- Description
- Cast and crew
- Duration: 44’
- Genre: PEOPLE, HISTORY
- Resolution: HD
- Year: 2015
The eastern part of the Belarusian Polesie
region bordering with Ukraine comprises a huge uninhabited area. In 1961-1962
an aviation ground was established here for the countries participating in the
former Warsaw Pact. Khrapoun Villages including Kolki, Villia, Khinichy, Rubryn
and Mierlinski were evicted even though they all existed since 1451. The
Mierlinski training ground was closed in 1993. The wounds of this
long-suffering land are healing gradually and a young forest is emerging in the
place of the shell craters. Each year people from the Belarusian and Ukrainian
border villages come back to the former training ground to pick cranberries.
For many of them, this is a way of returning to the past and an opportunity to
visit their native places including the cemetery where their fathers and
grandfathers are buried. The protagonists of the film tell us unknown facts
about the history of the evicted villages and the creation of the training
ground. They also reflect on the future of this land: whether people would
come back to this area or whether the sound of war blasts would fill the air
here again.
- Directed by: Iryna Volakh