Tulle and taffeta, garlands and lace: at least some bridal ornaments survived the nearly six-month Russian invasion that turned virtually every facet of life in Ukraine upside down.
But the marriage scenes that take place almost daily in Kyiv’s main registration centre – their number is expanding after an interruption in the first months of the fighting – are also emblematic of the vicissitudes of the war.
For many couples, what may have been a multi-day peacetime extravagance, with endless classic toasts and a horde of family and friends dancing, is condensed into a time when a few members of the family circle witness an early exchange of vows and a kiss a break. front-line duty.
“Although this is an absolutely different occasion than it would have been otherwise, we don’t need to postpone any longer, not even a day,” said Inessa, a 26-year-old girlfriend with long dark curls and a steamy veil. . white dress. She and her new husband, Danyl, also 26, didn’t need their last call to be used, as he returns to the combat zone in a few days and his father is a senior army officer.
The day-day philosophy underlying wartime marriages of men also drives calls for Ukraine to move toward allowing same-sex unions. Following a crusade of petitions that gained momentum across the country as men serving LGBTQ infantrymen made their voices heard in their marriage proposals, President Volodymyr Zelensky said this month that government officials were looking for tactics to guarantee certain equivalent rights in civil unions. despite the fact that the country’s constitution, which designates marriage between a man and a man, cannot be repositioned in times of war.
At the same time, martial law imposed at the beginning of the confrontation opened the floodgates of marriage by allowing couples, civilian or military, to file an application temporarily and marry on the same day.
In Kiev’s main registration office, bureaucratic affairs, not only marriages, but also other civil instances such as the registration of births and deaths, were disrupted in the first months of the war, when the endangered capital and some of its suburbs were taken over and occupied. Russian troops penetrated to the west of the city, not far from the main Soviet-era recording building.
Operations have now recovered beyond pre-war levels, according to the office, with 9120 marriages registered in the main register and satellite branches in the capital in the first five months of the war, a jump of more than 8 times from 1110 at the same time. in the past year.
Almost every day, the starting point of this chaotic but choreographed bridal march is the log parking lot, which overlooks a busy six-lane street. One after another, cars stop and deliver brides in confectionery dresses, small bridesmaids with oversized bouquets of flowers, and bride and grooms in tuxedos and other times in starchy khaki shirts. and dazzlingly white laceless shoes.
Inside, couples who arrive at their designated times are busy, waiting to be moved from an airy antechamber with delicate ornate wrought iron fixtures to one of the many upholstered wedding halls. Taffeta whispers, the smell of flowers mixing with aftershave lotion. Pop songs such as the so-called “Hello Bride”, called sap in general contexts, are de rigueur in this context.
Clipboard in hand, Daria Ripa, officiating the registry for much of the decade, accumulated waiting pairs, notices and instructions.
“Don’t make your chalice!” she barked. ” And your ryshnik!”: an embroidered Ukrainian wedding towel.
Despite her air of martial efficiency, Ripa, who wore a pink headband with garlands and a white ruffled blouse, in a nod to the ongoing wedding parade, paired with jeans and sneakers, to make it less difficult to climb and descend the wide staircase. – he was excited when he stopped for a moment to talk about the couples he is temporarily relating to.
“Some of them will go to war and possibly not come back, right after they pass to the front,” he said, wiping his eyes. “So each and every day we put our soul into each and every couple, to make them happy. “
Enlightening, he added: “Get married all day!
For some couples, the war has crystallized intentions to marry one day into a resolution to continue: love is a marker when there are so many uncertain things. millions and killed thousands.
Since the early days of the invasion, army chaplains have organized frontline weddings. Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko attended the wedding of two members of the Territorial Defense Force at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the then-threatened capital.
Some couples celebrate marriage as a demonstration of defiance in the midst of death and destruction. In the central city of Vinnytsia, after a devastating bombing last month that killed at least 26 people, a bride named Dariya Steniukova posed at her wedding ensemble surrounded by rubble in a destroyed apartment of a relative and posted the photos online. The attack, on July 16, came a day before their wedding.
“We are in a position to get married, even with rockets flying overhead,” he told French news firm AFP.
The Russian invasion and the dizzying twists and turns that followed: Ukraine arrived for the first time together in the face of a widely expected defeat, war became an ugly and bloody routine in the east of the country, a development as Ukrainian forces seek to retake component of the southern coast – makes other people wait, for some, it seems like an impossibility.
“We’ve all found ourselves in cases where we don’t know what will happen tomorrow, and even into the evening,” Deputy Justice Minister Valeria Kolomiets told Ukrainian radio in April, saying the war had led other people to formalize their relations. in case the worst happens to one of them.
In Kyiv’s office, two 24-year-olds, Maryna and Eugene, posed for photographs as they waited their turn. He also soon returned to the front as a soldier, and both had security considerations related to the publication of their full names.
“We can’t postpone life because we don’t know how long life lasts,” Maryna said. “That’s how love wins. “
Eugene smiled as his long wife adjusted the opening of her long white skirt to show one leg.
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Laura King is a journalist founded in Washington, D. C. For The Los Angeles Times. A domestic/foreign staff member, he basically covers foreign affairs. In the past she served as head of office in Jerusalem, Kabul and Cairo.
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