A year before the outbreak of the full-scale war, Oleksandr Gusev, one of the best artisans in woodcarving, created a large memorial roadside cross with a sculpture of Jesus Christ for his home village of Mykolayivka. During the hostilities in Kyiv region and the attack on the village, the cross was the first to take a hit. The sculptor’s wife showed the fragments of the sculpture and the remains of an authentic [embroidered] towel to blogger Ruslan Shcherbatyuk. She also said that her husband promised to restore the cross when he returns from the war.

He carved the so-called memorial roadside cross, which is usually placed at the entrance to a village. It was a large wooden crucifix with the figure of Christ and a wooden cross, accordingly. All the village residents gathered to set it up. Local men gathered, dug a pit, made a concrete foundation, and erected the cross. It was a very significant event for the village. Father Bohdan from the Ukrainian village, from Dmytro Solunskyi Church, consecrated this cross. So it stood there almost for a year, but for some reason our so-called “relatives” did not like it. This is all that has been left of it.

Oleksandr is now in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He asked his neighbours to collect the remains and promised: when he returns, he will make a new cross with elements of the old one, for people’s memories.

There was a concrete foundation here – metre by metre, and one metre deep. Local men dug it all day long, and poured in the concrete. The base of the cross was just huge. You saw some burnt remains of it, a huge timber beam. I think that it was hit right here, as it had been dug in and covered with paving blocks. These are the remains of the towel. It was an old authentic towel Liubov Levytska from Kolchyno presented to us as a gift. She has a collection of such traditional embroidered decorative towels, called rushnyk, and she gave us this one for our cross. This is all that is left of the towel.