“It was funny in Sevastopol,” a serviceman comments on the fireworks in the city square. “You were surrounded by strangers, Russian flags were hanging everywhere,” servicemen say about the arrival of “green men” to Crimea. “I don’t know how you can take off one uniform, and put on another one,” – about the betrayal of fellow servicemen. “That could have been a naval military hundred, a heavenly hundred,” – about the happy chance to survive, escape the slaughter.
These are the words of the military men who a year ago were serving in Crimea, and now are serving on the mainland part of Ukraine. The phrases are used in the teaser to the documentary Crimea. As it was. The filming is done by the Babylon’13 team with the support of the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center and volunteers. One of them is Valentyna Okhlopkova, the initiator of the filming and a kind of a PIN-code that helps the shooting crew to get access to the seamen. They know Valentyna from the events connected with the occupation. She helped the servicemen many times, so she helps with choosing the heroes, too. But the main mission, concept, and plot of the film, is the responsibility of director of Babylon’13, Kostiantyn Kliatskin.
The team has been filming in Odesa, Mykolaiv, Mariupol, Kherson, and the Crimean neck. They will shoot the training of Sea Breeze-2015 in Odesa. The team plans to finish the shooting process in September and to organize a premiere in Kyiv in the end of the year. Further they are going to show the film in other Ukrainian cities, and, if everything goes fine, to show it abroad.
At first the creative team planned to make a film namely with an emphasis on the annexation of the peninsula, but in the process of the shooting the accents were made on the story of the servicemen. “When we started to learn more about these people, we understood that we should focus namely on them and make good film namely from the point of view of documentary cinema, not publicist cinema,” director of Babylon’13 Kostiantyn Kliatskin commented. “We shoot the life of these people, what they care about, in what environment they live, what difficulties and victories they have. Every hero is connected with Crimea, because they come from those places, served there for many years or were born there. Now we are following the destiny of 10 heroes from different branches. We have different shooting locations. We are trying to shoot what the servicemen care about the most. Absolutely every story is impressive. For example, neither you, nor I have found ourselves in such a situation. How can you find a way out? In fact, this story is about betrayal, faithfulness, honor, these are general values, which in this case make the material groundwork. In the film we can see people who from their own experience have understood the meaning of these values.”
Valentyna Okhlopkova often tells the amazing stories of courage of seamen or naval aviators. The girl loves and respects them above all because they haven’t broken the oath. But there is a gap in the relationships between them and us. Something has not been done or voiced. The words of gratitude or pride? The authors of the film Crimea. As it was will try to fill in this gap, which is over one year long. Read more about the preconditions and the messages the film carries in Den’s interview with Valentyna OKHLOPKOVA.
“WE MUST SHOW THE TRUTH TO UKRAINE AND TO THE WORLD”
Valentyna, you went to Belbek, when everything started and the first “green men” arrived. Did it impress you so much that you came up with an idea to shoot the film?
“In fact I was inspired not only by the servicemen from Belbek, but also the seamen and naval aviators from the Saky Naval Aviation Brigade, because on March 3 they, a very small group of people with the commander of the brigade at the helm, made a decision that they would take their equipment and move to their land. They were encircled and had very little time to coordinate things. The commander undertook the whole responsibility. I remember I was very scared when the Saky Brigade was under attack in March, whereas we were in Belbek. Battle helicopters were flying above them, and later same helicopters started to fly above Belbek. We didn’t understand what would happen next, what scale it would get. I didn’t feel so scared even on Maidan.
“Once I have told my friend from the Saky Brigade about the heroes of Belbek, how they went towards Russians with a Ukrainian flag, and in response he nearly started to yell that it hurt him that those who went with the flag became heroes, while the guys who brought out the equipment – not. Where’s the truth? And I was stung by this. In our mass media I was impressed that the data about leaving the Crimea on the anniversary of those events was confused. A year later they have forgotten how it was. It was also unpleasant when journalist Roman Bochkala came to the seamen, shot the material, and said in the report that the servicemen from the ship Slavutych lowered the flag before the Russians. This is not true, because the Russian mass media showed a reversed video, they rewound the process of hoisting the flag. With this plot the journalists really insulted the commander of Slavutych. People were on a hunger strike till the last minute, they could have gotten to a slaughter. When I saw that many facts had been distorted, I understood: we must do something to show the truth to Ukraine and the world. I shared this idea with Serhii Maliarchuk from the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center. On the following day we met there with the Babylon’13 team.”
“TO PAY HONOR FOR THE HEROIC DEED”
Where do you go to film?
“To Odesa, Mykolaiv to the naval aviators, and recently director Kliatskin went to see the naval seals to Shyrokyne. The first trip was funded by my friends from the Canadian disapora. I’m an inspirer, but most of the heroes of this film are my friends, seamen, and naval aviators. The servicemen from the 79th brigade are Kliatskin’s friends. Since the guys knew me, they welcomed us very warmly. Because very often the seamen felt offended because of the journalists.”
Do you record the servicemen’s words? Is there any plot line?
“There are several lines. For example, the seamen are one line, naval aviators, 79th brigade, and naval infantry are separate lines. Those are people who really took part in the events. We also gather a lot of documentary footage. We ask the military men, and they give us what they shot, we ask our journalist friends, military journalists, many of them are helping us, and we are very thankful to them for this.”
Is this film supposed to change the image of the military men who were witness to the Crimean events?
“The main purpose is to pay honor to them for their heroic deed.”
“SHIP POCHAIV REVIVED IN SPITE OF THE HARD TIMES”
You say that you love the seamen. You have told me stories about them. What needs do the servicemen have now?
“There is the ship Pochaiv. It left Crimea about a year ago. The ship was half-burned and robbed. There is no heat-insulator paneling on the ship, so it will be impossible to live on it, when it gets colder. Now we are holding negotiations with every possible organization to get help to cover the ship with the heat insulator. When I was taken to this ship for the first time and told its story, when I saw this poverty, my heart sunk, I had the same feeling as when we went to orphanages: the feeling of abandonment and hopelessness. As time passed by, the brigade put a lot of resources and efforts to restore the ship, volunteers bought the equipment. When I was invited to the Ship Day in May, my icon painter friends presented them with an icon of Pochaiv Mother of God, and I had a feeling that in spite of the hard times the ship revived owing to the care of every seaman and officer of the naval brigade, with the help of volunteers. We asked the administration of Pochaiv to help, they promised to help the servicemen, but on the Ship Day, only one person from the local community came, took part in the events and left.”
“IT IS PAINFUL THAT THESE SERVICEMEN ARE LIVING IN SPARTAN CONDITIONS”
Isn’t there an understanding that these military men need help?
“My friends sent a document to the local administration with the list of the works that need to be done so that the servicemen didn’t get frozen in winter, but no one is doing anything. Actually, there is a presidential order on patronage, when the city after which a ship is named should help and take care of it. It hurts that the servicemen are living in Spartan conditions. They have no place to live, no dormitory houses. Maybe I am too much concerned about this, but I don’t understand how they can treat people who have remained faithful so badly.”
I saw playing cards with Crimea images sold, an action that is your brainchild.
“My Canadian friends come from Crimea, they developed a design of playing cards ‘Krymnash’ (Crimea is ours), with portraits of Russian military men, and gave it to me to sell, saying that I can use the money to support the servicemen. Before the meeting I had sold five sets of cards, it will be enough to buy a printer for the servicemen. These set of cards have helped me a lot sometimes. When we were going to Mariupol, the military men asked for several computers with certain characteristics. One was brought by my friends, and one more had to be bought, we were lacking about 600 hryvnias, and our friends started to buy the cards. We also managed to buy fire extinguishers for the naval infantry thanks to selling the cards. We need to make patriotic production, offer to people to buy it and in such a way support the military men.”
“THERE’S NO ARMY IN THE WORLD WHERE SERVICEMEN WOULD FUND THE REPAIR OF THEIR SHIPS FROM THEIR OWN POCKETS”
Some people consider that we have forgotten the events in Crimea and have abstracted ourselves from this topic. Don’t you think so?
“There is a war going on, so the tensions connected with Crimea have decreased. I think we are coming back to the topic in waves.”
You have so many stories about Crimea and courageous seamen. Don’t you want to write a book? For you have to live through all this?
“I would dictate the stories if someone decided to write the book (chuckling). Now I am living through many positive things, I can see that the situation is improving. The servicemen that are under our patronage don’t give up and rise to their feet, which is very rejoicing. Seamen and aviators do a lot on their own, buy things they need for their own money. There’s probably no army in the world where servicemen would fund the repair of their ships from their own pockets. Many times the servicemen underlined that there is the ATO, and there are them, and they feel uncomfortable to take the resources that could be used for the anti-terrorist operation. They ask volunteers for help only when the situation is really bad. This impresses me. I also see that a group of patriots has emerged, and they can become a critical mass for changes. I want to believe that we deserve a better future and a revival.”
