which are constantly active, they tried to have such a life here, it was boiling here, mass events were held here all the time, the library had the largest collection of gramophone records, vinyl records, so people came here to listen to tsu, it was very interesting, very useful, meetings of various poetic communities were held here, there was such a neat, here cell. such a literary and

artistic life, there were unique editions here, well, as far as i understand, rare editions survived, at least that’s what i was told, as in reality, what do you remember from this trip, and you were its participant, and now i was watching these footage and realized that, in addition to the fact that victoria is no longer with us, and victoria... for me , she is such a great motivator that these trips began, she supported me in the idea of ​​going to kharkiv, this is our first direction, the beginning of june 22nd, and then victoria, because she starts documenting crimes, working with trushauns, starts writing her book in english, she always tried to travel with us, and it was an interesting story , because she learned about khersonov... in the last one

moment, she was abroad on an advocacy trip, and she just wrote to us there a few days before that, friends, and i still have to get to ukraine, but i want to come to you at least for one day, to be with you in kherson , and that's why she comes to us by train right on that day, just two days on the way, but in order to be with us, she goes to kherson, victoria is not there, and there are also shots of oles honchar's library there. here in these shots it is damaged, but after that we remember that already last fall this one the library, in fact we say that it is destroyed, so it is not just damaged, but it was destroyed by the occupiers, and what i remember about that trip, i remember, of course, a certain inner anxiety, those were very difficult days, and the situation in we know that kherson has not changed, and on that day there was constant shelling in the city, especially closer to the dnieper, and...

honchar's bank is literally on the bank, and literally from the windows of the library we saw another, different bank of the dnieper, on which the occupiers were standing, i remember this feeling that i had just in in the air, because a few days before that, you may remember, there was a shelling of a supermarket in the center of kherson, and just in the air, there was such tension in the air, but at the same time, i remember an amazing meeting in the shelter of the theater named after mykola kolish. and representatives of the cultural community gathered in this shelter, librarians, people who work in museums came, mostly people who stayed in the city in order to keep funds, to stay, as it were, responsible for what is important to them. of course, i remember these stories, i remember these voices, i remember librarians who, in order not to cooperate with the occupiers, did not go to work, but did not want to lose contact with readers and published books from their own to...

libraries, i remember what the theater experienced, i remember the story of alexander books , and probably the biggest shock for me was, of course, the history of the art museum, the history of the museum from which the occupiers stole most of the exhibits, funds, this is such a feeling , just physical, of a huge loss of your culture, and also of the local history museum, also near the local history museum, we then we only got into... shelling began and right next to the art museum, i remember this long conversation, i remember that we went down to the funds where these works were stored, it was just a feeling, as if there was a physical body of your culture , and as soon as you see how some of the organs were taken from this body, as if it was such a great physical pain, but on the other hand, these people, we then went to the volunteers, and these volunteers are also a professor of history, a scientist , people who...

created their volunteer community, and they continue to work, to distribute humanitarian aid aid, to help the military, actually these trips, you know, on the one hand, they are always... this pain is kind of in yourself, because you listen to people, you see wounded cities, you see damaged or stolen cultural heritage, but on the other hand , it gives strength every time, and strength is given by the example of these people, their stories, the way they hold on, how they continue despite everything to protect their cities, protect their land and develop, yes, their cities and their villages, this is such a level of strength , such... that you come back every time and it's like you there are several days without sleep and on the road, you have the strength to move on. you know, i have the same feeling that you have the people to whom we come, namely the cultural communities of these frontline territories, they think that we are the ones who come

to support them, and we always tell them about , that it is they who support us, and i always, no matter how physically exhausting these trips are, because we always have many very communities. which we visit, but you arrive physically tired, but just terribly, terribly somehow inspired by what you see, actually, well, by the example of these people, yes, resilience and courage. we now watched kherson in december 2022, yes, we have another video, eh, and this video is quite fresh, this video is two weeks old, we went to... kherson with the pen group to open such bookshelves in shelters, just imagine that kherson, which is currently under continuous shelling all the time, the local community there wants to have in shelters, in the basements of their

houses, maybe, just maybe, bookshelves with ukrainian literature and ukrainian-language literature, and there is such a kherson youth initiative called books in shelter. and together with these people, we went not only to the right bank of the dnieper, but also to the korabel district, where there is, where it is quite dangerous, and because of shelling, we went to the district called ostriv, and this district is just a few kilometers away from the position of the russians, there are 3-4 km, maybe 2 km, and people live there, and they want to open bookshelves in their basements. houses in order to read books and have a community of your own. today, these people will be included, and we will listen to them separately, but here is a video that was taken, that was taken by this community of books in the shelter, let's

see how they capture this, this action of the transfer of pen books. hello, today i will tell you our story, to be honest, i ... could not have thought that this story would reach such a scale, but we are pleasantly surprised by how people can help each other. the history of the creation of this mini-project is quite interesting, but more on that later. yesterday was a very emotional day for us teams together with penklub ukraine and the kherson state regional administration , we visited the underground shelters located in the city of kherson and officially opened three new book shelters. this. a small project was the starting point for our team to create much bigger and grander projects in the future. i hope that the books in the shelter will help the residents of the city, who are still under fire, to stabilize their mental state and distract themselves from

real events. i think the beginning has been made, and bigger grandiose projects follow. even such small guests were at our opening. and we sincerely hope that the book. will become your safe shelter, with this very project we want to preserve the book fund of kherson, because against the background of shelling from the russian army , the city's libraries are constantly being destroyed, unfortunately, despite everything, we were able to make a safe library, we hope that people will like to read books from us, take them for exchange and bring your own, many thanks to ponklubraine for being able to visit us, also for bringing a lot of yours... and taking participation in the opening of new bookstores , thank you, so you saw that volodymyr yarmolenko, the president of ukrainian peno, literary critic, tetyana ogarkova, a beautiful poet, kateryna kalytko, were on this trip, so it

was very, very important for kherson and for us, and we want to include kherson now, we hope that we will succeed, volodymyr klyutsevskyi, deputy chairman of the kherson chamber of commerce, is in touch with us, mr. volodymyr, i congratulate you, can you hear me? yes, i congratulate you, very well heard, miroslav, mr. volodymyr, first of all. we you we remember and remember with admiration your initiatives in kherson, please tell us about the initiatives and actions that are currently being held in kherson regarding books, regarding the collection of books, and here are your wonderful ideas about vilna read ukrainian and russian books about the occupier, so thank you for this given opportunity. to reveal this information, indeed, to the birthday of our great kobzar, we

came up with an initiative to implement a number of book promotions throughout ukraine, which this initiative was supported by the ministry of education and of science, was supported by the commissioner for the protection of the state language, taras kremin, and in fact everything started and... the initiative project of our youth, books in the shelter, who developed this project and took the initiative to open book shelters in our warehouses in the city of kherson so that people could read ukrainian-language books, so the authorities supported this initiative for us. and now we are collecting books from all over ukraine as part of the one student

one book for kherson campaign. the ministry of education and science asked all institutions of higher education in of ukraine, so that students would bring books and they would be sent to kherson, so that we could fill our shelters in this way, creating corners, such book shelters, after all. when there were orcs, more than 150 thousand ukrainian books were destroyed, and we want to replenish these funds, first of all in shelters, we also have an action, which is supported and implemented, and promotes the authorization of the protection of the state language, it is freely read in ukrainian, which provides for the collection of books for the library funds of those regions. which suffered e-e destruction due to

armed and military russian aggression, sumy, kharkiv, zaporizhzhia, kherson, and mykolaiv regions, and we also have one more within the framework of these two actions, if people bring russian-language books, we also take them, but we hand them over for processing, and in as part of the campaign, we will donate a russian book about the russian occupier to the appropriate bank to help the armed forces of ukraine, that is , russian-language books help our boys win this war. so, you see, from the usual youth initiative. thanks to them to them for being caring and creative, non-standard in their decisions,

we made such a large-scale campaign. mr. volodymyr, thank you very much, we will now try to include these wonderful young activists from kherson who are just now delivering books, we will try to join them in the process of delivering ukrainian books in kherson. volodymyr klyutsevskyi, the deputy head of the kherson chamber for humanitarian issues, was with us today. in touch, tanya, this is what, what mr. volodymyr is saying, here, this, this is hundreds of libraries destroyed in ukraine, these are hundreds of cultural monuments, these are hundreds of some museums, and the irony is that pen, the main idea of ​​pen, it was based on the fact that cultural heritage and culture is a field of understanding, and it is inviolable, especially under time of conflicts. armed men, and soldiers, how do people from

the west react, yes, western intellectuals, writers whom we bring here, how do they react to what they see in these regions destroyed? and you know, i now thought about my first such advocacy trip abroad, it was may 22, america, new york, and i simply remember how i was picked up at the airport by a taxi driver who at that time had recently learned about... about probucha, about kyiv region, and he told me then that you know, i understood why it was so worrying that is happening in ukraine, why is it so close to us, because when i... see footage from buchi or zirpen, i recognize these houses and these streets, they are completely for me, well, even if they are american, they are mine, i understand that what i see in these frames, and that's why what i see there is so painful for me, and i can to draw a parallel here, because i have a feeling that when we talk about the destroyed cultural heritage, these frames, these photos, these videos,

they are the same, they excite and touch those people who see it, because we all form ... with culture , we are all shaped by the space of cultural objects around us, and therefore , let's say, when these first terrible photos appear, for example, of the destroyed library in chernihiv, or when a photo of a damaged church in kharkiv appears, i remember that all our the international community published on their sites, started various congresses and international events with these photos, because the library was destroyed or the temple was damaged. this is something that resonates with everyone, it is something that is close to you, but there is a country in europe where it is being destroyed now. it is obvious that, er, later, when the full-scale war has been going on for more than two years now, and when the european and international audience has already seen a lot of these photos, when there are more than a thousand damaged monuments, it's not hundreds, it's already more than a thousand

damaged objects objects, and today photos or our videos, they may not work like this. in order for people to feel and understand what is happening here, that is why we realized quite early that it is much more important to really bring intellectuals here, and when we bring them, we always go to kyiv region, we go to chernihiv, there are those delegations that agree go to kharkiv, and it really shocks them the most, what they see around them, destroyed houses, destroyed architectural heritage, churches, libraries, museums, and just as they are touched by the stories of people, but destroyed or stolen cultural heritage is something that cannot but affect a person, because everyone has it inside, yes, that is, it is a part of upbringing, some kind of foundation on which every person stands. well, we have already seen what a destroyed culture is for centuries, we understand what

a destroyed culture leads to in both the physical and spiritual sense, and i... promised that the young activists from kherson, actually the activists who implement this book in shelter initiative, will join us, or we, or we can hear marina chizhova, alita gurbanova and anton novikov, good day, anton, novikov, anton, congratulations, congratulations, congratulations, congratulations, friends, we are very, very happy to see you on the air today, tell me. please tell me, we have already talked a little about this initiative of yours, tell me what you are doing right now at this very moment, and why is this book an opening for you, what does it mean for you? at the moment, we are delivering books already to the shelters in which we have installed shelves, for us the project itself means saving human lives with

the help of books that people can read in the shelter, that is, a book. is a kind of shelter for people, yes, and in this way we want to popularize ukrainization in the southern region, because, as you know, unfortunately, our region is more russian-speaking, but after the full-scale invasion, of course, most people switched to the ukrainian language, but still not all, and there are such people who are very russian, if, and we want to change it, we want to help people, with more freedom. communicate in ukrainian, transition, don't be afraid, learn, because some shelters have books that help you learn ukrainian, that is, you don't just come here and you look at your phone, can you take a book and learn something interesting and relevant,

friends, please tell me, what kind of support do you need now, how can you be supported? those people who now see you and admire you, but how can you be supported? at the moment, it is very important for us to collect books for these shelters, because it is difficult with this now, as far as possible, who knows, the gonchar library, which is located in kherson, it was destroyed, some of the books that were saved, we took them, we the kherson administration provided it for for us to put her in a shelter, that's... the library collection will be saved later, but for now we need the books, so if there's a chance everyone who's watching this broadcast right now, i'd like to... urge you to send books only in ukrainian, how is it possible, how can it be done, where can i find information, how can i do it, how can i send you books? information can

be found on our social pages, we have a social page on facebook and instagram, there is a post with all the information in detail about sending to the new post office, we pay together with the humanitarian new post office, thank you. to you, these were kherson activists, book initiatives in the shelter, they , they collect books for the bookshelves, for the kherson shelters, and they need our inclusion, our help, thank you for thinking about it, tanya, i think it's absolutely amazing a great initiative, in some ways it is such a very strong metaphor, yes bookshelters, book shelters. i thought that i saw a similar thing, for the first time in nikopol, this is another absolutely unbreakable, beautiful ukrainian the city, we have already gone twice as part of volunteer trips, and there their central

main distribution library, in addition to supporting all its branches, tries to keep the work going there, in addition , they also had, like many buildings, a basement, it the absolute center of the city, we know that nikopol, unfortunately, is shelled by the occupiers every day. and in this basement they also equipped a shelter that they take care of, that is , the library takes care of the central shelter of the city, and when we first came there, i think it was the spring of 23, we saw that in this shelter there were shelves with books, and it just shocked me so much at the time, how the role and meaning of the library changes in the conditions of war, and the fact that here is this book in the shelter, i will continue. to work, a book that is not just a shelter, we can talk about it like that, but a book for me is always an opportunity for conversation, that is, we talk around

the book, we talk around the questions and themes that sound in the book, and probably because of that, literally from our second trip to chernihiv, we realized that in the future, planning ours volunteer trips, we will always go to the local library in every city and town, because the library has long been... before the full-scale invasion in ukraine, it was not only a place to store books, it was a social center in the ancient country, these are centers that unite their community, provide very different services, and when we now come to these libraries with books, bring writers from ukraine from other countries, we see that it is through the libraries that we find out the fastest what is happening in this in the city, in this region, we always get to know all the active people with whom... then we continue the following initiatives, and thanks to the libraries, we understand where our help is needed, and it is not only about books, because we also bring help for military, and

the library really became this center that unites communities during the war. you know, in addition to what i mentioned about nikopol, the amazing initiative in kherson that we just saw, i remember the libraries in donetsk region, sloviansk, kramatorsk, libraries that are i saw the first example in ukraine. who were forced to evacuate books, that is, the libraries are physically without books at all, but they will continue to work, work as humanitarian centers, they weave nets, they receive people, provide them with help, they conduct some consultations, trainings for people in these communities, some libraries are forced were from the front line to move to the west, and even there they continue to look for their readers, gather the community and provide the necessary support, and we have literally been back from chernihiv for a week. and this one an incredible library where we had joint events, the libraries of kotsiubinsky and dovzhenko, and this library was damaged several times

during the shelling of the occupiers, we remember, especially the second floor, the roof leaked there, there were no windows, it was a very difficult situation, and literally a year passes, and we saw a completely modern, beautiful library that gathers full audiences, film screenings, discussions, debates, for me this is a kind of miracle, for me it is about... some kind of great resilience, resistance of each of our communities, what is this it's really exciting, and you've already started talking about chernihiv region, i will mention one moment, because tatyana and i were together on this particular trip, and together with other beautiful members of pen, with kateryna kalytko again, with sofia andruhovich, with vakhtan kyboladze, and here in novgorod siversky, which is actually border. territory, so there 20-30 km to the russian border, one man stood up at the meeting, there was an extremely sincere conversation, and he told

us the following, he says that you can't... believe it, but ukrainian writers from 1989, 89, and we are all very sorry i was impressed at the time, i remember that the soviet authorities took very good care of the fact that there were contacts between artists and writers with people in the largest provinces, cities, towns, villages from the center, even there... on farms , pig farms, they are everywhere did concerts, some, some meetings, how can it be done now, that is, there is no such propaganda apparatus, yes, what would this contact provide, but contact is needed, somehow, as you see it, this is how it can be organized so that it is on some to such a wider level, because pen equally will not be able to to do this, this is this contact, which is very

necessary for both us and them. how can this be done? you know, i was also very impressed by this moment, this man's speech in novgorod-siverskyi, i also think about it constantly, and i think not only about the fact that it was part of the soviet propaganda machine, but also about the generation we are talking about the sixties, and partly about the dissidents, who not only because of the soviet system and the opportunities provided by the soviet government, but also because of their own calling. definitely, definitely, simply soviet the authorities tried to instrumentalize this instrument, but in reality these contacts, but on the other hand, i heard about these meetings in the same chernihiv, they mentioned how both pavlychko and drachi came there, too, with such enthusiasm that leading, leading ukrainian writers came to us, to speak like this with us, with our readers, that is, here is a very important point and of the community about which we talk a lot today, yes, the community of the sixties, their influence, their desire to know. and

feel my country, yes, my, my lands, and when i think in general, about these experiences, i think about the fact that even before the 22nd year of pen, i really traveled a lot, we had two programs, the lace, within the framework of which we travel to the district centers of ukraine, we had rapprochement program, we went to big cities, but during these volunteer trips i realized that i do not know my country, i have always traveled a lot, i have been to all regions. of ukraine, but now, when we go to small towns, when we go to villages, even in these communities, i realized that we do this not enough, and that i don't know my country, so it's obvious that i need to continue this, travel even more, and now other initiatives are appearing, yes, initiatives of public organizations, the publishers' forum is now also traveling with a book initiative to the regions, but for sure this it will never be enough, and it is obvious that we

should also reach the state level, when the state and state institutions will also use all opportunities for writers and artists to travel to all regions of ukraine. do you remember that in novgorod-siversky, too, this one sounded the opinion that it is possible, if there were more of these contacts, these conversations, yes, about what we live in, then the situation in this region would be different, more ukrainian books would be read here, and no one knows how the military actions would take place there, and it is very painful such a moment, and it is addressed. to ukrainian artists, it is addressed to us by these people, and we need to think about it. now , of course, there is a great difficulty with safety moments in these trips, these stories, but at the same time we see and are convinced by our experience that it is possible and that this is the main thing extremely necessary. yes, by the way, not only in novohorod siverskyi, but also in general in these border territories , the opinion that something does not happen is constantly heard.

vacuum, one way or another, the absence, the absence of ukrainian culture, yes, it was filled with television, which was russian-language and pro-russian, russian artists, russian books and so on, that is, where there was a void, it was filled with something very foreign, i want to show another excerpt from the film about mykolaiv, dear to me, about penz's trip... mykolaiv, because it makes it even more clear how pen actually communicates with local libraries, local cultural figures, what conversations they have, these are very small excerpts, but they give this understanding. please.