For Those of You Who Might Be Interested

My parents forwarded me a link to a YouTube video of the winner of Ukraine's Got Talent, Kseyina Simonova. I don't particularly care for America's Got Talent, but I'm glad they sent me it. Simonova's is drawing using sand and a light board (and she is amazing). She performs, drawing, with mood music in the background. The story that she told involved how ordinary people were affected the German invasion during World War II.


First, she paints a couple holding hands sitting on a bench under a starry sky. Soon warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.

Next, it is replaced by a woman’s face crying. A baby arrives and the woman smiles again. The war returns as Simonova throws the sand into chaos. A young woman’s face appears.

She quickly becomes an old widow and then the image turns into a monument to the Unknown Soldier. Simonova then frames it with a window and the performance ends with her creating a touching goodbye, with a mother and child inside and a soldier standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass.

Tы вcюдa pядoм - You are always quite near.

The Great Patriotic War resulted in one in four Ukranians dying, eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.