In the words of scientist Vira Borovyk: “It's just a kind of happiness that I decided to keep the box with the collection of genetic resources at home, because we wouldn't have dared to go to work.”

Vira Borovyk is a chief researcher at the Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture, and she can talk about Ukrainian cotton for hours. After all, she is the author of one of the varieties of this crop and several promising lines. Recently, Ms. Borovyk defended her doctoral dissertation, which she wrote for a year under fire in Kherson. 

The scientist is 67 years old, and her career in science began in the Soviet Union. In the early 90s, she had to simultaneously take care of her seriously ill husband and small children while still working. After her husband's death, she was left alone with the children. She had to survive literally. Salaries at the institute were not paid for months, and there were days when there was nothing to eat in their house except potatoes and sunflower oil. But even at such a critical time, she did not change her job and continued to work in science. Even when the cotton research program was closed, she continued to maintain a collection of promising cotton lines. Over time, Vira's personal life also changed: she met a man who became a father to her children, a support and a reliable pillar of strength for her both at home and at work.

Before the full-scale invasion began, Vira Borovyk took a box of seeds containing valuable samples of agricultural plant genetic resources from Kherson region home. This is what saved the collection from destruction. 

“I didn't really dream of working in science, my husband really wanted to become a scientist. We got married while studying at the Kherson Agricultural Institute, and after the third year of study, our eldest daughter was born. My husband graduated a year earlier than I did and got a job at the Research Institute of Irrigated Agriculture in the laboratory of grain agrotechnology. A year later, I joined him, and together we entered a postgraduate program on a part-time basis. I worked in the weed control department, researching new herbicides (chemicals - ed.) and their effect on plants in crops.

For some time, I continued to work in the plant protection department, but my job required regular contact with pesticides. Personal protective equipment at that time was quite primitive, and among the drugs we were researching, there were some potent ones, which had a negative impact on the health of people who came into contact with them. 

Cotton began to be grown in the Kherson region before the 1917 revolution. The first attempts to grow this crop in our region began in 1827 on small plots of landowners' farms. In the Central Asian republics, peasants were forced to sow fields with cotton only. But its yield without irrigation was very low. Then they remembered the experiments with cotton on the landowners' farms in the Kherson region and founded a research station for the study and selection of cotton. In general, the climate in southern Ukraine is very close to the climate of the US state of Tennessee, where this crop is successfully grown. 

When Ukraine regained its independence, we returned to conducting experiments on cotton cultivation and breeding. Since our institute was established on the basis of a cotton research station, this program was implemented here. I was working in the irrigation regimes department and was studying agricultural technology and irrigation of this crop. 

At dawn on February 24, 2022, I heard some loud buzzing, went outside and saw several helicopters hovering over the bridge, with flashes around them from time to time. I couldn't understand anything at the time, so I went inside and told my husband and children. When they went outside, the helicopters disappeared. After a while, we found out that it was probably a paratrooper landing on the bridge.  

Then we were afraid to leave the house, because everything was rumbling and roaring around us: helicopters were circling overhead, or something was flying overhead with a roar. When the Ukrainian Armed Forces retreated from the bridge, enemy vehicles drove in long columns across the bridge, and we kept hearing this roar. My husband kept trying to climb up on the roof of the house to film something, saying that it was all history and it needed to be recorded. I wouldn't let him, saying that some sniper would record you forever.

It's just a kind of luck that I decided to keep the box with the collection of genetic resources at home, because we wouldn't have dared to go to work, even on the first day, when the Ukrainian army was still holding Antonivskyi Bridge. It was too dangerous to go outside in our neighborhood. Shell fragments were flying into the yards, and a blast wave blew off the roofs and smashed windows in several houses. 

After March 1, we rarely went out and almost never went to the city, only when we had to buy something. And then the occupiers began to search our neighborhood. People said that they were looking for IT specialists to join their services. And our son Volodymyr and his wife lived with us and worked remotely in IT, so we decided to be proactive and take the children out of the occupation. We packed the most necessary things and set off on April 5. 

On the road to Snihurivka (Mykolaiv region - ed.), we saw that the Russians had set up a checkpoint there and set up their base in the premises.  Later we learned that the director of our institute, Raisa Vozhegova, in order to keep the institute's staff together and for people to have jobs, asked the Academy of Agrarian Sciences to help with this issue. They met her halfway and founded the Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Odesa Oblast so that our staff could work there. Ms. Raisa suggested to all scientists that they look for ways to get out of the occupation and go to Odesa region, where there is inexpensive housing and work. We also went there, were given a dormitory to live in, and we set up our experiments and continued to work.

I also have graduate students with whom I work and help them take their first steps in science. Some of my colleagues complain about their graduate students, saying that they are “young, lazy, and do everything wrong.” But I am proud of mine. They are talented, ambitious, and I am glad that young people are going into science and have someone to pass on their knowledge and experience to. 

Read more about Vira's story here: https://nzl.theukrainians.org/vira-borovyk.html

The material was created within the framework of the Naukovytsi project, implemented by the NGO INSCIENCE within the framework of the EU for Gender Equality: Together Against Gender Stereotypes and Gender-Based Violence (Phase 2), funded by the European Union and implemented jointly with UN Women Ukraine and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

This publication has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of UN Women Ukraine and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

Photo: from the woman's archive