What would you like for your birthday Tetiana, writes Councillor Alistair McNair. That’s my wife. Two years ago, Putin sent her an invasion. It arrived on February 24, a couple of days late. Not surprising given the state of the Royal Mail. But we did take it personally. My favourite Ukrainian pop song is Na Nebi (In the Sky) by Okean Elzy – the biggest band in Ukraine and coming to Brighton soon. “Where there is only February outside the window for somebody, there is already spring in my street.” Well, spring had died.
We’d only just moved into our new home. What was that smell from a few doors down?
I’d never have guessed that behind the lovely rainbow glass-fronted door live second and third generation Ukrainians, Lessia, Larissa and their mother Victoria. Who’d have thought that in this nondescript street fluent Ukrainian would be being spoken over home-made pampushki – small sticky moreish garlic rolls – and borscht the colour of velvet with sour cream. Ukrainians put sour cream with everything. I hate it. How can you not like sour cream, my wife says. I’d fail the citizenship test. I always joke that if you want to start a war among Ukrainians ask them how many letters are in the Ukrainian alphabet – they can never agree.
Or just ask if they think borscht is the best soup. I’ll bet you a fiver they shout back – it’s not soup! It’s borscht. And Ukrainian.
Lucky Ukraine is a matriarchy. A popular saying is “man is the head; woman is the neck”. So while the men went to fight, so did the women – 5,000 on the front line. And women made not only borscht but home-made Molotov cocktails. And Ukrainians across Brighton and Hove woke like some sleeper cell. Yulia in Hangleton. Iryna in Hollingbury. Kira in Moulsecoomb. Not a mum’s army. Three furies.
I have a sweet tooth. I have a savoury tooth. I won’t have many teeth left the rate I’m going. And I blame Yulia. She makes cakes like Willy Wonka makes chocolate. Her husband is a cake-baking widower. Lucky Hangleton.
Once, when we had been packing boxes for Ukraine full of coats and shoes and shirts and jumpers and toys, Yulia brought out large glass jars of gherkins and, most Ukrainian of all, large rolls of salo – thick slabs of cured pork fat – which we sliced into squares for our dark rye bread. Scotland might be infamous for its deep-fried Mars bars – Ukraine has chocolate salo.
They sing songs about salo – “And it got to my heart, oh oh oh, and our native lard, oh oh there is no better snack”. And there we were, in a car park balancing slices of salo on bits of rye. All that was missing was the vodka. I like to show off my vodka stamina.
My wife has an aunt who used to live in a very remote village. The house was surrounded by flowers and the back patio had lazy cats, the occasional snake, and heavy vines for shade.
At the end of the garden was the forest – thick and big enough to get lost in. There was a wooden shack of an outside toilet by the chicken coop. Reader – I used it. I had to. Her uncle had been a helicopter pilot in the Afghan war. I don’t think he’d have thought this rather shy, podgy Scot was anything to write home about. But fellow Brits, I held my own. I downed glasses of samogon – homemade vodka – as he downed them. And kept up with the toasts – the third is to love (za lyubov). He’s dead now, before his years, and his sons are fighting a new war.
While Yulia is baking, Iryna is cajoling, wheedling, flattering, twisting and coaxing. Nobody escapes her. Her texts find you like radar. Their words curl round you like the tongue of a cute Alsatian.
Her husband stands ready to carry a box or set up a table. There’s no fair in all Brighton that hasn’t seen a blue and yellow flag fly high because of Iryna.
There isn’t a garage in the city that Iryna hasn’t tried to fill with boxes. Kira, meanwhile, in full Ukrainian dress, full of secret smiles, makes candles by pouring melted wax into empty baked bean cans to lighten dark trenches.
Free on Sunday, February 25, at 3pm? Come to All Saints Church, Hove. Say hello to Kira and Iryna. Ask them about their alphabet. Buy a blue and yellow flag. Listen to the singing. Have some salo. Learn to say Slava Ukraini – Glory to Ukraine. In Na Nebi, there’s a line: “I fly every minute you are with me.”
Be Ukrainian for a moment or two and we can all fly.
Alistair McNair is leader of the Conservatives on Brighton and Hove City Council