Army Boots

In February 2022, as Russian tanks rolled across the border, the writer and historian Olesya Khromeychuk told us the story of the boots she had bought for her brother, serving at the front in eastern Ukraine. This week, we're sharing her story again.

Olesya's book, ' The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister', is available in print and as an audiobook. You can find her on Twitter here.

Sound design, mixing and mastering by Wojciech Oleksiak.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

KATY: Hey listeners, we’re not here this week. But while we’re away, we wanted to share with you a story that first aired on The Europeans this time two years ago. It was of course the week that Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a week that changed Europe forever. 

And that week, the writer and historian Olesya Khromeychuk very generously sat down and recorded a passage for us from the book that she’d written about the death of her brother Volodymr. He was killed fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2017. 

We had wanted our listeners to hear from Olesya because we thought it was important for people to know just how long Ukraine has been fighting; this war has now been going on for a decade, a lot of people forget that. 

But we also wanted people to hear from Olesya because her book is such a powerful reminder that this war isn’t just about geopolitics – it’s about the lives of individual families turned upside down, many millions of times over. 

Olesya’s book was re-released in 2022 under a new title, it’s called ‘The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister’, and it’s also available as an audiobook. But here is Olesya’s recording for The Europeans, with sound design by Wojciech Oleskiak. We’ll be back next week. 

OLESYA KHROMEYCHUK: A pair of boots, part one. For months, my Facebook page was advertising dating sites, maternity clothes, theatre performances, and army boots, size eight. The algorithms must have thought that I was a single woman of childbearing age, keen on theatre and army outfits. They must have also thought that I have pretty big feet. 

I didn't blame Facebook. I had spent days looking at army surplus sites, hunting for a pair of army boots. Following my brother's request, I was determined to get a pair that would be lightweight, waterproof, black and in size eight. I soon realised that army surplus sites sell just that: surplus supplies. That meant that the most popular sizes, eight included, were very hard to find. 

I considered getting police boots, because they were super light, and I could get them in the right size and colour. But they were not waterproof. I found a pair of army boots that were waterproof, black and size eight. But they were heavy, and the last thing you want when crossing the muddy black ash fields of eastern Ukraine is boots that weigh a ton, even before the mud piles onto them. 

After a week or so of inspecting hundreds of pairs of army boots on my laptop screen, and not finding what I needed, I started to despair. Every day I checked the main sites to see if they had any new additions, but with no luck. 

And then, suddenly, there they were. A shining pair of Gore-Tex, pro-combat, British army boots. I couldn't believe my eyes. They were waterproof, black. A bit on the heavy side. But most importantly, size eight. Wait, what’s that? The label said size eight *medium*. Oh god, I thought. Is medium good? What are the other options? 

I couldn't face to give them up and continue to look for another pair. Luckily, there were no other options available anyway. And I thought that medium must be better than large or small. So I bought them. 

The special bonus for all my hard work was the fact that they were not pre-owned, like most other pairs I looked at. They were brand new. I was very happy. My brother would have a brand new pair of proper army boots, the envy of the whole company and even the whole battalion. No one else would have such fine boots.

My order arrived pretty quickly. I was glad to learn that the boots were not too heavy. I gave them a wipe, stroked them gently, whispered ‘good luck’ to them, and put them back into the shoebox, and put the box in the bag.

The bag already contained a full army uniform, a couple of army caps, army socks, t-shirts, a lightweight waterproof suit, a lightweight jacket and trousers, a helmet liner, a bivy bag, a genuine British Army issue poncho, a few other pieces of army clothing, as well as medical supplies. A Celox sachet –the stuff that stops heavy bleeding – water purifying tablets, dry food survival packs, and lots of chocolates and flapjacks. 

Basically, all the stuff that the Ukrainian army didn't bother to give to its soldiers. There was also an MP3 player with my favourite music. I hadn't been asked for it; I put it there on my own initiative. My mum added a few little crosses on leather threads. ‘Maybe he'll give them out to his friends and keep one for himself,’ she said.

Apart from the boots, which were a total pain in the neck, none of these items were particularly hard to get. My friend Kolya had made a list of the necessary items and the companies that supply them. Other friends who had been volunteering for some time suggested a few websites that sold these items. So the process of obtaining all of these army supplies was remarkably straightforward. 

There was only one article that evaded me: I was also hoping to get a bulletproof vest. But that task proved to be beyond my ability. Bulletproof jackets are, predictably, not so easy to find online. But all in all, looking at the large khaki bag stuffed with all these items, I felt quite proud of myself for accomplishing my own military mission: getting everything necessary to keep my brother warm, dry, and safe.

My mother and I took the bag to a Man With A Van, who would then transport it to Ukraine and pass it on to Kolya in Lviv. Before the war, I had only encountered the services provided by the Man With A Van when my parents sent gifts to my numerous cousins in the Carpathian Mountains, and they, in return sent us dried mushrooms, honey and all those other delicacies from the old country one misses when one gets a bit homesick. 

I wondered how the Man With A Van felt about expanding his trade to include army provisions. Maybe he liked it, that he could do his bit for the country this way. He certainly didn't charge as much for the bag. 

Maybe he felt inadequate, that rather than buying these items for himself and driving his van to the frontline, he carried on his job as a messenger between peace and war. Maybe he hadn't given it any thought at all. Not everyone thinks of this war, and maybe that's fine. 

When we handed our bag over to him on a Sunday afternoon on a West London side street, we felt like we were letting go of someone we might never see again.

* * *

A pair of boots, Part Two. The bag lying on Masha’s kitchen floor in Kyiv was the same one I had packed on my own kitchen floor, nearly two years earlier in London. 

I didn't recognise many items. The uniform was not the British army one I had bought. It was made of thin, plastic-like material. Some of the T-shirts were the ones from my shopping list, but they no longer smelled of the warehouse, as they had when they got them in the post. Now they smelled of earth and damp. 

The helmet liner was there, the same one I had bought, except now it had a hole and several brownish stains on it. Some of the leather crosses were still there. Perhaps he didn't offer them to his friends. Or maybe they felt that, if the bulletproof jackets can’t protect them, nothing can. 

There were some condoms in a small pocket. I hadn't thought of those when I was packing the bag all those months ago. 

There was a mobile phone. It had no lock, no password. I didn't know if I should open the text messages, pictures, videos. They didn't belong to me. Yet I also felt that they could tell me something. I really needed clues about his life at the front. I wanted to see if he had kept the messages I had sent. But I knew he wouldn't have liked it if I checked his phone without his permission when he was alive. Why should I not require permission, now that he's dead?

Eventually I decided to take a quick look at the phone. The temptation was too strong to resist. I picked it up from the kitchen worktop where it had been charging, and noticed that the phone was now asking me for a password. I couldn't understand how that had happened. Only an hour or so earlier, when I had turned it on, no password was required. 

There was something a little spooky about this. I put the phone down again, and turned it off. Sometime later, however, my curiosity got the better of me, and I turned the phone back on. No password was required again. Really? As I was thinking about what to do, the request for the password reappeared. Now, that was too much for my tired brain.

I had a glass of water and decided that when things get too uncanny, the only way to deal with them is with the help of reason. I turned the phone off and on again. And as expected, for the first few minutes, it didn't ask for a password. That was my window of opportunity: the first few minutes before the password protection programme kicked in. 

I was still uncomfortable about reading those texts and viewing those pictures. So I put the phone to the side, and decided that I would take a proper look at it later. 

There was also a folder with some paperwork, a brief handwritten autobiography, some military documents, vouchers for free train journeys for soldiers – most of them unused – a list of next of kin, some pictures of the sun and rainbows drawn by kids for soldiers. And there was a book with pages missing, a weird fantasy book. I guess weird fantasy is what one needs when weird reality gets too much. 

And then I saw them. The Gore-Tex, pro-combat British army boots, size eight. They were still in very good shape, although not brand new anymore. I guess now you would qualify them as pre-owned. They were covered in mud, the fertile sticky Ukrainian black earth. 

I took them into the hall of Masha’s flat. The hall was covered in other people's shoes. Some were cleaner, newer and more colourful than others. The pair I held in my lap stood sharply apart from the rest there. Among the civilian shoes, this army gear looked like it came from another planet. 

I cried for the first time since I received the bag. My tears started to roll down my cheeks and onto the shoes. 

I took a cloth and started to clean them gently, like I had at home after I had received them in the post. 

First, I removed the mud from the soles. Then I cleaned the rest of each shoe and gave them a shine. I stroked them, like I had two years ago, and whispered to them: ‘Good luck. You can keep someone else dry and warm now.’