I.

The stories this land holds are vast and immeasurable; the flows of its creation, fading, metamorphosis. The wisdom that it carries is inseparable from the blood that waters it.

In the traditional Slavic calendar, the months are named in accordance with the lifecycle of trees and herbs. From the cutting of wood to the blossoming of grass, human life flows along with this measure of time, celebrating the rebirth of nature with marriage, commemorating the deceased after the sleep of winter, and giving gratitude to the fruit of the land to soothe the next cycle. The systems of biological and individual time are interconnected; listening to nature was the only way to survive alongside, adjusting human rhythms to it.

February. The month of harshness. Month of ice. Month of wallow. February 2022 never ended.

***
The south regions of the Don basin are known under many names. Here, the grasslands are scattered by strange elongated objects: devil’s fingers, the calcified shells of the extinct Belemnitida molluscs. The ancient ocean of Thetys once covered this soil. The movement of archaic waves is remembered by ridges of mineral mounds and particularly rich fertile earth, the black soil. Here, you truly reap what you sow. Thetys flooded this region 3 more times; the ashes of underwater forests have formed mountains, making all black into white, and valleys into peaks.

Scattered across the basin, tall chalk pillars overlook the land in their solitude. In some areas, the land hums underneath your footsteps, hinting at the caves below. Used as places of refuge, the formations became shrines and convents impossible anywhere else. These spaces are sacred for the very fact of their existence in defiance to their use for human production. They commemorate a transformation process so vast that we cannot fully comprehend them, but collectively sense their significance. The flowers on the altar do not dry; filtering through the thick chalk walls, the air of these spaces is humid and rich in minerals, nurturing its inhabitants. Many walked its grassy paths in pilgrimage to share hopes, give gratitude, or find healing. Divo, a miracle. You reap what you sow.