Wider interview with Dariia: Daria from Melitopol
Українською мовою: Дар’я про культуру
Vic: I think, you mentioned knowing about Pes Patron?
Dariia: Yes, I do know [it], but… like… because I was in occupation, we didn’t have such things there. I read about all those jokes about Pes Patron only when I went back to Ukraine.
[..]
Dariia: Well, firstly, it makes me feel so cringe when those phrases like “russian warship, go fuck yourself!” or, I don’t know, Pes Patron and all this shit, “I’m going to show you now where the attack on belarus was prepared from” [lukashenko’s “famous” words], and all this is being printed on T-shirts, tote bags… Just kill me! What sharovarschyna [шароварщина – a very simplified, dumbed down and made mainstream cheap version of Ukrainian culture] is that? Well, in this case, its bayraktarschyna [байрактарщина – same as sharovarschyna, but related to the full-scale invasion of russia in February 2022]. It distorts our culture so bad.
Vic: Okay, like people trying to profit off of it by doing like tourists’ T-shirts?
Dariia: Look, I’m not a psychologist, but I think that for a while all those memes like Pes Patron and stuff were saving people in a way, like “lol, funny” when people were scared, didn’t know what was happening, and they needed to save their psyche, okay. But as time passed it turned into a complete cringe. This is just desire to profit. Literally, there is a store near my house, and the sauces [are called] “Bayraktar”, I don’t even know… well, you get it. It’s everywhere. This is just impossible. Even my sister had this fuckass shirt. This is dreadful! And songs are affected too. It’s even worse, because our people love russian culture, well, at least, they did. And when you ask “why don’t you listen to Ukrainian music”, they answer “what, should we listen to “Ванька-встанька”?” [a very bad example of bayraktarschyna]. Instead of popularizing something like Okean Elsy, anything, we make “Ванька-встанька”, “Bayraktar”, I don’t know what else… and it makes the situation worse. We’ll be listening to Bayraktar, because there is no normal music.
Vic: How did you feel about things like vyschyvsnka-футболки? [T-shirts]
Dariia: It depends on how it looks. For example, my mother had a vyschyvanka T-shirt, I think of it normally, because personally for her it was an оберіг [protection charm]. She is a doctor, on her shifts, she treated it very carefully. I thought of it normally overall. It’s worse when, you know, those synthetic shirts, like at all of the school events, and they have poppy flowers sewn onto it. This is way worse, because it looks horrifically.
Vic: The plastic-y kind of cheap material? I think I’ve seen them. It’s like printed, it’s not woven.
Dariia: It’s sewn onto, but with a sewing machine. If it’s a T-shirt made from linen, for example, then it’s okay. But if it’s some sort of synthetics, ew. It really cheapens our culture. Because if you use some quality materials, or sew it on it yourself, you… how do I explain this… as if you take your long-standing culture and try to intertwine it with modernity. You transform your culture into new standards, because no one is dressing like before, surely. But when you go to a market and buy this synthetic bullshit for 200 hryvna, well…
Vic: So is it more about the cultural concern, rather than the environmental concerns?
Dariia: Yes, yes. It’s just about culture and attitude.
Vic: Okay. I guess, in England we don’t really have a cultural dress, but we have a big problem of, like, cheap material that, you know, will break apart after you wash it twice, so it’s an environmental problem for us. We don’t have the cultural clothing to… yeah.
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