(opinion article)

On April 14, 2024, flocks of pink flamingos were flying over the seashores of Tuzli Estuaries in Odesa Region. Instead of Churyuk island, located in Kherson Region not far from Crimea, where they nested once before the beginning of the war, they chose the placid and picturesque places under Ukrainian control. The further from the Russian artillery shelling and Shahed drone attacking, the better. 

Rosy flamingos are rare guests of Ukraine; typically, they prefer to nest on the sea coastlines and salt lakes of France and Spain, Turkey and Morocco, India and Tunisia. This time they began to build their clay-and-silt nests on the territory of the National Nature Park ‘Tuzli estuaries.’

On the eve of Easter, it looks like a sign of God. There is an impression that they came to support Odessa in particular and Ukraine as a whole in the fight for freedom, humanism and independence.

Let’s hope that flamingos’ whispers across the waters, their rising voices winding through reeds and their elegant grace will promote peace on the long-suffering land of Ukraine.