207. Olia Hercules

0:01This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:11Well behaved women rarely make history. Bloody difficult women do.

0:22No apologies, listeners. This is a very emotional interview with Olia Hercules, whose family had to flee as the Russians invaded her homeland and they destroyed her house. Basically, it's unimaginable. But she's still here and she's still cooking and she's got an amazing book out called Strong Roots. What a story. Welcome to Difficult Women.

1:04The chef Olya Hercules has not written another award-winning cookbook about dumplings in borscht, but a book about and to which she's dedicated, my big family, ancestors, Ukraine and her people. Olya, it's four years this week since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of your country in 2022, an illegal invasion that saw your parents abandon their home and their garden, a mass displacement of around 20 million, mainly women and children, hundreds of thousands of men, especially young men, join the army, tens of thousands die, and the country placed under martial law. Olya, you've decided it's now time to tell your family's story and the impact of Putin's war on them.

1:54and we will get into your book and the fact that the war is now entering its fifth year and how you felt ready finally to write that story. But I thought let's have a bit of a soft opening like a restaurant because I think that to set the scene, our listeners would love to hear about your idyllic Arkadian childhood in Ukraine before the illegal invasion started. And I think let's date that back to 2015 rather than 2022. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Olya, and welcome. So just set the scene. Sure. I was born in 1984 in the south of Ukraine in a little town called Kachovka, about 50 ,000 people, something like that.

2:47and you know I always felt like I was kind of born in the middle of nowhere. But it was very near Crimea. Extremely near Crimea yeah 70 kilometers away so sort of like Luton away from London that kind of distance. Yeah and it was the Soviet Union and life was tough for my grandparents for my parents for millions of people all over the Soviet Union but I was a baby obviously so as a small child I just felt safe and protected and loved by my family and you know as I mentioned we were in the south of Ukraine so we had these really long beautiful summers with a climate that's very close to Mediterranean I would say so amazing food amazing family connections not so much community in the town because in the Soviet Union, everyone just kind of kept themselves to themselves.

3:44You know, when people talk about communism, you think communism, you think community. But what they did, actually, they, you know, the Soviets strived for this massive community of 115 countries or something like that, but they actually suppressed local communities. So, yeah, it was an interesting time to grow up. I actually remember myself from very early on, freakishly so. And I remember the 80s and I remember queuing with my mom for, I don't know, mayonnaise or, you know, to pay the electricity bill or something like that. You know, you could stand in those queues for hours. But nevertheless, there was a kind of feeling of safety and contentment in my early childhood.

4:33And then everything kind of changed in 1989, 1991, which I also remember, you know, that big, obviously, the Soviet Union falling apart. You were in a part of Ukraine where it was considered more sort of superior to speak Russian rather than Ukraine. Ukraine was regarded as a bit provincial. In fact, as you explain in your brilliant book, Ukraine means the country of the country, the sort of like it's on the periphery of Russia itself. And you and the people in your region sort of imbibed that kind of hierarchy, didn't they? Yeah, the closer you were to the center of Soviet Union, which was Moscow, hence eastern and southern Ukraine, the more Russified you were.

5:24So, yeah, we were extremely russified. My grandparents spoke a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. My grandma spoke a lot of Ukrainian. But my parents spoke Russian because Ukrainian was deemed to be a language of no perspective. so if you spoke Ukrainian you wouldn't get into university you know they would fail you or even in the 60s and 70s when my mom and dad were children at school you would be teased you'd be bullied and called a seluk or seluchka which means basically a peasant if you spoke Ukrainian so we grew up uh with with this idea that ukrainian language was funny was not serious was you know this was the stereotype that the the russian not not just the soviet union even before the russian umpire you know the ukrainians were all they're the funny you know like sallow borscht eaters or whatever you know it's all they wear funny folk costumes and all of that kind of stuff so yeah we we grew up I grew up speaking Russian I only started speaking Ukrainian two three years ago yeah and then I remember there's a moment in your book when you suddenly realized that you were dreaming in Ukrainian and that was a real breakthrough a real breakthrough for me I I never you know I actually have been a thinker in English since I was about 17 I went I left Ukraine when I was 12 and lived in Cyprus for five years and I went to an English school there but I didn't speak any English until 12 but once I kind of hit 17 I stopped thinking in Russian and I started thinking in English but since this big invasion of four years ago I just made a very conscious decision and put a lot of effort into learning Ukrainian and now I'm fluent I mean it's not perfect.

7:22So fluent in three languages let's go back to this childhood which which is it's a very sensual tactile visual descriptions that you you bring the reader of the gardens the produce the flowers the scents the the food that you eat the food that your mother and grandmother prepared and it's it's incredibly um evocative it really really evocative And it must sort of sustain you, those memories. Absolutely. And I feel like it's within Ukrainian culture. Because as you've also mentioned before, the war didn't start four years ago. And it didn't even start in 2015, to be honest with you. There's been all sorts of persecutions for hundreds of years.

8:15And I feel like Ukrainians have developed almost like a cult of life. and this reverence of beauty wherever they could find it in order to cope, in order to keep going. And I really dipped into that, you know, four years ago when the invasion started and my parents were forced to flee and my brother, who'd never held a gun in his entire life, joined the territorial army. I started researching Ukrainian culture and I started painting the walls in my house, for example. I started embroidery. I started learning. I started reading poetry and listening to Ukrainian music, singing Ukrainian songs to my children.

9:01And it really sustains you and it really enriches your soul and gives you strength to survive, basically. So you left Ukraine, you went to Cyprus, you went to an English school in Cyprus when you were 12. Then you actually settled in the UK at age 18. You went to Warwick University studying international relations and Italian. And then you did a master's. Then you studied Italian. So that's a fourth language where you discovered that you could convert your passion for sort of home cooking. And you describe how you love chopping. It's your therapy into a career. yeah I so my entire family are formidable cooks they're amazing my mom who looks very much you know she's glamorous she's got amazing manicure and this hair and everything but she can also make this the thinnest filo pastry which then she spins like a pizzaiolo in the air that kind of thing like the skills that some of the best chefs in London that I know couldn't do what my mom can do did she teach you well so this is the thing I wish that I could say yes I was by her side and learning no they were busy they had really very difficult lives you know when we were when we were little and she was cooking everything from scratch so actually you know she would give us little jobs maybe to do but really get stay away from the kitchen this is you know I'm cooking dinner like it wasn't like that but then when I became a teenager my mom and dad especially my dad said okay it's time you learn to cook not in a patriarchal kind of way more like he's an amazing cook as well it's like it's a really great skill to have you you know um so i started cooking i was burning things it was not you know my heart wasn't in it so they left me alone and then it was in my 20s when i was already studying in london um when i was doing my master's that i picked up cooking I just really missed my family and I just thought I didn't really think I just started doing it and now I realize in retrospect that it was I was being I was connecting myself to them and to the culture so I just became obsessed it became an obsession I think I also realized that my brain calmed normally I'm just kind of a very chaotic and all over the place and as soon as I start chopping I become a different person I am calm my entire body and brain and everything quiet And yeah, as you mentioned, I can just chop vegetables forever.

11:32Yeah, this is, I think, a moment to talk about your personal anxiety and about the state of national anxiety that Ukraine has found itself in. And the fact that you go back to these small, sustaining kitchen-based activities is a way of coping. Yep. As a country and as a person. Yeah, absolutely. So anything like cooking, embroidery, painting, anything that you do with your hands, it's a meditative practice, really, you know, if you take these modern kind of tropes. So for me, cooking has become a stress reliever. And, you know, we joke in Ukraine, well, joke, not so much a joke, that worrying is our national pastime.

12:15can you blame us no of course not because for hundreds of years ukraine has has been taken by the poles and then by the russians and then by the poles and you've seen pogroms ottoman empire it's ottomans exactly yeah constantly because we geographically you can even explain it i mean there are some mountains obviously in western ukraine but where i'm from is the bare step you You know, the horizon is massive as far as the eye can see. The sky is enormous. A sky is enormous as that. So we're very unprotected. So there is dangers coming from every kind of direction. And I think biologically in our DNA, we're just constantly waiting for that moment when we are going to be attacked.

13:01Honestly, when the invasion actually happened in 2022, I realized that I was actually very good in a crisis. It's almost like my whole life, my neurological state has just been preparing me for this massive, huge seismic change. And as hard as it was, I think that I did pretty well.

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14:16You describe very dramatically, you were not in the country, but Sasha, your brother, and your parents were. and your father and mother tell our listeners what happened after the invasion and how you managed to get them out sure so my mom and dad were in kohovka they have this so that's near occupied kasson had been occupied or not yet it not yet uh well yeah so they've been living there when the house by the by the river and just kind of preparing themselves to to to retire really with this beautiful garden. And then the Russian tanks roll in from Crimea. Somebody demined the bridge and the Russians have just rolled in, just like that.

15:07And mom and dad initially said, we're not going anywhere. This is our home. Who are these people? They don't even know where they are. They don't know why they're here. And mom said, you know, if they come over, I'll have my frying pan at the ready. I mean, it was obviously a joke, but they stayed. And they went out with other people in the town to protest every day. And it went on for about a month. The Russians, just like in Crimea, they were kind of just going a little bit softly in the beginning. You know, just think, because they were also told that Ukrainians will meet them with flowers.

15:49These are Russian speakers. So the Russian speaking Ukrainians will just be like, oh, liberators, you have come to liberate us. But they were surprised that that did not happen. We said it doesn't matter that we speak Russian. We're not. We are Ukrainians. Like it's a normal thing these days. So then eventually my the Russians actually started shooting into the crowds when they became fed up with people coming out. and a Russian accent phoned my dad one day and said... A man with a Russian accent. Yes. And he said, we know that your son has taken up arms, that he's in territorial army. He needs to stop or else.

16:35Basically, they threatened to take my dad to what they call the basement, which is basically like torture chambers, which they have set up all over the occupied areas. and my dad said over my dad body a little bit kind of hastily and they didn't tell me anything about that until my mom finally told me and i just had a i had a breakdown on the phone to them and i said i i will not be able to look after my family my kids or do anything for ukraine or help in any way if i'm constantly worried that you're going to be taken prison or tortured or I don't know what else. So I convinced them to leave, even though by that time it was really extremely dangerous to leave.

17:19Russians were shooting at the cars. They just slaughtered entire families with children and things like that. And my dad said, you know, that's really dangerous. But I joined a seminar online completely by kind of accident. I saw it. A local journalist managed to go and he gave us all of the tips. So go in a convoy. Don't hide anything. pretend to be stupid. Normally it takes an hour to get from Kohovka, from my hometown, to Kherson, the regional center. It took them 19 hours because there were 19 checkpoints, 19 Russian checkpoints where people were stripped naked, the cars were searched, etc, etc.

17:58But they managed to go and they went to Italy where my cousin has literally just bought one of those dilapidating villas the villa is called Villa d 'Angelo so the house of angels and they took them five days to go through Europe and they were due to arrive and I flew out because I've been to that house once and I know that it's full of plastic plants and it's cold because it was April was really cold in northern Italy and I arrived six hours before and the first thing that I did was to find a local supermarket and I managed to find a beetroot and I made them a really massive, like comically massive pot of borscht.

18:38So when they came in after this ordeal, that they could smell the familiar smells and, you know, just feel at home, even if it was just a micro kind of. It's an amazing passage in the book that the cooking of the borscht as they arrive and then I think your father, I think the tension of the whole, the whole dramatic um exodus and he he he said you know it doesn't taste right you'd make you'd use packet borscht packet beetroot not roasted beetroot and but you sort of understood why he had to say that it was actually you know so we were sitting there eating this borscht uh you should really cook the cabbage very quickly but i threw it in and went to it i overcooked it yeah Yeah.

19:25And we were sitting there and we were crying and it was just so emotional. And yeah, that little moment when my dad kind of criticizes my borscht and says that I should get some lessons from my mom. I just, me and my mom just exchanged glances and rolled our eyes. But you know, that kind of like weird, like dad thing to say. And it was just a sign of normality. It's quite reassuring that he said it. He thought it was safe enough to say something like that. Yes. Yeah. It just brought a little bit of this kind of like funny normality. He's very supportive dad, by the way, but I can say stupid dad thing sometimes.

20:02You don't need any lessons in cooking. You've actually turned your passion and ability to cook and your career as a cook into something to help Ukraine. Tell us about that. So on the first day of the invasion, I was in London. I was in my room just, you know, just watching through the phone, just Twitter, just constantly refreshing the page and seeing the explosions and calling everyone, all my extended family, my parents. It was a horrific night. And in the morning, I received a phone call from my friend, Alisa Timoshkina, who's also a food writer. And we were both involved in Cook for Syria, the online campaign that encouraged people to cook Syrian food and to then donate the money.

20:50So she said, why don't we do Cook for Ukraine and ask the guys from Cook for Syria to help us out. And we did it. I mean, they did all of the, you know, administrative, incredible work for over two years, you know, voluntarily. And I was kind of like the front. I gave interviews and just spread the information as far as possible. because I had 70 ,000 people on my Instagram the day before the invasion and then the next day it was doubled, which was quite amazing to see that support. And people donated over£2 million to cook for Ukraine. Wow. Wow. Which went to legacy of war in UNICEF, Ukraine.

21:33Yeah. Thank you. It still must be a very surreal and traumatic life living outside Ukraine, knowing that your country still occupied your parents' house, you don't know who's squatting in your parents' house, what they're doing to the south. It doesn't exist anymore. It's been blown up. My dad gave the coordinates to the Ukrainian army. There were tanks parked in there. Sorry, why did your father want the house blown up by the Ukrainian army? Because there were Russian weapons of destruction parked there, literally. I see. And his farming equipment plant as well. Can you imagine how that was for him?

22:24Yeah, so it doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately. So they've lost their home? They've lost their home. Yeah, they lost their home. My dad is back in Ukraine. He couldn't stay in Europe. Yeah, you wrote about that. He said he felt purposeless and pointless being here. Your mother was here. Yeah, my mom is in Berlin with my family there, with my extended family there. And my dad went back to Ukraine. He bought an old dilapidating tractor, which I helped him to raise money for. And he's turned it into a minesweeper. He's an engineer. He's demining. He's demining. Yeah. It's almost finished. Yeah.

23:00It's incredible. I mean, as you say in your book, you know, this Kiva's country where, you know, Kiva's the capital city of a country where you get flat whites and you get, you know, the most wonderful food and, you know, culture and nightclubs. And, you know, it's a modern European city. That's what it feels like. And yet, and yet, it's like something out of the Second World War. The day before the invasion, I mean, I don't know, people just could not believe that even though obviously the American intelligence and whatever they were telling everyone that it's going to happen, we just could not believe it.

23:36It just did not seem possible. It was absolutely absurd. There was no unrest. You know, it's not a country that's in some kind of a turmoil. literally my brother was doing you know his business plan and drinking the most incredible coffee the day before I know it's like a trivial thing to mention but I just want to make people understand how how it can just happen to anyone I guess or it's just absurd I don't really know I still you're right I'd still feel surreal

24:24it still feels completely insane that in 2022 this happened and in 2026 this is going into the fifth year and it there doesn't seem to be an end in sight how do you cope with that up and down I think everyone all of us it's very kind of yeah if you remember the roller coaster during the pandemic that's kind of like a hundred times worse than that but you also find coping coping mechanisms you learn I feel like you know it's been four years but I feel like I'm 15 years older or you it's a it's a type of grief that's it's a different grief to losing your parents or something like that but it's in in its intensity i think it's it's like that the grief of war and this is something that all of us have had to learn how to cope with and um yeah we keep going my brother is you know only 20 kilometers away from the russian border i mean he's in he's in an administrative role but he's still on the front line there and his morale is up i don't know how he does it it's been four years he's 50 this year and he's been doing it for four years now and my dad when i call him you know just to remind everyone that russia is trying to freeze everyone in ukraine now you know i've found my energy is a tool of war now it is and he's sitting there in his flat with a hat on and two two coats you know what i mean and and still he's positive He doesn't want me to see him.

26:01And the same for me, you know, and I'm trying to be positive. And we have these monthly get togethers on WhatsApp video and we just try to make each other laugh in the face of all of this horror. And there are, you know, there was the Homes for Ukraine scheme, a huge displacement of the country, mainly from the areas that are under threat. I mean, if you're in Lviv, you maybe haven't left Ukraine. But if you're in Herson, you would have left Ukraine or Zaporizhia or somewhere like that. The dams, the story of the bombing of the dam and the flooding of your part of the country you lived in is so shattering.

26:44And you must think, too, about return, you know. And it's kind of all the people who've left must be dreaming of return. And I'd love you to read the poem that you put in the book. You may know it off by heart, but I do have the English translation, which I think you should maybe read. It's just down in the middle there. I'll read it. I found it a very, very moving poem. Explain who wrote it and when. Thank you. So it's one of our most prominent poets and a punk rocker called Sergei Jadon. He's from Kharkiv. And he wrote this poem in 2015, actually. About the invasion, the illegal annexation of Crimea.

27:30About the invasion. And it's in my memoir, family memoir called Strong Roots. And it's in a chapter called Porsche in Italy. When my parents arrived to Italy, I don't know what I expected, like furniture. I expected them to be moving house, you know. and they just had these two suitcases, one filled with photographs, letters and embroideries and another with some basic clothing. That's it. Maybe some bits of jewelry. That's it. And it was shocking to me. And then I, very soon I saw this poem and I asked my mom if she'd ever heard it. So Serhija Dunn says, Take only what is most important. Take the letters.

28:14Take only what you can carry. take the icons and the embroidery take the silver take the wooden crucifix and the golden replicas take some bread, the vegetables from the garden then leave we will never return again we will never see our city again take the letters all of them, every last piece of bad news

28:42I know, yeah

28:48I'm trying not to cry because I don't know if my mum will listen to this take as long as you like I mean it makes me cry and I haven't had to leave my home and everything behind and leaving my elderly father freezing in a flat thanks to the Russian invasion so you have every right to cry

29:19anyway you made a delicious borscht not so delicious borscht I'm trying to make you laugh now you've made me cry we're both sitting here crying trying to talk about your terrible borscht thank you Rachel that's exactly what's needed you know what I mean I've got this poem in my head And then my dad says, pop my borscht. Bless him. He's wonderful, my dad. He's wonderful. Well, your whole family sounds extraordinary. And the book, which I should have mentioned the title, of course, it's called Strong Roots. And there's a reason for that being called Strong Roots, which you end the book with. It's all about the possibility of recovery, essentially.

30:03And I'll get you to say something about that. You know, and about hope and regeneration. but I mean as you're crying shall we just I will read the bit about the roots and you must think of your most terrible difficult time or a time when you had to be difficult like the time when you had to scream to your parents get out so you say you end the book with your mother's words about rose bushes and she says Olia always look at the roots if the roots are strong it doesn't matter if the wind blows if the roots are strong, it doesn't matter if a storm breaks the fragile stem, it will all grow. And that's the message that you want to leave the reader with.

30:50Yeah, that's my grandmother, Lucia, who has been through deportation at the age of 11, through hunger, through living in the forest in a dugout, returning to Ukraine, surviving Nazi occupation, surviving 70 years of Soviet occupation. and she was still this formidable but also extremely kind woman with so much humanity and so much soul. She's to sing to her flowers. And she's a huge, huge inspiration to me. Both of my grandmothers, they were just these incredibly strong women. And yeah, this is the end of the book and I really wanted to leave it hopeful like that and with that sense of strength which keeps carrying me and my parents, my brother and millions of Ukrainians forward.