Peter Moore

On Easter Sunday, I called into the Church of St Clement Sheptytskyi and met Father Sebastian.

Father Sebastian is Lviv’s coolest priest and curator of the city’s biggest collection of icons.

He always pulls in a big crowd, more so over Easter.

Father Sebastian displays photos of fallen soldiers like saints.

Because that’s what he believes they are.

One thing I noticed around Lviv was that there were ample opportunities to donate to the war effort.

Some were manned by individuals, like this chap who reminded me a lot of Bill Bailey.

He’d set up shop on Ivana Pidkovy Square with an effigy of Putin and a collection of captured munitions. He was collecting money to buy supplies that he ferried to the front himself, as seen in the photos on his pinboard featuring him, the supplies, and grateful soldiers.

Elsewhere, it was just random pieces of kit. Like a remote-controlled drone vehicle, just sitting in the middle of Rynok Square.

Developed and built in Ukraine, these vehicles deliver supplies and bring back wounded soldiers without putting any operators at risk.

There was a plastic box where you could pop in some cash.

And a QR code if you wanted to pay online.

The preferred option, I had discovered, to pay for things in Ukraine.

THE UNFORGOTTEN

Every Saturday, the family and friends of soldiers captured by Russian forces or those missing in action gather in front of the Taras Shevchenko monument in the centre of Lviv.

The media call them the “Remembrance Action for Prisoners of War and Missing Persons.”

They prefer to be known as Vilnykh Liudey. Free Everyone.

They hold up placards, make speeches, support each other, raising awareness about the plight of their loved ones and ensuring that they are not forgotten.

They come, rain, shine or Easter. Silent and sombre but determined, with a box of placards for those that didn’t bring one. Some come with flags with their loved ones printed on them, putting a face to a missing soul who might otherwise be just a number.

After a series of speeches, they line up along the road running alongside Shevchenko, softly chanting “Don’t be silent, captivity kills” or the name of their loved one. The passing traffic honk their horns in support.

For some reason, it was the honking that broke me. I turned away, tears in my eyes, knocked sideways by their suffering, the country’s suffering, writ large.

I guess I was thinking how I would feel if it was one of my nieces or nephews who was missing in action. Or God forbid, my daughter. What would I do? How would I cope? Would I have such determination? Such quiet dignity?

This is the cost of the freedom we take for granted.

And it’s a lot.

Easter Saturday, as it turned out, was a day of reminders that Lviv was a city in a country at war.

No more so than when I made my way to the Church of the Most Holy Apostles Peter and Paul to see if they were blessing Easter baskets there.

The Church of the Most Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, it turns out, is where they hold funeral services for fallen soldiers, and Easter Saturday was no exception.

A group of soldiers dressed in camouflage lined up against the wall of the church as other soldiers, comrades, I’m guessing, marched past slowly carrying a coffin, with others carrying a large cross and a photo of the fallen soldier leading the way.

Three priests waited solemnly to accept the poor soul. Locals milled, heads bowed, paying their respects, getting down on their knees as the coffin passed.

The silence was deep and heavy, underlined by a mournful chant coming out of the church and broken by the wails and sobs of the widow.

It was heartbreaking and moving. And although, sadly, a daily occurrence, I was struck by how determined locals were that this soldier’s sacrifice was recognised, respected and acknowledged.

As I’ve mentioned before, Lviv is about as far away from the frontline as you can get. But its tentacles still reach out here, in the most terrible of ways.

That's me out of a job then...

SVIACHENE - THE BLESSING OF THE EASTER BASKETS

Come Easter Saturday, Ukrainians head down to their nearest church to have baskets filled with p***a (cake), meat, cheese, eggs and horseradish blessed with holy water.

It marks the end of Lent. And the blessed goods are served up as part of a special Easter breakfast on the morning of Easter Sunday, each item laden with symbolism.

The p***a symbolises the risen Christ and life.

The decorated hard-boiled eggs represent new life, rebirth and the Resurrection.

The smoked sausage or ham symbolises God’s abundance and mercy.

The butter and cheese, often shaped into a lamb, symbolises the "Lamb of God" and the goodness of Christ.

The horseradish symbolises the bitterness of sin.

The salt represents the earth's gifts and purification.

And the wicker baskets they are all held in are lined with an embroidered, white linen cloth (rushnyk), that symbolises purity and the burial shroud of Christ.

My nearest church was St. Andrews, part of the Bernadine Monastery. Rather than make the floor slippery with holy water, the priest here came outside with an altar boy holding a bucket and blessed the baskets of people waiting in a circle out front of the church.

One young boy had bought a puppy to be blessed, unseen but scrabbling in a cardboard box beside his family’s basket.

The priest repeated the ritual every hour and half hour, the crowds even bigger when I passed by again later in the day.

I didn’t have a basket to bless, but that didn’t stop the priest flicking me – and my camera – with a heavy spray of holy water.

Just steeping away from Ukraine for a moment, last night I reconnected with my inner Westie when I went and saw the very awesome Aussie punk band, Mini Skirt, play at the Shacklewell Arms near Dalston.

They were bone-rattling good and even cleared my mate’s troublesome sinuses.

Myself? I feel invigorated and vented and more Aussie than ever. 🤘

GENERATOR X - SOUNDTRACK OF THE CITY

One of the most noticeable effects of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Lviv is the daily power cuts.

The Russians have gone out of their way to hammer Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and to cope, Lviv effectively ‘rations’ its power, dividing the city into sectors, with each sector experiencing a controlled power cut at different times of the day, on a rotating basis.

Indeed, as I left my hotel each morning, the receptionist would tell me the day’s blackout block.

“No power between one and seven today,” she’d say, while assuring me the three essentials – heating, hot water, and Wi-Fi – would all continue working.

How? Take a closer look at every shop, restaurant, and café, and you’ll see a small fuel-run generator just inside the door. Bigger establishments like hotels and restaurants had bigger, more permanent ones, often housed in purpose-built boxes, out front.

When the power went down, the generators got dragged out onto the footpath and fired up.

For the next few hours, the chug of the generators became the sound of the city, their fumes hanging in the sweet spring air.

A small inconvenience, unnoticed, now part of everyday life.

Not every establishment has its own generator. And those who don’t make do best they can.

Like Bilyy Shum, a tiny restaurant out on Antonovycha Street, run by a young couple who had been displaced by the war in the east.

On the evening of Good Friday, I tucked in to a tasty Borscht with smoked pears and beans, prepared over a gas stove, followed by a serving of Ukrainian cheesecake with orange, all under flickering candlelight.

If it weren’t for the Chemical Brothers being played over a battery-powered Bluetooth speaker, it would almost have been romantic.

GOOD FRIDAY IN LVIV

Good Friday is the most sombre day during Easter celebrations in Ukraine.

Commemorating the day Christ was crucified, it is a day for reflection and silence, often marked by special church services, a total fast and abstinence from work or entertainment.

In some respects, Russia’s full-scale invasion has changed that.

There are still special church services, as indicated by the long line I saw snaking outside the entrance to the Church of St. Andrew, part of the Bernadine Monastery.

But elsewhere, the locals simply got on with their lives.

Since the introduction of martial law, all public holidays and weekends are considered regular working days.

With that in mind, here’s a selection of images I snapped on Good Friday.

They’re not particularly Easter-ish. But I hope they capture everyday life in a city that is at once peaceful but still at war.

Even on one of the holiest of holidays.

WEAVING CAMO NETS WITH AUSSIE SUE

I’d only been in Lviv for a couple of days, but I’d already noticed that it was easy to forget I was in a country at war.

Until it wasn’t.

Here’s an example. After I’d finished my orange cappuccino at Svit Kavy, I made my way to Rynok Square, home to Lviv Town Hall and the historical heart of the city.

There, opposite an incongruous tourist train, I noticed a sign for a volunteer centre. They were looking for volunteers to help the army in weaving camouflage nets, and as I didn’t have to meet my guide for another hour or so, I decided to check it out.

The volunteer centre was set on the second floor of No. 9 Rynok Square, a beautiful old Secessionist building with high ceilings, ornate cornices, and intricate parquet flooring.

The nets were stretched out the length of a stately room, hung on frames made from old pallets, illuminated from the light that streamed in from the huge windows and the chandeliers overhead.

One volunteer was cutting camouflage-coloured fabrics into strips. The other was tying those strips onto the netting.

The one doing the tying was an Aussie called Sue, and on discovering I was an Aussie too, greeted me with a hearty “G’day”.

Sue was a seasoned traveller and equally seasoned volunteer. She had travelled the old hippy trail back in the day and now spent her retirement juggling the two. She had ‘wintered’ in Lviv, helping at a soup kitchen one day, weaving camouflage nets the other.

Once her three-month visa was up, she was heading to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago. Then, more likely than not, she’d be back in Lviv to help out again.

Sue showed me how to tie the strips to the netting using a simple butterfly knot. And advised me to be as random as I could with the colour of the strips I chose. That was the key to deceiving the drones, she said. Powered by AI, the drones looked for patterns.

“We have blind people come in twice a week,” she said. “They are completely random. And do a whole lot of nets.”

That was the standard I had to aspire to, and TBH, it stressed me out every time I delved into the box of fabric strips to pick a colour.

I did my best. But let me tell you, I’m no blind person.

ORANGE CAPPUCCINO: IT’S A THING IN LVIV

It was my second day in Lviv, but my first morning in the city, so I thought I’d start the day by sampling the local coffee culture.

In particular, a Lviv specialty that I’d heard about but couldn’t quite believe existed.

Orange cappuccino.

An orange cappuccino, apparently, was just like a normal cappuccino, except the barista simply swapped out milk for orange juice.

They still heated and frothed it using the steamer thing on the side. And they still formed a pattern in the layer of foam on top. But with orange juice. Not milk.

The girl on reception at my hotel didn’t bat an eyelid when I asked her about it. She immediately suggested Svit Kavi, World of Coffee, on Cathedral Place, as the best place to try it.

Svit Kavi certainly looked like a normal coffee place. Indeed, with its dark wood panelling and low ceiling, it wouldn’t have looked out of place in Vienna or Budapest. I guess the only sign that they did things a little differently was the easy-listening Brazilian music playing over the speakers. (Shazam told me it was “Samba do Alvião” by Sylvia Telles.)

I bit the bullet and ordered myself an orange cappuccino. The barista was a little bemused when I asked if I could film him making it. My nephew, Harry, runs a chain of small-space hipster coffee shops in Australia and wanted proof. (Foster + Black, if you’re wondering. Make sure to check them out.)

Two shots of espresso, using freshly ground, high-quality Arabica beans. Then topped up with heated and frothed orange juice.

I took a sip. Then another. And another until it was finished.

Let’s just say it’s an acquired taste 😂