The bus ride took about 40 minutes. As always, I asked my fellow passengers to tell me when my stop came. The settlement stretches a long way and there are two stops. A man slightly the worse for drink told me about this village with sadness in his voice: he once had a local girl here, and he knows every path there. Besides, he is a connoisseur of I. Ya. Franko's work. The memories lulled him to sleep. It was lucky that the young mothers travelling from the district centre, who had been discussing the problems of bringing up little ones the whole way, had heard our conversation and managed to warn me about getting off.
Golden domes showed through the trees. But the sense that the church was close by turned out to be deceptive. I had to go round places that were hard to pass, a field, a shelterbelt. Here one recalls the wisdom of the proverb: «Do not go into the water without knowing the ford». I crossed the railway crossing, where a repair crew was at work, and hurried along the long village street.
A shop, a café, a post office. At the crossroads stands a monument to I. Ya. Franko. In these parts, it seems, memorial signs to the Kameniar (the Stonecutter) have been raised in every village. Schools and streets are named in his honour.
