There are lots of KObPAs here!

This is the first sign of village of Petroliv - and the place we went with Victor to look for evidence of Nelson's family. Yes, the sign says "Petroliv" but we are in cyrillic here!

And this is a view of the village. The town is tucked away on the bank of a river. There's the river on one side and above the village the plateau rolls away in farmland on the uphill side. There was a huge collective farm here in Soviet times, but it's abandoned now and all the buildings are empty.

As soon as we arrived Victor and Nelson spotted a newish looking memorial -- and we walked over to discover there were four KObPAs and at least one WAWKA recorded. You must work with me in cyrillic here - KObPA = Cobra (the name of Nelsons grandfather's family) and WAWKA = Shashka (the name of Nelson's grandmother's family). The memorial was dedicated to people who died resisting the Russian occupation after WW2, and was erceted with funds from the village and expatriate Ukranians after Ukraine left the Soviet Union. Two of the KObPAs died after being deported to Siberia, one died at 17 in the fighting, one survived the fighting and lived until the 1970s. We are not sure of the status of the WAWKA.

Our next stop was the graveyard where we found KObPAs and WAWKAs and other names Nelson recognized. Victor said he'd never heard the name KObPA before he heard from us, and that there were other unusual names in the graveyard as well. It sounds like the KObPA family did not stray far from the village!

Final stop was the village store, where we thought we might buy food for a picnic lunch. Victor advised against it, as the bread was from Friday and the sausuage had no "best before" date. He asked the woman working there if there were any KObPAs left in town, and she said "lThere are lots of KObPAs around here". He told her that we were Cobras from Canada looking for our relatives. She said something complicated in Ukranian which he translated at "these KObPAs don't even know if they are related to each other, I don't think they are going to be able to tell you if they are related to some one from Canada!"

After talking to her we drove around the village and every time we passed someone on the street I wanted to stick my head out the window and yell "Hey, are you a KObPA?" but Nelson and Victor discouraged me.

There were quite a few people of all ages wandering around, too. There's very little work in the villages and small towns now and Victor said it's becoming a problem as the people are moving or commuting to the cities looking for work. For a time in the early 2000's there was lots of employment in construction and related industries but that's collapsed in the last year or so. A few families have subsistance farms and provide for themselves, but commercial farming employs very few.

So...no live KObPAs to tell you about, but lots of proof that this really was "THE PLACE" that it all began!