A Road of Broken hearts

About God on war

Original published at: https://t.me/voenkorkhayrullin/1625 on September 5, 2023

At the end of August 2023, on the outskirts of some village, we sat in a circle and had a small talk with a mortar crew of the first battalion. The lush Donetsk field beyond the outskirts, touched by withering, smelled of endless peace and tranquility. This peace reached out to us, we were securely hidden along with a worn-out weapon under a torn garden net, and that’s why the conversation flowed easily and sincerely. Then Ivanych [short of Ivanovich – reference to person by father’s name, common in Russia], holding onto the wall, came out of the hut, and began drowning everyone in his grief.

“And they’re kicking me out,” he said in a tearful voice, “I don’t know where to go…"

Ivanych is 61 years old, he has been fighting for nine years. The war took his home and family from him and she—the War—became the only meaning of his life. And now, when his human expiration date has passed, Ivanych is being written off. He survived on the battlefield, but without war and his mortars he doesn’t know how to pull the burden of his life further. Sudden peace and silence after all that he has been through seem very scary.

And at that very moment the conversation turned to God, and crew commander Seryozha Tokar sharply cut off: “There’s no God…”

Seryozha Tokar [1] was terribly burned, during the battle the gunpowder caught fire from the arrival of a shrapnel, and in those ten seconds when he was dragging this damned box away from the mines, he has breathed in so many flames that his entire soul turned to ashes. He asked me not to discuss personal matters, about family, or about children. In general, he agreed to talk about nothing except the war and his guys, to whom he returned despite it is still painful for him to even stand. And now, looking at Ivanych, Tokar harshly reprimanded: “Where was this God when the children were being killed, where…”

And Ivanych echoed him:

“There is no God, no...”

Only the youngest one, who had arrived only two weeks ago, was eager to say something. The rest of the people just sighed and hid their eyes looking at the ground...

And suddenly Ivanovich remembered something, jumped up and scurried into the hut on unsteady legs… We had already changed the topic of conversation when he returned and shoved a small cardboard in my face: “This is Bogoroditsa [the Mother of God], my Bogoroditsa...She protects me...”

Staggering for the second year along the roads of this war, I kept coming across broken and forgotten people on the sidelines. And when you come up and touch them, for some reason the conversation always turns to this God.

Last May, we drank shitty vodka together with the last residents of Kominternovo, a border village of the Donbass near the road leading to Mariupol. It was probably the most otherworldly drinking session of my life. They were still finishing off the Nazis in “Marik” [Mariupol]. And in Kominternovo, which had been terribly shelled by the enemy cross the field for nine years, it suddenly became quiet. And in this silence, among the ruins, blooming gardens and desperately scarlet tulips under the bluest sky in the world, these three wandered, lost in the suddenly peaceful life.

They lived on the edge of the very field behind which the “dill” stood. One disabled man with a completely disabled son. Marina with her husband and 90-year-old grandmother.

We met, started talking and decided to drink to the victory (at that time it seemed that it was very close).

Marina angrily answered the same unasked question all the time, “Where are we supposed to leave to?” —then she took a shot, slammed her glass on the table and said, “Hell knows where this God has been all this time. You know? So am I…”

She waved her hand and, turning away, seemed to shed a tear furtively...

A little further along this crater pitted road with leafless, twisted-by-shelling trees growing along it, three Marines were sitting in the former enemy dugout. These twenty-year-old boys were the first to enter Marik and there they went and went until something broke inside of them and they stopped fighting.

And they were shoved here, away from prying eyes, to spend time till the end of their contract term. Guys took me to Banderite’s positions, from where dills used to fire at my unfortunate drinking companions for a whole nine years. Then we drank tea and talked. And they physically could not talk about the battles in Marik, which continued to shake with artillery very close by. They just smiled sadly and shook their heads.

One of them, who was constantly mending some of his Marine worn-out sackcloth, suddenly raised his eyes and said completely out of place: “If there is a God, let him tell you why...But I won’t tell...” —he turned back to his sewing and added quietly, “Only he’s not there...”

I met many more people on this road leading all the way to Azovstal those days, and then it seemed to me that it was such a rare thing to meet so many sorrows and broken hearts on one single road But then the roads of Zaporozhye, Popasna, Kreminna, Avdeevka followed…Many roads and there was no end to them. It turned out that the war is generally one single road of broken hearts and lives… Only those who have walked their path along it can feel it…Feel with that very broken heart, as otherwise not a single person is able to understand that. Maybe only the Lord God could, but it becomes so hard to believe in Him after all this.

And that’s why that day, when listening to Seryozha Tokar, I remembered another account of mine to God, which I once really wanted to present to him.

Seryozha and his soldiers are from the first battalion, who, just like those Marine boys, have been already broken once.

This was our best battalion, like all the others. The battalion moved on to the assault Near Vasilievka, where the line, just a little longer than a hundred meters, was saturated with five concrete machine-gun pillboxes. And I can’t even call the asshole who ordered this an asshole. Because this is a war, a hard war, and our generals must learn to win. Learning means making mistakes too. And their freaking mistakes look like this. At night after this mistake, the guys themselves went there to pick up those who remained… And the enemy had already managed to mine the bodies... And after that the battalion broke down...

So much time has passed, and all our other battalions are the best, but the first one still hasn’t come to the senses… And behind every general, even the most victorious ones, such battalions stand… And nothing can be done about that—this is the price of victory…

Therefore, every fighter of the first and all other battalions in the war lives with the lump in his throat, swears at the generals and continues to fight. How can they stand it, probably only God really knows. If He exists.

And, listening to Seryozha Tokar that day, I, despite everything, hoped that God was here somewhere. Because if He doesn’t wander somewhere among us along this damned road, how will we withstand all of this?

That's all I can tell you about God in this war. And, my dears, please write a letter to Ivanych. Right here in the comments. I will ask his commander Boroda to oblige Dimka Maly, who has been trumpeting side by side with Ivanych for five years since he was 19, to read these letters to Ivanych aloud before sleep. Maybe then Ivanych will stop grieving and regain belief in people again. So, he finally hobbles away from his war to some quiet place. Where he can just live. Write please.