"STARYI SALTIV, Ukraine — The families milled about, greeting one another and exchanging news, or sitting at picnic tables laid with candy, Easter eggs and freshly baked bread, reviving village life in an improbable place: the cemetery. Outside the cemetery’s checkerboard of graves, which were festooned on Sunday with fresh flowers and where children ran about collecting candy, the village of Staryi Saltiv is a grim tableau of ruins. ‘You can see people are returning to clean the cemetery, and the village is coming back to life,’ said Natalia Borysovska, a seamstress whose house was destroyed last year. She had no home to return to after fleeing — but still a family plot to tend.Sunday was a traditional day of remembrance in Ukraine, called Provody. Families spend time in cemeteries each year on the first Sunday after the Orthodox Easter, tidying up graves and leaving food and flowers for their dead loved ones. ...”
Alla Chyhyrynska, 64, at the grave of a relative on Sunday in Shestakove, outside Kharkiv. An annual day of remembrance draws villagers to cemeteries in Ukraine.
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