Peter Moore

SVIACHENE - THE BLESSING OF THE EASTER BASKETS

Come Easter Saturday, Ukrainians head down to their nearest church to have baskets filled with p***a (cake), meat, cheese, eggs and horseradish blessed with holy water.

It marks the end of Lent. And the blessed goods are served up as part of a special Easter breakfast on the morning of Easter Sunday, each item laden with symbolism.

The p***a symbolises the risen Christ and life.

The decorated hard-boiled eggs represent new life, rebirth and the Resurrection.

The smoked sausage or ham symbolises God’s abundance and mercy.

The butter and cheese, often shaped into a lamb, symbolises the "Lamb of God" and the goodness of Christ.

The horseradish symbolises the bitterness of sin.

The salt represents the earth's gifts and purification.

And the wicker baskets they are all held in are lined with an embroidered, white linen cloth (rushnyk), that symbolises purity and the burial shroud of Christ.

My nearest church was St. Andrews, part of the Bernadine Monastery. Rather than make the floor slippery with holy water, the priest here came outside with an altar boy holding a bucket and blessed the baskets of people waiting in a circle out front of the church.

One young boy had bought a puppy to be blessed, unseen but scrabbling in a cardboard box beside his family’s basket.

The priest repeated the ritual every hour and half hour, the crowds even bigger when I passed by again later in the day.

I didn’t have a basket to bless, but that didn’t stop the priest flicking me – and my camera – with a heavy spray of holy water.

Just steeping away from Ukraine for a moment, last night I reconnected with my inner Westie when I went and saw the very awesome Aussie punk band, Mini Skirt, play at the Shacklewell Arms near Dalston.

They were bone-rattling good and even cleared my mate’s troublesome sinuses.

Myself? I feel invigorated and vented and more Aussie than ever. 🤘

GENERATOR X - SOUNDTRACK OF THE CITY

One of the most noticeable effects of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Lviv is the daily power cuts.

The Russians have gone out of their way to hammer Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and to cope, Lviv effectively ‘rations’ its power, dividing the city into sectors, with each sector experiencing a controlled power cut at different times of the day, on a rotating basis.

Indeed, as I left my hotel each morning, the receptionist would tell me the day’s blackout block.

“No power between one and seven today,” she’d say, while assuring me the three essentials – heating, hot water, and Wi-Fi – would all continue working.

How? Take a closer look at every shop, restaurant, and café, and you’ll see a small fuel-run generator just inside the door. Bigger establishments like hotels and restaurants had bigger, more permanent ones, often housed in purpose-built boxes, out front.

When the power went down, the generators got dragged out onto the footpath and fired up.

For the next few hours, the chug of the generators became the sound of the city, their fumes hanging in the sweet spring air.

A small inconvenience, unnoticed, now part of everyday life.

Not every establishment has its own generator. And those who don’t make do best they can.

Like Bilyy Shum, a tiny restaurant out on Antonovycha Street, run by a young couple who had been displaced by the war in the east.

On the evening of Good Friday, I tucked in to a tasty Borscht with smoked pears and beans, prepared over a gas stove, followed by a serving of Ukrainian cheesecake with orange, all under flickering candlelight.

If it weren’t for the Chemical Brothers being played over a battery-powered Bluetooth speaker, it would almost have been romantic.