Viktoriia Grivina

Viktoriia Grivina

@brams884.bsky.social

Writer, researcher of Kharkiv, PhD student at St Andrews University.

1.2K followers345 following876 posts

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Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

You can now order my book via Ibidem. These are stories with a bit of humor and history, and I hope they are saying more about Kharkiv than my ever-modest self 😅. Big thanks to @maksymeristavi.com and @victoriadonovan.bsky.social - my first readers & inspirations. www.ibidem.eu/en/Topics/So...

ibidem.euKharkiv—A War CityKharkiv—A War City - This unique collection of essays offers a glimpse into life in and around Kharkiv during the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A Kharkiv native, Vikoriia
Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Enjoying the last batch of my favorite cottage cheese from the Kharkiv producer Agromol. I’ve been told it won’t be available for some time, because russians hit their facilities 😭😭😭. I pray they re-start soon.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Kharkiv’s Museum of Natural History. Founded in 1807, it was based initially in private collection of the earl Severyn Pototsky, and later became part of the university. It’s one of the oldest university museums in Europe. Some photos of the haunted exhibits below.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

In another entry of Kharkiv’s Halloween houses, a 1914 Synelnykov mansion, created by the most whimsical local architect Oleksandr Rzhepishevsky. Here he used elements of German fachwerk house, and imitated the feel of a house reconstructed, with blind windows and bricks left open in several places.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Another unruly Sunday breakfast with homemade pumpkin pie, pastries and one of the few really good russians - Marko Vovchok aka Maria Vilinska who from a russian aristocratic family married into a Ukrainian folklorist Opanas Markovych, and became one of the first Ukrainian female writers. 1/2

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Of course, she took a male pen name which can be translated as “Marko the Little Wolf”. Her stories were mostly of village women in Ukraine and their struggles to get some standing in villages. She wrote in russian and French too, thankfully for us very poorly compared to her Ukrainian texts.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

The next entry to the Kharkiv’s Halloween gothic vibe architecture series is a 1899 Professor Somov’s mansion. As a friend said, “imagine profs used to have this money”. He was a professor of ornithology 🦅.1/2

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

The money was, of course, inherited as all lecturers and students in the Kharkiv university had to be aristocrats. Anyway, it was designed by Kharkiv’s favourite guy, Oleksii Beketov. Imagine experiments with birds and ghost piano playing through the night. 2/2

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Want to be my usual self, but I don’t feel like a human today. The russians were bombing us half night. Houses in my friends’ hood were hit again and again, a bank was also deemed a strategic object. These strikes are aimed to dehumanize us, show how expendable we are.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

A fascinating talk incoming, you’re very welcome to join 😍.

The RUTA Association@associationruta.bsky.social

Our next RUTA webinar on 28 October will bring together the author collective of a crucial forum on decolonial dialogues in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Madina Tlostanova and Yuliya Yurchuk will serve as discussants, and Assel Tutumlu will moderate. Registration: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

An important message of support for the everlasting struggle of Ukrainian academia to survive.

The RUTA Association@associationruta.bsky.social

The RUTA Association stands in solidarity with the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and calls on the international academic community to respond decisively to Russia’s continued attacks on Ukrainian civilians, research institutions, and intellectual life.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

I’ve recently read that the russian military might be encouraged to abandoned the Kinburn Spit, which reminded me of another unique corner of the southern nature mutilated by a military boot - the dream island of Dzharylhach. open.substack.com/pub/vika4goo...

open.substack.comDzharylhach: a Deserted Island in the Midst of EuropeI wrote this travel story before the coastline fell under russian occupation. One day I hope, though, I will be able to return to the enchanted island.
Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

My grandpa Viktor was very young when WW2 began. He had several birthdays because he added a year to join the red army in 1943 (provision was much better and he could send his relatives some food, he would say). He was a paramedic and I think he didn’t see much of the fighting, or 1/4

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Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

blended in very fast, learnt Ukrainian songs and became part of the community. He had a toast which he pronounced at family gatherings, “let the Moskal live in Ukraine and make no harm”. There is ethnicity and there is political identity. 3/4

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Grandpa Viktor chose his identity, like he chose to love red tulips and to brush off his WW2 service as practical and not something that he really felt was the right thing to do. 4/4

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

My grandpa Viktor was very young when WW2 began. He had several birthdays because he added a year to join the red army in 1943 (provision was much better and he could send his relatives some food, he would say). He was a paramedic and I think he didn’t see much of the fighting, or 1/4

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

at least he never spoke about it. Or maybe the war just didn’t fit his larger than life optimism. In any case, he ended up in the Kharkiv region, met my grandma and decided to stay. My great-grandma jokingly called him an occupant, because he came from russia. But he was a social beast and 2/4

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Library copies of my PhD submitted 🥳🥹. I still need to wait for all the checks, but, fingers crossed, the uni gods confirm. “Apocalyptic Unlearning: Vulnerable Legacies and Cultural Reimaginings in Wartime Kharkiv (2022-24)” will fly into the big world of grownup PhDs✈️.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

The beautiful old town of Bohodukhiv - “town of god’s spirit” - is being relentlessly bombed for several days by the Russian military. It is here that a famous Ukrainian writer Mykola Khvylovyi studied. The terror by shaheeds, bombs and drones is relentless, erasing everything.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

After the night of drone and missile attacks I feel like a little plastic lamb in the Kharkiv Central Park. But the day is busy. I need to run for a training, then deadlines, and if the weather doesn’t curse us, an expedition.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Starting the most unique book for breakfast - a non-fiction story by two ethnographers in Izyum about Otaman Savonov, a Ukrainian who in 1918-1921 was fighting against both white russians and bolsheviks in Izyum. There is a chapter dedicated to him being “kharakternyk”, i.e. a Witcher 👀.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Russian state is consistently attacking cultural heritage of Ukraine. The 1835 Donets-Zakharzhevsky mansion survived two world wars, but not today’s russia. Colonel Donets was a Ukrainian Cossack settler in the 17th century Sloboda Ukraine. His family would become rich in centuries to come.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Dear all, for my birthday under the sounds of Shaheeds I’m fundraising for some important equipment, to join one of my favourite Kharkiv initiatives. Today you have a chance to win my book! Links to the fundraiser in comments! 👇👇

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

My awkward translation of a poem by Anatolii Kytchynskyi, a poet from Kherson, The Cold of That Winter (2005). We called the cold of that winter “beastly”, Because it was so freezing you could bark. But language would save us. There was a feeling That all the colds in the universe👇

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Took advantage of a visa free regime With our northern borders, Rushed to us Looking for political asylum Our fatherland that winter Was so cold, That we had nothing left But to freeze into it.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Starting this day in Kharkiv with a class of fly yoga was definitely a choice 😅. As we were swinging in hammocks after the threat of guided bombs subsided, the instructor asked if anyone watched the new adaptation of the Wuthering Heights already.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

Happy pancake holiday. In Ukraine, it’s called either masliana (Масляна) or Kolodyi (Колодій). My kitchen is warm enough to cook again! Tried to make crepe suzette. Let’s burn the scarecrow of winter and approach spring.

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

There is nothing like taking a relaxing hot bath in a cold ass winter apartment, and hearing a female voice from a street loudspeaker “attention, attention, missile threat, missile threat” 💀

Viktoriia Grivina
@brams884.bsky.social

It’s 0C outside, and I don’t see clouds of my breath in the apartment anymore🥳. Celebrated with some oven baked oatmeal with leftover barbecue meat. And my love - regional paper Slobidsky Kraj. “Sloboda” was a free settlement of Ukrainians in 17th century.