Driving through the village, by the monument to T. H. Shevchenko, I recalled a brief conversation at the market in Morshyn with an old woman who was selling apples and prunes.
As I bought her fragrant gifts of autumn from her, I asked, "Where does such wonderful fruit grow?" "In Lysiatychi," — and so the seller of fruit from her own orchard revealed to me yet another place name of the Lviv region.
"And what do you have in your village? Are there monuments to Shevchenko or Franko?" I asked. Her answer simply astonished me and stayed with me for a long time: "Every village has a monument either to Shevchenko or to Franko, child!" — the woman of Lysiatychi replied, with pride and with surprise that I did not know this. In barely 30 seconds I learned so much about village landmarks and the fruitful orchards of the Subcarpathian region. And always, when I see monuments to our people's poets beside village schools and houses of culture, I remember the lesson taught by that seller of vitamin-rich produce.
Later I learned that the greatest number of monuments in Ukraine to the Kobzar (Shevchenko) and the Kameniar (Franko) have been raised in the Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv regions.
