(opinion article)

As a result of the unexpected explosion of Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant by Russian military leaders, a huge 5-6 meter high wave of water flew like a tsunami on the fertile fields of Kherson Region, flooding the right-hand bank of the Dnipro river with Kherson, a big city under the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as the left bank of the Dnipro river with Oleshki and Hola Prystan, two small towns seized by the Russian Army.

At the peak of the horrible inundation, all three urban areas, with a lot of surrounding villages, got plunged into the dark waters of hell, shaping an Apocalypse landscape with hundreds of people pleading for help, food and drinking water on the roofs of their one floor private houses…The view of people waving hands at the passing nearby rescue boats and motorboats, standing and crying on the second and third stories of their high-rise building is not less apocalyptic…

It was practically impossible to perceive without tears in your eyes the survival stories of the locals and the short videos shot in that time, especially if you spent your best childhood and youth years somewhere there among the cozy small summer cottages, covering both sides of the ancient and awesome Dnipro…

However, Kherson inhabitants would not be originally from Kherson if they did not crack jokes amid this total disaster of deluge.

While steering the rescue boats among the inundated multistoried buildings, loaded with drinking water bottles, food and hygiene products, local volunteers keep on shouting, “Homemade vine, homemade vine! Sea Shrimps Big! Sea Shrimps Small!”

The voices from one flooded house support the screams of volunteers, “Sweet corn! Sweet corn!”

The voices from another high-rise building continue the relay, “Honey baklava! Honey baklava! Roasted sunflower seeds! Roasted sunflower seeds!”

“Wow! There are some people!” The cheery volunteers moor their motorboats at the completely covered with water entrance doors and start distributing the humanitarian help through the second floor windows among the people staying in these ghost-looking houses, together with their old-age folks.

In general, the situation looks humorous because the local volunteers and people getting the humanitarian packs use the advertising screams of small Kherson region traders selling snacks on the sand beaches of the Black Sea and the Dnipro river.

As one high-rank official from the Kherson administration said, “Some people in the flooded areas of Kherson look at our humanitarian aid as the Take Away Food Delivery Service. As for us, we recommend that all people from the flooded buildings should evacuate and do it immediately!”

Anyhow, the next day the same scene got reiterated, “Homemade vine, homemade vine! Sea Shrimps Big! Sea Shrimps Small!”

“Sweet corn! Sweet corn!”

“Honey baklava! Honey baklava! Roasted sunflower seeds! Roasted sunflower seeds!”

“Pizza! I want pizza!”

A pinch of funny surrealism is added by a volunteer playing saxophone on the roof of a flooded house…a boorish bearded man with a wet mouse on his shoulder steering a humanitarian motorboat…a slim teenage girl with a big wild cat on her shoulders roaming along a flooded street…an eager beaver looking woman working at a volunteer center, showing hills of the humanitarian help and saying. “Dear people, don`t send us winter fur coats, please! Here in Kherson we have an inundation but not a winter blizzard!”

With such people Kherson will survive, as for Oleshky and Hola Prystan, they are still waiting for the Ukrainian Army…While trying to cross the river and to bring victims of the deluge to the right bank of the Dnipro river, the rescue motorboat of Ukrainian volunteers was fired upon by Russian snipers. Three of their old-age passengers seeking help were killed…