It was rather... not everyone could go [to Poland]. You had to have a letter of invitation, you had to have some relatives. Or you had to have a letter of invitation from someone close to you. And then there were problems. <...> I lived here in Odesa, in a large organization, had connections, more or less. People knew me, I knew people. It was probably a little easier for me to do it. But not all ordinary people could do it. Because it took a long time. There were long queues at the OVIR [Department of Visas and Registration], and you had to get a passport. You had to get approval from the trade union organization and include approval from the party organization. And you had to wait about a month to get your passport issued. And you had to have the opportunity to do this. A financial one, too. And a temporal one, because when you work, you can't always get to the office to produce these documents. It was not, so to speak, permitted for everyone. Or even allowed. Because they would return these applications and so on. Not everyone was able to do this. Mostly people went [abroad] not to visit, but as if to a market. When we went back then, in the '74 and '75, we went to do some shopping. Mostly some clothes, suits, and other materials. Because we had a little bit of a problem with this business. And then, if someone had a family there, that was another part to it. But mostly because we went to make these purchases. Because we would arrive and rush through these markets and shops. This was our specialty. Maybe I was even an exception to this. I bought something for myself, a suit. But it was more of... I would go for a month. They gave me a month, and I left for a month. I had one cousin there, but she died. [I had] another one, [with] my first cousins once removed. They went there to the mountains, to the west. Anyway, I visited more than I went shopping. I'm not really into shopping. But it was like that, and so were the shops. I had to buy something, or they asked for something: “Bring this or that”. In general, it was a bit difficult to travel, so to speak. It was just all our countries: Poland, the Czech Republic, Czechoslovakia, these were our partners at the time. Capitalist countries, let's say. These were socialist countries. And in those countries, you practically just had to wait. Everything went through Kyiv. If there were any places for tourist trips, they were very few. When I worked at the airport, I got two trips for two people a year. Maybe something for three or ten. Well, a maximum of ten went to all these capitalist countries. That is, in Europe, Spain, or Germany, or Belgium. It was a little easier to go to socialist countries.
Poland is a country that was more involved in the religious process. The Pope was even from Poland, John Paul II. I liked the fact that one could speak freely about this topic there. And all the people, 90 percent of them, were believers. And it impressed me that these churches were available there. It was not forbidden. Not for the young, not for the old, not for the elderly — no one. They believed and went. There was no such thing as... I have never heard of it. It was not controlled by the country, by any authorities. Everything was normal in this regard. I was surprised by everything. A free, free country. And here, you know what happened here... What can I say? There's nothing to say. It's like... Especially if you studied somewhere, at a university or something, there was such control. As soon as you walked in [a church], they saw you, they immediately put you on the list. [Where] you work or study, you get a warning that you've been there. Spotted. Mostly on holidays. There were cordons, police, denunciations, all that. There was no such thing there.
I spent my childhood up to the eighth grade. I was on a state farm. As they say, we left... kicked out of the house... and stayed on the state farm. We worked there. Our state farm specialized in sugar beet production. Sugar beets were sown in the field. Our state farm was subordinated to the sugar factory. And we worked there. So I worked since the fourth grade. I went to work. I carried water for the “lanka” [link, meaning team]. It's “zveno” in Russian. Our state farm was a small one. 49 families. But we worked. Everyone worked there. And children were also forced to work. The most painful thing and the most... Whenever I talked to someone about my childhood... [it was] the fact that we were forced. That no one [cared] about children... The attitude towards children was so neglectful. We did... We were young: fifth, sixth, seventh grade. We used to go and pollinate the planting sites. What are the planting sites? Beets are planted. Beetroot. Sugar beets. They grow shoots like this. And they have seeds on them. Those shoots are up to two meters high. These beets are planted in these rows. And they often get a lot of so-called aphids. They are small, like insects, little things. It eats this juice, the blossoms of these beets. It destroys it. It's like this... not alone there, let's say, but it completely covers it. And at that time they fought it using DDT. There were two types of dust. DDT and hexochlorine, as it was called. It was similar in color to cement. It was a powder. And they filled these watering cans with it. On the one hand, there was a cloth, on the other hand, a cork or paper, mostly, and it was sprinkled on those plants from above. If there are aphids, you watch for them and sprinkle them from above. I am short, and the top of this planting, where it blooms, is above my head. I sow it, sprinkle it. And it falls on my head, on my eyes, and so on. And you walk around all day long. This DDT, it sticks, and then not only is it hard to breathe, but it also burns. It's a whole poison. And children were sent [to work with] poison. That's how it was. That's why it was banned, this DDT, banned all over the world. <...> Children could be sent to do such work. No one was worried. It was poison, it shouldn't have been allowed. [No one] was concerned about these children. I know that I am full of this DDT. And it doesn't dissolve, it gets into the body, and that's it, it doesn't come out, it stays there. I breathe it, it's in my lungs.
I think there were Poles [at the university]. There were none in my group. It's even hard to [say]. But they did not indicate that they were Poles. I have met many people in my life who changed the “Poles” in their passports... they wrote “Ukrainian” or “Russian”. Even here I go to a Catholic church. I know those people, even very pious ones. And they wrote it because it was easier to get a job somewhere else [that way]. There was something. Or they were just afraid that they were [Polish]. In short, they did not reveal it. The data was written in the passport. I have it in my passport too... both in my military ID and in my passport. Because I got a Polish Card [a document confirming belonging to the Polish ethnicity]. I never faked it. I didn't write anything else. Like Ukrainian. I wrote “Polish.”
What was the worst is not that you were disenfranchised, that's not the right word. But you were controlled. Everywhere. All around you, you were controlled. You had no free choice. They said so, and that was it. Celebrate those holidays, don't go there, don't stand there, don't travel there. There was neither freedom of speech nor freedom of movement. This was the most important thing. You were told to do what the you were told, and that was it. Even in terms of religion, you were guided. Atheism was hammered into your head. It was not the individual who was guided by their own wants and desires. It was you who was directed. You were not allowed to do all that. If you went your own way, they would find you. This was the most important thing. That you were subordinate, not to say a slave, but not a free person either. What was the best part? I don't even know what the best part was. To say that healthcare was free... It was, and it mattered, yes. Or studying at the university, yes. For people, everything was predictable. It did not suit me. For most of our people... someone was thinking for you. You don't care, there is a map you have to follow, and what is going to happen tomorrow, they think for you, and all that. But I don't accept that. I didn't like that.
Eduard Shepelskyi is a Ukrainian of Polish descent and a member of the Union of Poles in Odesa. He was born on October 28, 1946, in the village of Zastavky, Khmelnytskyi region. He speaks four languages: he studied Ukrainian and German at school, learned Polish from his mother, and spoke Russian in Odesa, where he spent his student years. He studied at as many as six schools in the Krasyliv district due to his parents‘ frequent relocations because they did not want to work on the collective farm. After school, he entered the Odesa Institute of Flour Milling and Elevator Industry Engineers but did not complete his studies, as he went to serve in the army. After his service, he studied at the Odesa Civil Engineering Institute. Since 1973, he has been working at the Odesa airport. In 1974, he visited Poland for the first time, often traveling to his relatives “on a letter of invitation”. During the Perestroika years, he worked at the airport in Magadan. After the declaration of independence, he returned to Ukraine and started a business. He joined the Union of Poles in Odesa from the moment of its establishment and participated in the revival of the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he remained in Odesa.
