The Day continues to publish the stories of our heroes – the courageous Ukrainian men who had usually been far from military affairs in peacetime but could no longer remain at home when war broke out in eastern Ukraine. Today we are telling a story when a terrible test of war influenced, to some extent, the further destiny of military surgeon Ruslan Saliichuk who finally decided to be a priest when he came back from the battlefield, as well as the story of photo correspondent Oles Kromplias who combined his professional work with service in the Azov Battalion.
He had wanted to be an officer since he was a child. But he became a surgeon, for this a true man’s profession. As a military doctor, he served in Dagestan and Iraq. And from June 20 until August 5 he was, together with other Rivne medics, saving those wounded in the counter-terrorism operation. When he was still a student in St. Petersburg, a wandering old man said to him: “You will become a priest.” When asked when, he said: “In summer.” This year, when Ruslan Saliichuk returned from the east, he was ordained as deacon.
He has been working at the Rivne military hospital for 14 years now. There is a small icon on the wall near Saliichuk’s desk, a Gospel in the drawer, and a helmet on the bedside table. The doctor shows the photos he took in Donetsk and Luhansk oblast war zone. The mines that did not explode… The peeling walls of an abandoned factory, where a camp was put up… The nailed-together wooden shields on which soldiers sleep… A line to a water tank… APCs…
“This is a mobilized academic. He worked at an applied mathematics department in Ivano-Frankivsk. He is a POW now,” Saliichuk tells me about the pictured man. “And this is a retired policeman. He was also taken prisoner near Ilovaisk.” The next pictures show medics who wear the military uniform and bulletproof jackets and carry arms. They would often reach the wounded as bullets were whizzing by.
“When our camp was first mortar-shelled, the shells were overshooting our territory,” the doctor recalls, “but when they opened fire again in the morning, the shells were landing in front of us. Fate must have decreed so. We had two teams of the medics who would go out to rescue the wounded. At first, when I went out several times, everything was OK, but the next time three were killed.”
After being under mortar fire, Saliichuk composed two songs. An artillerist who could play the guitar helped strike up a tune. When they were singing together, the doctor decided to film this on the cell phone. “I thought I was aiming the camera at myself, but it in fact caught Roman Nedakhivsky, the artillerist who played the guitar. He was killed soon. It was so painful and bitter,” the man says, showing the recordings of anti-terrorism area songs.
“When a child, I dreamed of becoming an officer. I chummed with two neighboring twin brothers. Their father was a serviceman. And I decided that I would also become one,” Saliichuk recalls. “I was eager to enter a military school after I’d done the eighth grade. But mum managed to persuade me to apply to the Dubno Medical School. I submitted documents on perhaps the last day, passed the exams well, and began to study. Then a friend of mine and I went to a store to buy doctor’s white smocks. But there were only surgeon’s coats on sale. I tried one on. Somebody even joked on me, but I decided at that very moment that I would make a surgeon, for it is a man’s profession.”
When he finished studies, he joined the army and served in, of all places, Donetsk. A major, who came to know about Saliichuk’s specialty, insisted that he continue his education at the Leningrad Military Medical Academy. He eventually did so. When he was in the last year of studies, he even wanted to go to the monastery. “I’d grown in an Orthodox family and spent a lot of time with Grandmother Anna. She taught me pray,” the man says. “My sister was a theological school student and then a church choirmaster for a long time. At the time, in Leningrad, I felt spiritually elated and, hence, hit upon the idea of taking monastic vows. I went to see the metropolitan about this matter. But he said I had first to test myself. Then I came across a wandering elder who said I would surely be a priest.”
After graduating from the academy, Saliichuk went to Astrakhan. He was later in Dagestan as a doctor. In 2004, he and some other medics went to Al-Kut, Iraq. There was a Drohobych priest there. He was looking for somebody to help him sing and hold service. So, Ruslan, whose mother used to be a choirmaster, responded to the call. They chanted liturgy for eight months.
When he came back to Rivne, he began to sing in the hospital’s church choir (a temple was being built there). A few years later, he continued to sing at St. Catherine’s Church in Zdolbuniv, where he still lives. He even wished to study part-time at a theological seminary. But it turned out that this was only possible for those who had been ordained.
And then the military surgeon Saliichuk found himself engaged in the counter-terrorism operation. They were brought to the village of Varvarivka near Rubizhne. There was a ceasefire at first, but then they began to be fired at. It was strange that there were ordinary mobilized men, not career officers, in the area, the man says. This also raised the question of what this war was being waged for…
After coming back home, Saliichuk was ordained as deacon. He serves at St. George the Dragon-Slayer’s Church in Zdolbuniv. Incidentally, his son also works there. Meanwhile, he is not going to quit from the hospital and is ready again to take part in the counter-terrorism operation. “My grandmother used to say that faith and fatherland are for life. They can’t be changed,” the man says convincingly.
