A single postcard, once presented to him by mom, guided Yurii to a world he never knew existed before. Like Terabithia, it was very close to him, but simultaneously it existed parallel. This place was his hometown Kropyvnytskyi of the years past, and for the images of it, he's begun to hunt since his early 20s.
"It all started with a postcard featuring several views of Kropyvnytskyi. I was captivated by it and began to wonder what other sights there might be. I wanted to find more of the views depicted on that postcard, and other ones as well," Yurii recalls.
Thanks to Yurii's perseverance and interest, all Ukrainians have an extensive archive of rare city postcards and photos, all sorted and publicly shared. Many historical and cultural texts feature his postcards to illustrate scenes of the past.
It feels so normal to have old pictures of city exhibited in local museums, as if we naturally have the exhibits we need where they belong. However, this process involved years of waiting, traveling, and talking to different people to bring postcard collections home.
I had been waiting for some of these postcards for years---sometimes up to two or three years for a single postcard!
Passionate about enriching their own collections, Ukrainian collectors refused to sell their items to Yurii for money. Instead, they made him search for what they were interested in.
"When visiting other cities like Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Odesa, I met with numerous collectors. They showed me their postcards but said, "No, we are not interested in selling them. What will we do then---just buy some kefir, and that's it?" As a result, I had to collect postcards from other cities or different ones altogether, while the one I really wanted might be waiting for me in another city."
Back then, exchange was one of a few ways of finding rarities.
Luckily, Yurii's work at an aviation factory sent him on frequent business trips. This way, Yurii collected rare vintage postcards with seasonal greetings, views of other cities from the 19th and 20th centuries, many old personal photographs, and even soldiers' letters from World War I.
The many findings Yurii collected to later trade, no matter how interesting, did not expand or change his area of interest. Straightforwardly, he admits that only his hometown's scenes are most important to him.
"I was curious about what our city was like and what it looked like in the past, driven by my interest and love for it."
When understanding the scale of Yurii's collections, it is important to remember how young he was when he first took up his hobby. Yurii himself now says, 'I was just a boy,' and no one in the city paved the way for him to follow.
"At that time, there were already prominent collectors in the city, such as Olexandr Ilyin and Ihor Babansky, but they did not collect postcards. As a young boy, I communicated with them and learned a lot. They helped me simply out of interest. Since no one else was into postcards back then, they were happy to share their knowledge about our city. Frankly, they had no one else to share their expertise with before I came along."
This narrow niche interest in Kropyvnytskyi may have given Yurii an edge over other collectors. However, due to the city's lack of prominence in mass culture, those who possessed postcards featuring it were reluctant to part with these rare indeed items.
In time, Yurii found other ways to acquire them.
"I met with local elderly people, descendants of the old nobility, landowners, and factory owners. Right on the street. Through conversations with them, I not only find postcards but also learn their stories.
Sometimes, people say, "Oh, I don't have anything." I try to persevere a bit and say, "Let's take a look." Often, people show all their photographs, and that's when I find something truly valuable. One day, I discovered a postcard featuring our iron bridge, which was made from rails. It was beautiful, but no longer exists."
Of course, according to their purpose, those postcards were once sent to someone and thus signed, revealing the thoughts in the minds of past generations. To some of them, Yurii can especially relate now.
As I read through numerous wishes for happiness and health, one particular wish stood out---the third most common wish that had puzzled me in my youth: "I wish you peaceful skies." Back in the 50s and 60s, people wrote this on their New Year cards and during the May holidays, a time of peace in our era. Now, however, its significance resonates deeply. These were their heartfelt greetings---words from people who endured difficult times, and now I really understand their meaning.
Some of those messages were written on self-published postcards, themselves artifacts of the war and quite popular after its end.
"After World War II ended, people returned from the front eager to exchange greetings. However, the industry couldn't produce enough postcards in time.
Our photographers resorted to re-photographing pre-revolutionary images or pictures brought by soldiers from the front lines. These were re-photographed and personally inscribed with messages like "I love you and won't forget" or "Wait for me, as I wait for you." There were a plethora of these self-published postcards during that time."
Yurii remembers that those were mostly sold by deaf people on the trains.
Now, as the sky above Yurii and all of Ukraine are no longer as safe as people once wished for each other, there is a threat not only to lives but also to the legacies preserved in those old postcards. Wars have always ruthlessly erased the achievements of previous generations, and Yurii always bears this in mind.
"My only hope is for archives and museums. Gradually, we are digitizing my collections. After all, there's no other way we can save them."
As fragile as it is, this hobby unites people around the world through their shared appreciation for beauty and communication. Thus, preserving those memories and unique images of places that no longer exist depends not only on passionate individuals like Yurii, but on all of us.
