Someone Still Built a Tree

Even when it would be easier not to

There is a small city near Ternopil called Pidvolochysk.

It is the western part of Ukraine. Closer to the border with Poland than to our own national capital.

Far from the front. A place people think is safe.

Even though everyone knows there is no safe place anymore, because missiles travel far and sirens travel even farther.

Two years ago, this city built a Christmas tree in the center.

A simple one.

Not shiny, not full of ornaments.

Just a tree they could make with the resources they had.

When the photos appeared online, believe me, people laughed.

Some called it poor, others said it was ugly.

Some said it was not beautiful enough to be considered a Christmas tree.

Most of the comments came from abroad I think, influenced by Russian propaganda, with some voices echoing it across different platforms.

I could never join that laugh.

I could only stare.

Few times in my life have I seen something more honest than that tree.

That tree was, above everything, the one that was possible.

It was made with the hands of people who live with the results of this war every day, even if they never heard a single shot.

Not every city in Ukraine was attacked by missiles, but every single one has lost sons and daughters to the front lines.

Every corner of this country has a mother waiting for someone who will never come home.

And everyone knows what it means when the phone rings at the wrong hour.

Pidvolochysk may not be an immediate target, but people there also hear the sirens.

They know where the shelters are.

They know how a normal evening can break in seconds.

So the hands that built that small tree were the hands of people who know pain.

People who know fear.

Ukrainians who know how precious it is to have one silent evening.

It was a tree born inside danger, not meant to impress, but to survive.

And it did.

People mocked the tree because they have no idea what it means to make something with the little that you still have.

To bring Christmas for people who are scared and doing their best to hope.

To say with a small gesture that this nation is still alive.

The tree was not the brightest of the world, but for me it was the bravest.

I thought about that tree so much this last Christmas.

About the courage that does not ask for applause.

About people who carry grief in their pockets and still build something gentle.

A community that refused to let Christmas be taken away.

If you want to know what resilience looks like in Ukraine, forget governments, forget speeches, forget the noise…

Look at that tree.

Because in a place where life can be taken in a second, choosing to build anything at all is courage.

When tomorrow is never guaranteed, building a tree means believing in tomorrow anyway.

That belief is the victory.

—Viktor

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