Russia is like a poisonous tree

And this spring, its venomous pollen will hit our receptors hard

Drawing by me

After six years of intense coffee drinking, I still manage to find a new coffee shop in Kyiv. This one is a new, central cafe of a long-standing local chain that used to be called Gorkiy – which must have been a homage to a famous Russian writer but also a Russian word for bitter. Today, the chain is known under its Ukrainian name – Hirkyy, which is bitter too, but the word sounds slightly warmer and softer on my tongue when I pronounce it. It’s as if Ukrainain bitter is a few degrees sweater than Russian, and the Russian bitter is the one that spoils everything and overbears any other taste.

I wonder if the chain was originally opened by a Russian businessman or if it was just Ukraine’s tribute to Russian culture. We’re not immune to that, either, and it took us two famines, many thousands of deaths, decades of oppression, and years of occupation to realize that the fruits that culture bears and shares are poisonous, not nourishing.

The great tree of venomous apples, but yet we ate, and the stomach pain Ukrainians developed was passed from generation to generation until the pain grew so strong people here couldn’t take Russian apples anymore.