There are a very limited number of things I like near the sea. The sea. The sky. Rocks. The sand, optionally. Between 2007 and 2014 (or so) I used to spend a midsummer week in Crimea with my best friends. We stand in Sudak, in small family hotel named «The Sunny Castle». Sudak itself is not the best place on the peninsula. But the hotel was. We stand early to take coffee with the sunrise and traveled away from the municipal beaches. We looked for the places where one could find just a few essential things. The sea. The sky. The rocks. It seems like finding yourself near the edge of eternity. The first time I met the rocks, I was overstressed with life in our capital. It is quite not like really big cities of the world, but, you know, when many people meet with their problems… Well, there was a stone. It was here for a long time. Maybe some hundreds of years ago it splitted off the nearest rock during the storm or earthquake. Its life has nothing in common with my. I realized that this endless blue space upper and that endless blue space lower, the sky and the sea are universe away of our little lives and troubles. But they also are here. I am just a human. How many years I have? For me, they are here forever. And I can be a part of this calmness. For a minute. Or hour. Or couple of days.

This summer I spent with my wife and daughter in Zhytomyr. We do not travel in Crimea nowadays. We live in peaceful region, but our motherland is at war. I can reach that coast, but I don’t want Russian soldier do something to my girls for they being too Ukrainian. So my daughter don’t know anything about war for now.

At the end of summer started a new wave of mobilization. I am not a volunteer kind neither deserter. We didn’t know if I get an order. I don’t, but my wife thought it would be nice if we had a little time together near the sea. In Odessa. We forgot to leave our work at home, so partly the whole travel was a disaster. But for a moment I found the sky and the sea. I was in Odessa for the first time. My daughter met the sea for the first time. On 19 of September I turned a year older.

I just want to say that with my poor English there is a little space for purity. It is hard to tell a story when you can miss and misspell and so on. So I appreciate you to point out my mistakes. And I can tell that my Ukrainian is much, much better.