VIDEO
When the Holodomor (famine genocide in Ukraine) broke out in the village of Kobylianka, Fedir Zadiereiev’s parents had to travel on foot 100 kilometres to Belarus to bring potato peels from their relatives. Fedir’s grandmother sneaked potatoes in her boots, and Fedir cooked borshch from nettle and plantain leaves for his younger siblings. Thereby they managed to survive. Fedir recalls that prior to collectivisation (a policy adopted by the Soviet government to transform traditional agriculture from private property to collective state-controlled ownership — tr.), people in the village could lend money to each other for as long as half a year, though during the Holodomor he had to steal from his neighbours to survive.
