With flags and flowers, hundreds of people gathered in Kyiv, despite the severe frost, to honor the memory of the young poet and soldier Maksym Kryvtsov, whose death at the front shook Ukraine, reports AFP.

The young poet Maksym Kryvtsov, who died at the front, is buried in KyivPhoto: Ukrinform / Sipa Press / Profimedia

Maksym Kryvtsov, who had the combat call sign “Dali”, died on Sunday at the age of 33. He joined the army as a volunteer in 2022, after the beginning of the Russian invasion, and served mainly as a machine gunner.

His first book “Poems from the Hole” was recognized by the Ukrainian branch of the PEN international network as one of the best literary works of the country in 2023.

The day before he died, he posted a photo on Facebook of himself in uniform, in front of a tree, with a slight smile on his face, a bun on top of his head and a book in his hands. “90% of the poems here are about death,” he wrote.

On Thursday, his coffin was placed – according to tradition – open – in the St. Michael’s Cathedral, a landmark of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent from Moscow, in the center of Kyiv.

Two uniformed soldiers held a yellow and blue national flag with a black mourning ribbon and a large wooden cross, which was later placed on his grave.

More than a hundred people, including many young people, gathered to pay their last respects in a small cathedral. Some of them wept, and most brought flowers, usually roses or carnations.

But several people came with potted African violets, a reference to a poem by Maksym Kryvtsov that he posted on Facebook in January describing his own death on the battlefield. “Near my torn hands, violets will grow in the spring,” the text reads.

“We pray for the repose of the soul of the soldier Maksym,” said one of the priests during the ceremony, calling him a “hero.” “We will remember him and continue our struggle.”

____

  • Follow the latest events of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HotNews.ro