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Summer of 1941. Unternehmen Barbarossa. A mysterious amnesia of the tyrant allows the not exactly cordial entry of over four million German troops into the Soviet Union. The Nazi advance was swift and devastating. 650 km of Soviet territory occupied in just six days. Blitzkrieg.
TASS, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, sent one of its best photographers among the ranks of the Red Army, equipped with a Leica, a Zorkij, and a few rolls among the ammunition. First stop in Murmansk, where a rain of explosive warheads is continuously discharged by the infamous Stukas, the motorized clouds of the Luftwaffe.
The tundra appears as a ghostly expanse of burning coals, artificial craters, bleeding wounds on which salt is relentlessly scattered. The animals do what they can. Wild, they are accustomed to their absolutely free condition. They do not know all those booms, those strange roars. Why does the earth explode like so many little volcanoes? The fear of trampling that land, once so peaceful and unspoiled until a few days ago, grows. What's happening?
Meanwhile, soldiers of a Soviet anti-aircraft battery, hidden among some undergrowth or what's left of the tundra, grasp that strange confusion that severs the freedom of a frightened reindeer. An animal violently evicted from its condition of life. Unable to scold those iron birds, the only option is to approach the men on the ground. A last involuntary glance at my home. I did it because a violent noise caught my attention. The tense legs that set like stakes in the ground. A feral cramp tightens my knobby neck. A frayed, truncated trunk. A handful of flying earth that will never be the same again. And those iron birds that still fly. Perhaps a tear falls. A brief whimper. Chaldej clicks.
They called me Jasha. They pet me and feed me. But how do they manage if they don't even have enough for themselves? And those noises that keep haunting me. Sometimes they are so loud that they make the antlers on my head vibrate.
They even built a small wooden shed to shelter me from the darkness surrounding us. They care about me and I care about them. What strange humanity.
The Soviet soldiers befriended that frightened reindeer, trying to provide it with shelter and something to eat until the bombings, which continued for weeks, ended. For Chaldej, the photo was a strange combination of events. He would never have expected an animal to come close in such a crazy situation. Their instinct would lead them to scatter, hide, or seek refuge swiftly. Instead...
The epilogue is a blow to the heart. The soldiers, after carefully considering the possibility of coming out into the open, loaded the reindeer onto a truck and transported her to the tundra. Jasha got off the trailer with a hint of uneasiness. "Davai Jasha, davai!" The soldiers waited in vain for the animal to disperse among willows and birches, with the liveliness of one who returns to beloved home walls. Jasha was immobile. A sad gaze pierced the eyes of those incredulous soldiers. Davai Jasha. There are your kind, there's your environment. Go little one! Nothing. Standing there staring at them.
Don't leave me alone.
The truck sped away quickly to distance the pain more swiftly. Vain attempt. Jasha chased them until exhaustion took her. I imagine that beautiful reindeer suffering from abandonment, treading hesitantly on that ground she no longer wants to cross. I imagine those soldiers overwhelmed by a human and cruel sadness, disturbed by the itch of agricultural diesel fuel and the heavy air of war. She wanted to come with us. Little one! But how can we?
I imagine a tear rolling down a face and one down a muzzle. Tears diametrically opposed. That move away until they disappear.
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