Planting tulips instead of tears: the story of a home that heals souls.

She cannot visit her son’s grave and press her cheek against his cross. However, a Kyiv artist has painted a mural on the entire wall of her house: Ilya in military uniform with a rifle in hand. So close yet so forever far away…

In this house with her son’s mural in the village of Busha, Vinnytsia region, Olga decided to invite mothers and wives of fallen soldiers for a retreat.

“I wanted to do something nice for people whose lives are so painful right now. To make them feel that they are not alone, that there is some support, that someone understands their grief and is nearby. Because we lack the attention that no state payments can replace,” the woman explains.

Hromadske visited Busha to join Olga in opening the first retreat at her estate.

Cups on Plates

In the center of Busha, among blooming roses, the community has set up an Alley of Glory for the fallen villagers. I was very surprised not to see a photo of Ilya Chernylevskyi there.

“We are Kyiv residents, my son and I; I bought two houses in the village as summer cottages. Ilya loved to rest here but was never a local,” Olga explains.

A straight path leads from the Alley of Glory to her estate. The Ukrainian flag at the gate serves as a reliable landmark. A little farther away, just a few meters, is Olga’s second house, also adorned with a flag.

Olga is a philologist by education; until recently, she worked as a dubbing director and project manager for foreign film translations. She transformed her country houses in Busha into comfortable cottages. New household appliances and elegant fireplaces naturally coexist with traditional stoves, while painted grandmother’s chests sit alongside works by contemporary artists.

Upon entering the yard, you immediately understand why Olga named her estate “Cozy Hut.” It truly feels very warm and peaceful: well-kept flower beds with roses and chrysanthemums, grape arbors, comfortable benches and chairs in the yard, emerald grass after the rain, and young fruit trees. The charming houses on the decorative lawns resemble cups on plates.

Busha is a well-known tourist center. People from Ukraine and Europe frequently come here for retreats to relax and meditate. The village practically thrives on tourist groups—fences and poles are plastered with advertisements for housing rentals and meal preparations.

Olga also rented her estate to tourists. Until recently.

Bird in Nets

“Dancing in the air, whistling by my feet
Fragments and bullets, a monstrous whirlwind.
And my machine gunner tells me:
‘Come on, let’s fight a bit, Ilyukha.’”

Ilya said he would definitely go to the front if a full-scale war began. He died two months after mobilization. He tried not to share with his family the details of his frontline life that could upset them. Yet, he recited trench poetry to his mother, revealing what his son kept silent about.

In the 110th brigade, they knew that their fighter Ilya Chernylevskyi had been killed. However, the body was in occupied territory. Therefore, Olga was forced to file documents stating that her son was missing in action. Only in 2023 did she manage, through the court, to have Ilya officially recognized as deceased.

“I look at the bloodstains
And ponder who we are
In paranoia. In pursuit. In the clutches of hideouts and alarms…
I grimly adjust my bulletproof vest—
May your god protect you.”

This is the last stanza of Ilya's final poem. He wrote it on May 6, 2022, preparing for his last mission. He even managed to publish it on Facebook.

“Ilya could not foresee the war; he wrote in his frontline poems that he would definitely return, meaning he did not go to war to die. But somehow, since childhood, he knew his life would be short. That scared me,” says his mother.

Ilya, a film and television director by profession, worked as a screenwriter, translating songs for series. He composed poetry and music for them, winning awards as a performer of his songs in entertainment contests.

For his 21st birthday, Olga gifted her son a published collection of his poems. A second collection was compiled by his mother ten years later, in 2023, posthumously. Olga named the book “I Am a Bird in Nets,” taking a line from her son’s poem.

“I regret that life often consists of trivial things. Our dialogues with children revolve around whether they’ve eaten or why they came home late. But really, when you see those sad eyes, you should ask what troubles their soul. I can help in some way, maybe sit down and talk?”

“Yet we are busy with work, which becomes the main focus in our lives. Children are perceived as something that will always be with you. You think about how to prepare them for your absence materially. You never consider that your child might not be there anymore. And you cannot be prepared for that. It’s simply impossible. That’s why the loss hurts so much,” Olga closes her eyes to prevent tears from flowing down her cheek.

“Ilya Would Have Liked This”

The woman has never been interested in volunteering or community work. In recent years, she focused solely on her son, wanting as many people as possible to know how talented and sincere he was in his creativity.

This summer, a friend of a friend visited her in Busha—a woman who lost her beloved in the war. She stayed for a few days, and it was through her that Olga got the idea to invite mothers and wives of fallen soldiers:

“I thought it would be good for people. And that Ilya would have liked it. He was very responsive to the suffering of others. That was his style.”

Olga reached out to several known community activists to publish her invitation and phone number on their social media pages—and she quickly began receiving messages and calls from women interested in the opportunity to relax in Busha.

According to Olga, she had never attended retreats herself and had long been disillusioned with group sessions with psychologists.

“I went there twice and refused. I don’t feel better when I share my experiences with strangers and listen to others,” the woman shares.

“But you want to gather people who have lost husbands and sons, you want to concentrate other people's pain around yourself—do you really hope that you and your guests can find peace in this concentrated sadness?” I ask Olga candidly.

“I don’t know. But there will be no one older than the women here, no mandatory activities or assigned topics for conversation. They will rest as they wish. They can simply go into the woods and sit on a stump, visit our museums, stroll by the river. I won’t impose my company on anyone.

A person can just come and remain silent the whole time, keeping to themselves. If someone wants to talk, let them. From me, it’s free accommodation and that’s all. I can simultaneously provide housing with all amenities for 20 guests, and how they spend their time here is up to them. If they don’t like it, they can leave at any moment,” Olga states.

By the way, the Busha community supported Olga’s initiative: volunteers offered to cook for her guests, staff from the historical and cultural reserve promised to conduct excursions for them, and local volunteers would entertain them. This brought great joy to Olga.

“Come in, Lyudmila”

While we were talking with Olga in Busha, a guest from Kyiv region—Lyudmila—was already on her way to her. To give the hostess time for final preparations, we went to Yampol to meet Lyudmila from the Vinnytsia minibus.

“Olya offered rest so sincerely that I believed her,” Lyudmila tells us.

Her son Vladislav also died in May 2022. He was a conscript who signed a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine even before the full-scale war. He was the middle child of Lyudmila, born in 2001.

“For the first two years after Vladik