Notes on Photographs #2: Valik
Reflection upon my time in Ukraine
Valik lived in a small industrial town in western Ukraine
Valik lived with his mother and grandmother
Valik had a wife and young son
Valik was 33 years old
Valik’s hair was almost entirely grey
Valik had a collection of foreign coins he kept in a jam jar
Valik’s nickname was ‘tomato’
Valik’s history was tattooed on his body
Valik gave me a crucifix necklace, a small glass swan and a picture of a unicorn as a present
Valik never asked for anything from me
Valik believed in God
Valik survived prison and drug addiction
Valik wanted something better for his future
Valik died of brain cancer a few months after this photo was taken
I met Valik in February 2013 whilst walking in the snow through the apartment blocks. I visited him on several occasions that month and spent time with his family. I liked him. Some of his tattoos were very disturbing, but it seemed to me that they were from a part of his life that was long gone. He was, in many ways, a typical neighbourhood ‘zek’, the type that babushkas are scared of and people look at with a sense of shame, but for a brief time I saw another side.
I visited them again in May 2013, and by this time Valik had lost weight and looked sick. Because of the language barrier I wasn’t sure what was wrong, and assumed it was drugs related. Around this time his grandma was always crying, and I remember her hugging me on several occasions. I realised later that she was crying because she knew her grandson way dying. When I returned in November 2013 I learnt about Valik’s fate. I revisited his wife and child several times in February 2014, but lost contact shortly afterwards. This is how I learnt the word ‘cancer’ in Ukrainian.
Chris Nunn is a photographer based in Yorkshire, England. In February 2015, Vantage published Accidentally Photographing the War In Ukraine about Nunn’s years of work in Ukraine.
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