HERRING HARVEST
Now, despite a spring ban on fishing, Vylkove is in fact “reaping its herring harvest.” And although this activity will last until the end of May, these two or three weeks in April provide the local population enough means to lead quite a comfortable existence in the year ahead. From dawn to dusk, thousands of motorboats scurry along the Danube and its innumerable canals and tributaries. Fishing stops only when darkness falls: border guards do not allow small-size vessels to appear in the river, the main fairway of which is the state border between Ukraine and Romania. At night, fish can go unopposed to their customary spawning places.
Although the extraordinary Danube herrings is something many have heard of, even Ukrainians seldom eat it, let alone West Europeans for whom it is an unparalleled delicacy. Yet, absolutely everyone likes Danube herrings. The local herring tastes delicious with each dish, whether the fish soup or the stewed, fried or smoked fish, exhuding a special aroma. What fundamentally distinguishes it from other species is unusual succulence and fatness: it virtually melts away in one’s hand and the more so in the mouth. Yet, it is as senseless to describe the culinary virtues of the Danube herring as it is to tell about the charming voice of Pavarotti, so let us dwell on other little-known facts.
Danube herrings have always been eaten by only a select few. Earlier, the latter mostly comprised Kyly District (to which Vylkove administratively belongs) residents and Kremlin bosses. But even today, like many years ago, these herrings are not on sale in Odesa or Kyiv shops: they only find their way to these cities as presents for high officials. Nor can the citizens of other countries relish this fish: it is now almost out reach due to a drastically worsened environmental situation and a massive catch of fish upriver.
In fact, Danube herrings do not belong to the Danube at all. Experts say they inhabit the Pacific Ocean off New Zealand, but once a year they form a huge school and rush to the upper Danube, their traditional spawning place thousands of kilometers away. The fish constitute a solid wall at the depth of thirty meters in front of the Danube mouth, waiting for the right hour: the temperature and purity of water must strictly meet their requirements. The first to go is the daring hot redeye leader. If it dies for some reason, the school will never enter the river, waiting, instead, for a new trailblazer to appear. Humans are still unaware of what combination of factors signals the huge mass of the Pacific fish to rush into fresh water. It is impossible even to estimate how many fish die on this long and hard route. But, in any case, the destiny of all mature individuals is a foregone conclusion. Those which have bypassed sea predators and fishing nets will spawn roe in the Danube and die of exhaustion. As to juveniles, they will head for the Pacific on their own, only to repeat the destiny of their parents sometime later.
Today, everything in Vylkove smells of fish: whatever you touch, your hands will reek of herring. In bygone days, lucky fishermen could catch up to a half ton of fish a day for immediate processing at the local fishery. But in the past few years, the fish plant has in fact been on its last legs for reasons unknown, and go-betweens buy up and take herrings to Danubian districts for sale. While in Vylkove itself one can buy a large fish for 4-5 hryvnias, the price will reach 7-9 hryvnias a little upstream, at an Izmail market. The fish are caught with a special 25 meter long and 2 meter deep herring seine. As a rule, four to ten seines are tied together. A boat equipped with this tackle goes out fishing with usually two fishermen onboard.
Yet, there are too few fish around, and their number is dwindling. What contributes to this is shallowness of the Danube delta and water pollution. Word has it that Vylkove residents were unofficially Ukraine’s richest people in Soviet times. When the USSR collapsed and mass exchange of money began, they would bring sacks full of rubles that had decayed from long storage in a humid climate. Although there is no question of such profits today, there are still enough funds to give children an education. Young Vylkove people live quite a good life and study at this country’s best universities at the expense of their parents. Yet, the 11,000 residents of Vylkove itself are gradually aging.
STRAW FOR EXPORT
Herrings, grapes, and wine are the perennial three foundations on which the Ukrainian Venice rests. But who could have guessed that this locality would learn to make money on one more specialty? It is straw being exported to Western Europe.
Of course, this is unusual straw. It is here, on the lush Danube water meadows, that grow the reeds which both the German burger and the well-off Austrian would like to take hold of. Why does the urbane Europe need it? For more comfort in their already comfortable life. It turned out there is nothing better than Ukrainian reed straw to thatch the roofs of bungalows: this cheap, durable, and pollution-free straw is an excellent heat preserver and imparts a certain medieval beauty to villas. Such a roof impeccably serves as long as ninety years. This variety of reed grows everywhere in the Danube delta. Local residents sell it at one hryvnia a bundle. At a special sorting station, each stalk is inspected, cut to shape, given a salable look, and sent to Western Europe. In Holland, one bundle costs $5-7. The straw is usually prepared in winter, when water meadows are icebound and one can easily approach the farthest thickets of reeds. The most surprising thing is that, although special mechanical appliances have been designed to gather the reeds, people still prefer, like hundreds of years ago, to work with a scythe in hand, picking out the most suitable stalks instead of cutting all the plants. To meet the export requirements, a reed must be 6 millimeters thick and 1.5-2 meters long, while a bundle should be sixty centimeters in circumference.
BETWEEN SKY AND WATER
Vylkove residents joke that their town is the world’s only place where tipsy individuals walk swaying back and forth, not side to side. This is not an exaggeration but the bitter realty of the local landscape.
The town can be said to have grown up accidentally in a place far from the best. It is here that those who refused to abandon their principles and opposed Patriarch Nikon’s religious reform took refuge in the mid-seventeenth century. A monument was even erected in their honor: an old-believer is carrying an enormous cross, braving fatigue and pain. Later, this faraway area, consisting of fifteen large and 150 small islands, received the defiant Ukrainian Cossacks who sang songs about “Zaporozhzhian Cossacks beyond the Danube.” The first official record of Vylkove – called Lypovanske at the time – dates to 1762. The name of Vylkove (Ukrainian vylka, fork — Ed.) came later: in this place the Danube divides into three branches – Ochakivske, Starostambulske, and Belhorodske, while the Kyliyske branch is the fork’s stem.
The Danube delta is the world’s only place where land is steadily reclaimed owing to the natural alluvium of river silt. But it is not easy to build a house on a silt bank. Therefore, to put up dikes, house foundations, and vegetable garden levees, people had to dig up silt from under the reed-growing mire and carry it to the place of construction. This is how the Ukrainian Venice came about: the miles-long canals between the houses were gradually filled with river water, in fact turning the houses into islands. Even today the greater part of the town has no streets in the common sense of the word. Instead, there are creeks and streams, down which local residents scuttle to and fro. Nevertheless, these wide and narrow water routes traditionally bear such proud names as Maxim Gorky Street, June 28 Street, Fishermen Avenue, etc. Moreover, such streets are fringed not with sidewalks but with an eighty kilometer long narrow wooden catwalk supported by small posts. One simply can’t live here without a boat: people go about their business, fish, and carry all kinds of cargo on 3,500 small craft. A boat is more important here than a car, a bicycle or a horse – it is the bread-winner and the object of unhidden pride.
Life in Vylkove is full of special romanticism little known to out-of-towners. What adds to this impression is the never ending stock of fine wine, the uncommonly fresh air, and the unique nature of the nearby Danube Biosphere Preserve. Still, problems crop up where they are not supposed to. For example, potable water, a thing so simple and customary for most people, is here an item always desired by but not always available to all the thirsty. The marshy town in fact has no clean water of its own. It is impossible to dig a well here, for it is immediately being filled with murky river ooze. This is why the town lives off the water brought from elsewhere, while the creeks are used for purely domestic purposes, such as laundering, washing dishes and footwear. Moreover, this can be done simultaneously from both sides of a very narrow stream without the faintest hint of embarrassment: local residents have no excessive complexes, this is a customary thing dictated by the conditions of life. The Vylkove people do not flash any refined attire and behave very modestly. True workaholics, they are forced by circumstances to live in a poorly-developed area. On the other hand, they could throw away their fishing nets and live a comfortably life off tourism alone. Given the adequate service and a well thought promotion campaign, travelers would come here in droves from all over the world. This is a something to ponder.
