Farewell our friend!
There are irreplaceable people - the conscience and truth of Odessa - Grigory Vitalievich Kvasnyuk was buried on Thursday. He left us 40 days after his departure in order to hear, before it is too late, the soul of Odessa - to see him off with dignity, and not to lose ours.
Without hypocrisy and without arrogance, from year to year Grigory Vitalievich said what millions were thinking about - his Pravda was watched not only in Odessa - he read thoughts and expressed them for each of us. Maybe that’s why his former colleagues from the ATV channel didn’t come to the funeral: they had to pore over their “works,” tediously turn on the light, be creative and agonize over commas, but the Lord rewarded him with the most precious (of all possible) gift - to talk with the viewer's heart.
And not only from the television screen, but from everywhere: on the streets, in shops, in parking lots, bazaars and churches, people addressed him: “How to live further, Vitalich?” - and his heart responded to everyone. That's why it couldn't stand it - one small heart, multiplied by the light that will never go out, stopped, because he tore it and gave it away every day.
To make it clear to everyone, he tore, like... Vysotsky. As his friend, and in the current realities, fighter and fellow soldier Sergei Bovbalan, said, “he was a rare nugget who loved people and did everything to protect people, warned of danger.”
Grigory Vitalievich died at a combat post, after filming the 127th episode of his Pravda program.
More than a journalist, more than a TV presenter, more than a former policeman and deputy - a MAN and an ODESSIAN!
Only honesty, only love for people. He could just as easily tell the mayor, “You’re wrong,” and just as easily help the janitor carry his brooms and shovels.
When he was still a deputy of the Odessa City Council, I accidentally heard a story from a female inspector Gorgaz I knew. “Imagine, I call the apartment, and the same Kvasnyuk answers for me! Everyone is swearing at us and driving us away, but he offered us some tea and said, “You’re tired of running around so much - sit down and rest. I refuse, but he, “No, rest!”, persuades me.”
And we started communicating with him after a funny incident. There was a cat in our editorial office - they picked it up as a kitten and left. And one day an official came from the mayor’s office, and the first thing the cat did was lay down on her white cashmere coat and got it dirty. The guests reacted differently, so I had to write an announcement “Do not offend the cat - this is a symbol of the editorial office,” and Grigory Vitalievich, when he saw him, said: “For this, I respect you.” He was so for everything human, peaceful, living, kindly everyday life, even in small things, even for the violet on the windowsill - for everything that makes us human, and that is why he so hated manifestations of fascism in any kind and rudiments, he wanted for us in the world, that’s why he turned out to be right.
A walking encyclopedia and erudite, he specifically spoke in an accessible and simple manner on air, because otherwise the same janitor - although rather mayors! - they might not understand him. The thing is that Vitalich is the only one I know who did not despise either the people themselves or the definition of “people”. It was not enough for him to live alone under a certain cap of justice and common sense - he wanted everyone, absolutely everyone, to live like this.
For the old people who came... and many rather crawled to the cemetery on June 15 on crutches, those same ones thrown out of life, miraculously not finished off, who once built the country after the war, he became the only and last friend, a window to the world. He alone shouted to them from the screen “I am with you!” when Yushchenko tried to reconcile the fascists and our veterans. They, these old people, would have left us even earlier if not for Grigory Vitalievich! And they fell, drank Corvalol, could barely move and, it seems, paid half their pension for the bouquets, but came to say goodbye.
They said goodbye without hysterics and foolishness; someone was crying quietly, hiding behind black glasses, someone was looking for “Who to give the money to - this is my duty! No, I won't tell you my name! Duty!".
Along the line lined up to say goodbye, a whisper ran with the most eerie chill: “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it... If Vitalyich had said that things were so bad with his heart, we would all chip in, and there wouldn’t be a funeral today!” Only Vitalich would not have said... The wall, the block, the rear protected us - not himself...
Woe
His scale and energy are such that even in the coffin, dead, he was more alive than many living ones. He wouldn’t want pathos, he would hug us all and say, “Fascism will not pass! Victory will be ours,” he would not tolerate tears and hysterics. As before, no matter where I worked, he hugged everyone - from corporate show-offs to cleaning ladies. People loved him... They loved him.
It so happened that we said goodbye to HIM three times: first near the cemetery church, then on the last path to the grave, then when we threw a farewell handful of earth... And no one left before the appearance of that very thing - which you don’t believe in - the grave mound.
I don’t even remember who was buried with so many wreaths “From Odessa residents”. Or there are none. And people stood there from early morning - just in case, because they were afraid of provocations from the “Nazis-Potsiks-Prikotsiks” (that’s what Vitalich said), they thought when they announced that the cemetery was mined or something else - “we’ll grab our teeth, but we won’t leave the cemetery!” . But there were no scum - they are afraid of Kvasnyuk even dead. Those who came to say goodbye without fear put St. George ribbons into the bouquets.
Sergei Bovbalan, a fellow fighter, friend, colleague in life’s work, said farewell words, his hands and voice trembled, he was busy with the funeral, he was tired. From our guard - for me now the last and most important. Sergei took a red piece of fabric with the inscription “Motherland”, went up to Grigory Vitalievich’s wife, Liliya Mikhailovna (she had been “giving her husband cartridges” all her life), put it on her lap, they talked, they were silent, and then Sergei put this piece of cloth on the coffin .
And the Motherland in this case was more than a party, which should be hated because of Ukropov’s politeness - the Motherland was simply the Motherland! Which Grigory Vitalievich defended until his last breath.
TV viewers and readers were waiting for him, like orphans in an orphanage rushing to every skirt with the words “Mom!” — Grigory Vitalievich was our national pope! On the terrible June 11, 2017, we were all orphaned. And it is true.
So, defending his Motherland, he died a heroic death in battle, never once shouting at the people around him, how he was persecuted with interrogations and searches, answering and reassuring everyone on the phone, despite the fact that at that time he was lying in the hospital under IV drips, sweeping out fascist evil spirits, having recently lost Pravda cameraman Oleg (died), the faithful and unchanging standard-bearer of Odessa, Grigory Vitalievich Kvasnyuk, left on his word of honor and on one wing with a wounded heart.
Goodbye my friend! Odessa will never forget you!
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