Horlivka

Horlivka is both a geographic reference point and a measure of the restricted world surrounding Little Starhorodivka. It lies toward Pashka Khmelenko’s side of the village, nearer Donetsk than Sergeyich’s home, and enters the narrative again through an implausible car offer and Sergeyich’s recollections of his working life.

Position in the Frontline Landscape

From Pashka’s garden, the view faces Horlivka; Sergeyich’s garden, on Lenin Street, faces the other way, toward Sloviansk. Their homes occupy opposite ends of a village positioned between armed forces: Ukrainian army trenches and dugouts lie beyond the fields toward Zhdanivka, while local fighters and Russian military personnel are dug in beyond Pashka’s street. The placement makes Horlivka more than a distant town name: it is part of the directional map by which the two neighbors locate themselves within a divided landscape.

The Audi Offer

When Pashka first presents a story about a car, Sergeyich questions him directly, and Pashka admits that he has lied. Some men who said they came from Horlivka had offered him an Audi for three hundred dollars, without papers. Pashka says he did not buy it; he suspected that turning away to fetch the money would leave him vulnerable to a knife in the back. The episode gives Horlivka a role in the informal, dangerous traffic of wartime, where a cheap car without documents carries the threat of robbery alongside the promise of a bargain.

Work and the Limits of Travel

Horlivka also belongs to Sergeyich’s prewar working geography. Before disability ended his career, he travelled on assignment to Horlivka, Yenakiieve, Donetsk, and dozens of other mining towns and villages as a safety inspector. He had descended into some mines twenty times or more. The work that took him through this regional network ultimately left him disabled by silicosis at forty-two; the illness was common enough among underground workers to be treated almost like an ordinary cough. In contrast to those work journeys, Sergeyich reflects that he had never travelled for a visit, not even to see his in-laws in Vinnytsia. Horlivka thus marks both the reach of his former employment and the narrowness of his personal life beyond it.