Photo from Ihor Balaka’s Facebook
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Ihor Balaka, Kharkiv’s real estate agent, journalist and volunteer, narrates personal experiences of Kharkiv residents. These are the stories of unbreakable people in the unbreakable city – a doctor, a crisis manager and a DJ, that show how the war has changed their occupation but not the humanity and sense of what it means to be a Human.
About Vоlоdymyr Tarasov, a Kahrkiv’s doctor otolaryngologist
Do you know, friends, this old hackneyed phrase that in the West, every person has his own personal doctor, lawyer and banker? We, realtors, obviously like to add our favorite profession as an option, but at least, the middle class and above definitely have the trio listed! Why should we lag behind our Western friends?
Today, however, I will touch only the topic of the personal doctors. I have many friends among medical workers. But Volodymyr Tarasov is exhausted of me. He is a doctor from God. Otolaryngologist.
The fact is that I used to have three or four tonsillitis a year, and several of them were severe. Etmaiditis, chronic tonsillitis, sometimes sinusitis. I don’t even mention simple colds and viral infections.
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For what this all confession, in the style of medical talk shows? YES, the fact is that Volodymyr Tarasov always got me back on my feet. He came to me at six in the morning before work, or at ten in the evening (He worked hard on two or three jobs at the same time, as many of our state employees).
He was diagnosing. He was rinsing my nose. He was pricking me. He was prescribing droppers.
How many times I have been in his offices, I cannot say, even with an error of fifty times. Because this is a Man with a Capital Letter, a reliable Friend, and a great Doctor!
And now, he is in shelled Kharkiv, flatly refusing to leave! When I began to annoy him with this question for the tenth time, he simply, without any pathos, asked: «Listen, who will treat my patients?» And I felt ashamed of my persistence. Because for Volodymyr Tarasov, the Hippocratic oath is not a memorized fast-reading speech. For him, it is the meaning of life!
About Tetyana Portnaya, diplomat and crisis manager in Ihor Balaka’s real estate company
I read somewhere that 90% of established companies fail in the first year. I remember exactly the moment I realized that my real estate agency «Krona» would survive in 2000. Actually, there were two.
It wasn’t an easy time back then. Or rather, not so. It was the most severe moment in the real estate market in the history of independent Ukraine (not counting this war, of course). And during that period, I somehow decided to open up the company.
Coincidentally, it was then that my real estate Alma mater, the «Khar-Estate» agency, was falling apart. And my second mother, as I called her, Maryna Pylypenko, my expert in the 90s, asked if she could join me. I held my breath and asked on what terms. She said, and I immediately agreed: «Yes, we start tomorrow!» Maryna Yuriyivna also added that she would be joined by her trainee, good girl Tetyana Portnaya.
After almost 22 years, I do not agree with her at all. Tatyana Portnaya is not just good, but awesome, great, first-class, wonderful! Should I continue to list epithets?
During this time, we had a lot of things that we remember with a smile and with nostalgia. Awesome projects! Insanely difficult deals! She was resolving incredibly hard situations! Probably, we could write with her not just a book, but a textbook based on her cases.
The war changed all our plans. Tetyana Mykolayivna remained in Kharkiv. And despite the numerous exhortations of the daughter-relatives-friends (and I suggested taking her out more than once), everyone received the same answer: «To whom will I leave my pets, huh?»
There is total shelling, and people in the Pavlovo Field [neighborhood in Kharkiv, which is also bombed, but not with such intensity as Saltivka] could not stand it and left their hometown. And Tetyana Mykolaivna had more pets because she could not refuse anyone!
Recently, she called and asked to buy something for the cat, and anti-allergic food for the dog. He weighed twelve kilograms. When I brought this all to her home, I was stunned... Because at home, she sheltered so many neighbors’ pets!
To my question, which I asked with a bewildered look «Tetyana Mykolaivna, my dear, how do you cope with them?», she simply answered: «there is nothing to do with it, they will simply die without me!»
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Tetyana Mykolaivna! I love you very much! You are one of the brightest examples of loving thy neighbor! When these [Russian] beasts destroy people, you save animals! Real Kharkiv! A man with a big heart!
And I desperately believe that we, as then in the 2000th, will not just break through! But together with our beloved Kronov team. After the Victory, we will return to our favorite business, having started more abruptly than a spaceship! I love you desperately! And I believe in it categorically!
About Anatolii Myrhorod, Kharkiv’s DJ
In civilian life, Tolik was a DJ at events. And Tolik often turned the turntables in our real estate company An Kron at corporate events. Everyone knew him, he knew everyone! All preferences. Who loves what. Who sings what when one drinks. And what one sings, depending on how much this one drinks. And what one is dancing… Tolik knows and loves everyone. You give as much money as you want. He is embarrassed to tell you his usual tariff.
And this modest guy from the first days went to volunteer. He came to places where the rest did not even meddle. On Northern Saltivka district (and there is a fierce hell), poor elderlies in some houses were waiting for Tolik. Because he was the link to life for them! With the food and the drugs which he brought! Without this, all they will not survive for sure!
Today, I saw Tolik. He is blacker than clouds. He prepared to go to Northern Saltivka again.
I ask why he is so gloomy. The answer:
-
Of my six elderlies from a particular house, whom I visited yesterday, two died and one is with a shell shock in the hospital after fierce night shelling of these [Russian] beasts! Is there any medicine for the heart? I’ll go and bring it to the rest. They do not want to leave, but they are holding on to their hearts.
I look at him and say in a trembling voice:
- There is shelling! Can you go tomorrow?
The answer knocks me dead:
-
Tomorrow I will also go...
Anatolii Myrhorod... A modest guy... A good DJ in civilian life and a REAL HERO IN WAR!
From the FB page of Ihor Balaka, translated by Kateryna Bortniak
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Lviv Now is an English-language website for Lviv, Ukraine’s «tech-friendly cultural hub.» It is produced by Tvoe Misto («Your City») media-hub, which also hosts regular problem-solving public forums to benefit the city and its people.
