Now, we watch drone footage, trying to see whether our homes and the cemeteries of our ancestors have survived.

“Sometimes you have to let them fight, I guess.”
— Donald Trump, October 30, 2025

Once, we dreamed of making Shchedryk and Carol of the Bells the calling card of Pokrovsk - to open this town to the world at Christmas. In winter, it was always magical and snow-covered - just the kind of place where such a melody could have been born.

The final, fifth version of Shchedryk was completed in 1916 in Tulchyn. But the first two versions were born in the railway school of Pokrovsk (then Hryshyne), where Leontovych had long worked as a music teacher.

In 1936, on NBC radio, Americans heard Carol of the Bells for the first time by Peter Wilhousky. In the score, he noted that it is the Ukrainian folk song Shchedryk, composed by Mykola Leontovych.

Or when they watch holiday Hollywood movies with their families - the ones that feature this very melody - like Home Alone, where Donald Trump himself appeared alongside little Macaulay Culkin in Trump Tower?

When Ukraine’s oppone — people like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Victoria Spartz — sit down for Christmas dinner to the sound of Carol of the Bells, I wonder if they realize that a piece of their cultural DNA comes from a town in distant, “hated” Ukraine.

Наша українська, справжня красуня... 😍💙💛

It was very beautiful and sensual... ❤