So, Here Are the Results of 2021: Travel and Toil Overcome All

Why should we take stock? Lately, we have all felt how plans collapse and forecasts fail to come true for certain reasons beyond our control. So we need to revise our schedules, our programme, and our approach to planning, and move towards realising our ideas. In the passing year of 2021, not all of our escapades came off, but we did not sit still, and discoveries, riddles, and achievements lay in wait at every step. A hike is a step out of your comfort zone, a sudden downpour, waiting for a delayed suburban train in a 17-degree frost, and even an electric shock from an accidental touch of an electric-fence wire. Every outing is always a sense of novelty and the conquest of a new summit — a chalk cliff in Bilokuzmynivka

 

Bilokuzmynivka, Donetsk region. Chalk cliffs

Mezhova. A Tour of the Museum of Local History — a Place Where We Have So Much in Common

Since childhood we have heard that he who does not know his past is not worthy of his future. The future will come in any case, but what will it be like for each of us? We are told that we must love our land and know the history of our native region, but exactly how to arrive at that is not explained very clearly. It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times, and visiting a museum is the best way to get acquainted with the historical past of your homeland, to learn about folk traditions, cultural heritage, national rites, and the culinary features of your native region. Museums are created precisely so that we can better recognise ourselves, our kin, and our roots. The People's Museum of Local History of the Mezhova area is housed in the House of Culture in the settlement of Mezhova, Dnipropetrovsk region.

 

Mezhova. House of Culture

Donetsk Region. Cultural and Architectural Heritage in Ruins. An SOS Signal

In the Donetsk region, as throughout Ukraine, historic buildings that are famous landmarks of towns and villages are collapsing, falling into decay, and burning down. The destruction of the historical and cultural layer of this industrial region has been going on for decades, and since the early 1990s the number of neglected sites among the pre-revolutionary buildings has increased considerably. Some of the houses have owners, but they are not concerned about the state of their priceless property. Not all the historic buildings that make up the architectural face of this industrial land, or are simply important for preserving memory, are under municipal protection. But even those that have been granted the status of monuments enjoy no special privileges, and protected status has added nothing for these former masterpieces. Genuine pearls, whose history spans more than a hundred years, have potential and could be the adornment of towns and objects on tourist routes. If these works of architecture, these industrial monuments, were saved and, with the help of investors, turned into museums, offices, shops, and art galleries, they would bring both aesthetic pleasure and practical benefit.

Prelesne, Donetsk region. The abandoned Bantysh estate

Avdiivka. The Terminal Railway Station and the Trackside Settlement

The freight-and-passenger railway station of Avdiivka is located in the town of the same name in the Donetsk region and belongs to the Krasnyi Lyman division of the Donetsk Railway.

 

Avdiivka railway station. Donetsk region.