What few people know is that his name is linked to a village in the middle of the Ukrainian countryside. – Did you hear the bang? Oleksandr Zozupja turns to the south, in the direction of the Dnipr River. – It’s probably only 30 kilometers from us, says the man with the enormous mustache and the mildly tired work outfit. Oleksandr Zozupja points to the sign saying that this warehouse was built with funds from the Nansen mission in 1923. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani/news Actually, he has taken us to show a sign on the wall of a dilapidated warehouse in the Ukrainian village where he lives i. We can barely make out that it says that the building was erected with the support of Fridtjof Nansen in 1923. This sign says that this building was erected with the support of the Nansen mission in 1923. Photo: Morten Jentoft/news I dag Oleksandr Zozupja is a kind of general manager of what was once a proud state farm, a sovkhoz named after the Norwegian polar explorer and Nobel Prize winner. news has indeed found Mikhailivka, a small village about as far as it is possible to get out in the Ukrainian countryside, in Dnipropetrovsk county in the south-east of the country. There is a separate exhibition in Mikhailivka about the development of the pattern industry in the 1920s. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani/news It was here that Fridtjof Nansen, who the previous year had received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work for the Armenians, used a large part of the prize money to build up what he hoped would become a model practice. The goal was that it would get Ukraine and the rest of what was then Soviet Russia out of a famine disaster that had claimed millions of human lives within a few years. The help from abroad, including that which was organized through the Nansen mission, probably saved the lives of millions in the early 1920s. Photo: ALLURING KHARKIV The sunflowers keep us alive Now there is nothing left of what was once the production of chickens. Rusty tractors and work tools are strewn everywhere. And the sound of distant drones from the war, which is now entering its third year, does not exactly make the mood particularly cheerful on the gray day news is visiting. But there is some life. – This is our wealth, it is what keeps us alive, says Viktoria Steblyj and points to a large hose spraying sunflower seeds on a trailer. Viktoria Steblyj is a kind of councilor/woman in Mikhailivka. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani/news She is the starost, a kind of councilor for the around 1,000 inhabitants of Mikhailivka, and was raised here herself. It is Viktoria who has taken us to show us the remains of the Nansen state farm, which has now been turned into a kind of private joint-stock company. – Most of the sunflowers are exported, she says. A truck is loaded with sunflower seeds at the old Nansen sovkhoz in Mikhailivka. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani/news Dramatic story Operations manager Oleksandr Zozupja is a man with a good mood, even if it’s not exactly a happy story he can tell about the area he lives in. – The time when Nansen came to us with tractors and money, we had been through some dramatic years, he says. The money from Fridtjof Nansen was used, among other things, to buy tractors. This picture was taken outside Mikhailivka in 1926. Photo: The National Library – The whole country had fallen apart during the First World War. Then came the revolution in 1917, then came the civil war and then there was collectivisation. news’s Morten Jentoft together with Viktoria Steblyj and Oleksandr Zozupja in the village of Mikhailivka. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani/news – And when the Germans came in 1941, they used this very building to house Soviet prisoners of war, says Zozupja, where we stand under the Nansen sign. Therefore, he sees what is happening now in 2024 as just a kind of repetition of what they have experienced throughout history, where Ukraine has often been the scene of war and terrible famine disasters. The pattern mill in Mikhailivka was built on the basis of detailed floor plans, written in German. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani/news War right outside the living room door Viktoria Steblyj shows me pictures of rockets that have fallen in the area. The major Russian attack on Ukraine was as big a shock to her and the residents of Mikhailivka as it was to the rest of the country. In the summer of 2022, the Russian forces were stopped just south of the city, before being forced back across the Dnieper River. This rocket fell just outside Mikhailivka during the fighting in the summer of 2022. Photo: Private – We had to close the school for a year. And of course I was scared. I myself am the mother of two children, says Viktoria. But now life in Mikhailivka has at least to some extent normalized. Viktoria can proudly say that 100 children now attend the village’s school and kindergarten. Nansen still important today On the wall outside the municipal administration in Mikhailivka there is a large commemorative poster that tells about Fridtjof Nansen and his role in helping the Ukrainians in a difficult time. – It is clear that Nansen is important to us today, in the situation we are now in, she says. There is a large poster in front of the administration building in Mikhailivka, where Viktoria Steblyj has her office. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani/news She knows that Norway has named the NOK 75 billion support program after the man who founded what was supposed to be a new start for the residents here in the village more than 100 years ago. There is a large memorial plaque at the administration building in Mikhailivka dedicated to Fridtjof Nansen. Photo: Morten Jentoft/news The hope is that perhaps some of that money can be used to repair the road to Mikhailivka. It is so bad that it is hardly possible for trucks and visitors to get through. The road for the last 10 kilometers to Mikhailivka is today barely passable. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani/news Hope there will be no more dead soldiers The war is present here, all the time. At the cemetery, only two of the village’s sons are currently buried as a result of the Russian aggression. Artem Panikarevych is one of the two soldiers from Mikhailivka who have been confirmed dead in the war against Russia. Photo: Morten Jentoft/news One of them is Artjem Panikarevicj, who died aged just 26 on 13 September 2022. Two soldiers are missing, and 40 residents are in the military. Viktoria Steblyj hopes there will be no more burials of dead soldiers at the cemetery in Mikhailivka. Photo: Morten Jentoft/news – I was born here and I know most of them. We know when someone is taken from us in the war. – Thank God, fortunately we have not had so many dead, only two. And I hope there won’t be any more. It is too wrong that the war should take away from us so many good people. Says starost Viktoria Steblyj, as she waves goodbye to news on the outskirts of Mikhailivka – the Nansen village in Ukraine.
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“Nansenlandsbyen” in Ukraine – trying to survive with the war 30 kilometers away – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
