ukraine is carried out this year, even in villages ravaged by war, forcing residents to disperse.
Shura Portyanko, 70, a retired shopkeeper displaced by the war, returned Sunday to clean her husband’s grave and pay her respects.
“We cannot live without the village,” he said. “Sure, I’ll come and clean up and say hello.”
Ruined villages, some nothing more than a collection of jagged brick walls that still litter the streets, dot the landscape of the rolling plains of the eastern part of the country. As the front line has moved through 14 months of war, has left dozens – maybe hundreds – of those places in the wake, forlorn scenes of empty streets, blown up churches and countless destroyed houses.
But there are signs of revival even as the war continues. The United Nations and aid groups like the Red Cross helped replace windows and make other repairs.
And paradoxically, cemeteries are one of the places that can be seen first, with orderly burials showing the intention of displaced residents to return and rebuild on land close to their family members. For Ukrainian villages are cradles for language and culture deeply rooted in rural life, and they have a way of bouncing back from disaster.
“This is my father and this is my grandfather and this is my grandfather,” Ms Borysovska said, pointing to the grave. He had cut the grass, picked up leaves and branches and cleared the picnic table in the family plot. His house, in contrast, is still a burnt hulk of charred bricks.
People bring Easter eggs and bread to mark the anniversary a week after celebrating the more festive Orthodox Easter holiday at home. It is said that the spirits of the dead visit the homes of their loved ones at Easter, and in Provody, the living visit the dead in their place, the cemetery.
Families sit at small tables in the cemetery and sometimes talk to their deceased relatives.
“Hi, Papa,” said Ms. Borysovska at the grave of her father, who died last year due to illness.
“I talked to him, I brought him what he loved and some things I baked for him,” he said, of the chocolates he left behind. “I said hello, and I miss him so much, but I don’t want him to come in my dreams.”
Mrs. Borysovska fled last year to Kharkiv, a city about 40-minute drive away, but has not forgotten her village, a picturesque jumble of brick houses and apricot orchards on the bluff overlooking the Sieversky Donets River.
“You spend your whole life building, you save and build for yourself, for your children, and then in a moment, boom, that’s it,” he said of the ruined house. He said he plans to rebuild and this spring planted his garden next to the ruins.
In the bright sun, bees circle the blossoming apricot trees. In one place, a carpet of yellow wildflowers appeared next to an artillery crater.
Ukrainian villages have risen again, from war, famine and collectivization. His resilience is vital for Ukraine. In the 20th century, the villages retained the Ukrainian language and culture while the cities were mostly Russian until the resurgence of interest in Ukraine after the Orange Revolution, which brought a pro-Western government to power in 2005.
Villages are very important to Ukrainians, in fact, Ukrainians are sometimes caricatured as a nation of bumpkins devoted to garden plots and pastoral landscapes. In fact, today two thirds of Ukrainians live in vibrant urban centers like Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa, even as fondness for the countryside remains.
“Soil for Ukrainians is very important because it is blessed with blood and sweat,” Vitaly Skalsky, a Ukrainian historian, said in an interview, saying that villages have a tendency to bounce back from disasters. “They fought, and they got a profit. That’s why they are so close to the ground.”
Last year’s Russian invasion nearly destroyed Staryi Saltiv, but it wasn’t the first time. In World War II, too, fighting raged in and around the village. The Sieversky Donets River, which runs eastward, forms a natural line of defense in eastern Ukraine that divides the armies of the two conflicts.
Last year, Russian forces held the east bank from May to September, while Ukrainian forces occupied the village. In World War II, Soviet troops held the east bank while Nazi troops occupied the village. In both wars, artillery shelling over the river largely destroyed Staryi Saltiv.
“It’s terrible, what we had to do” in World War II, said Lidiya Pechenizka, 92, who has lived in the village all her life. He remembers hiding in the basement with his baby sister, just like the residents did years ago.
“We rebuilt after the war and we will rebuild now,” said Ms. Pechenizka.
Last year, about 40 percent of the houses in Staryi Saltiv were damaged and another 40 percent were destroyed, said Kostyantin Hordienko, a member of the village council. Schools, clinics and the City Hall were all destroyed. Only about a quarter of the pre-war population of about 4,000 people has returned, he said.
But for Provody, on the anniversary of the dead, the village comes back to life.
Displaced families gathered to walk through the cemetery, carrying flowers and plastic bags of food, stopping to visit acquaintances and exchange pleasantries.
After the family leaves the cemetery, the children collect candy there as part of an annual tradition. On Sunday they ran around with their bags, looking for things.
Liubov Oleksiivna, 73, was born and lived all her life in Staryi Saltiv before she had to flee. He intends to return if he can find a way to fix his house. “I was sewn to this land,” he said.
Signs of war even grave wounds. Artillery has knocked out gravestones and left deep craters in some plots. In one, the coffin had been blown up.
Borysovska’s mother, who visited her father’s grave, said she would return. He remembered the summer nights when the moonlight shone on the river. “How could I forget all this and never come back?” she said. “I’m just sleeping here.”
Anna Lukinova contributed reporting.
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