How it was. Checkpoint

In early May 2014 I went to district N, Kharkiv region, to help the Kharkiv ultras set up a checkpoint in the borderland. It took some time for me and my friend to talk things over and decide what to pack. Warm clothes, footwear, packed meals, lanterns, lots of other stuff, - luckily, my friend drives a pretty spacious car. Other folks rented a bus, and we drove behind it. Our car was loaded with so much stuff there was hardly any room left.

When we got there, we found the place deserted and neglected, even though the person in charge had assured us the tents were set up already. But it turned out there was nothing there, nothing at all.

Luckily, a border guard maneuver group from Lviv was around. We met those folks a couple minutes after we arrived. They looked at the place and rushed to help us with blocking out and setting up tents using everything we had, which, to be honest, was not much. Thirty hotheads, not so excited about all the construction work that needed to be done. Frankly speaking, there wasn’t much building material either… After setting up the tarpaulin, we found it looking more like a field hangar of some sort: two walls and a roof. So, as it was too cold in the tent, we ended up spending the night in a pit we had dug. We lit a fire and put some mats around, and went to sleep. Me and my friend dared to make ourselves comfortable in his car, even though it wasn’t any close to comfortable, just a little bit warmer. In the morning, everyone was hungry, tired and cold. It turned out to be a good thing we spent so much time packing: luckily, we had some warm clothes, food and medicine to share with other folks. It came about quite naturally that pretty much everyone started to look up to us as sort of commanders, as we were older and more experienced. We tried to share as much of our knowledge as possible (there was not much time): guarding the perimeter, setting up tripwire alarm traps, improving sentry-go, cooking in field conditions, - pretty much everything, really. It took three days before our administrator arrived. Brought food, medicine and lots of empty sacks.

However, during those days, the situation in the city had changed, so the ultras had to leave as they were needed in Kharkiv. Most of them never came back. Me and my friend left for the city, too, and, after talking things over, he joined the newly formed volunteer battalion as a medic. I, along with a couple other guys, went back to the checkpoint, which didn’t yet exist at that time in fact.

Then there was lots of stuff: work, fun, heavy sacks filled with sand, sweaty-sticking to my sunburned back, bathing in a river with folks from the border guard, best made-in-the-field stew and Hungarian goulash I have ever tasted, patrolling the border at night… Sometimes it seemed real tough! I would often consider quitting. But the tough stuff was only about to start. Then, the war came. Knocked on everyone’s door.

Mahloy (literally translates as “little man” or “short guy”)… as we called him. He was the shortest and probably the youngest among us. However, he was the most active and eager, full of beans but entirely ignorant whenever it came to things like logic and planning, - that guy was a real hothead. He went to a training camp of Azov battalion. Then, as they weren’t really taking part in any serious military operations, he ended up in the medics’ fire support team of Ukrainian Volunteer Corps…

Subbotah (literally translates as “Saturday”)... this man literally proved to me that lieutenants aren’t made but are born. Just by looking at him one understood this guy could easily sell ice to the Eskimo. Regardless, revisions would always find everything in its place, all tidy and organized both in the storage rooms and the documents.

Lots of folks… lots of stories. Not every one of those guys is still alive to tell theirs. Many of the ultras fans we met at the checkpoint have joined the volunteer corps or the armed forces, got drafted or volunteered. Each one followed their own way to meet their unique destiny... As far as I know, some are still alive fighting for their beliefs and their homes, others are no longer with us, and thinking of that makes it hard to hold back the tears as those people were my best mates and friends…

Rapa… A young man, member of the Kharkiv ultras… If you got a chance to get to know him a little bit, you probably wouldn’t get a decent impression. He was a little slow and had some speech defects, but, oddly, he was one of the first ones among the ultras of Kharkiv to go to the checkpoint and start setting it up. He had carried hundreds of sacks of sand regardless of the boiling heat, with his back sunburned viciously. He would always start a new day with a nice run. He would put on three bulletproof vests and run for three miles! The last half mile on the way back he would goose-step. Others mostly laughed at him, but later on some of the folks joined in. I always got deeply impressed by his thoughts, somewhat naive, still very passionate. He tried to be prepared for anything at all times, so when a smoke-puff charge was thrown (for training purposes) into the tent we slept in, he was the first to react and run to the position assigned to him… This country hasn’t given much to him personally, but he never had any second thoughts about risking his life to defend it. He didn’t care much about others laughing at him, he kept doing what he believed was right. Then the time came for the ultras to leave. Some of them stayed in Kharkiv, others joined the volunteer battalions. Rapa volunteered, too. We went our separate ways. Later on, I found out he got captured by the enemy. I made lots of calls trying to find him and help him out, get him out of there somehow. But then the news came that he got captured by Kadyrovtsy…

Rapa died. To say that it was difficult to lose a friend, then it means to say nothing. There were no tears. I felt like howling, the deep dull cry ripping my lungs apart… and realization that this is not the end, that there will be more loss and pain, and more young men will sacrifice their lives for a country that, in fact, doesn't deserve it. And this debt sooner or later must be paid back…