Naive Ukrainian Gardens

July 16, 2023. Remains of the destroyed Russian tank in the vegetable garden of the family of Julia Semynoh in Velyka Dymerka, Kyiv region, Ukraine. Julia and her family fled and managed to avoid Russian occupation. After Ukrainian forces pushed Russian army away from the Kyiv region at the beginning of April 2022 and Julia’s family came back, they saw that their house was destroyed and in the garden, there were remains of the Russian tank. As the events took place in spring, Julia's family rushed to plant the vegetables as it was their source of income before the war. When local village authorities managed to send heavy machinery to extract the tank from the vegetable garden, the family didn't let them: heavy machinery would destroy the fresh greenery. Later, the family refused to extract the tank as they were busy rebuilding the house and again there was no way heavy tractors could get inside the garden. At the end of 2022, Julia's children said their word against tank extraction, too: they started painting and selling parts of the Russian tank on both Ukrainian and international online auctions like Etsy and raising funds for the Ukrainian Army. Thus, the tank remained in the veg garden throughout the second war season of 2023 before finally being removed in late 2023.