The Falklands have appeared in the news again, and with them an unexpected consequence: a forgotten chapter of my own life has resurfaced. It’s hard to believe it was forty‑four years ago. I was a young man then, and in a place no one would expect — Kiev, in Soviet Ukraine.
Why I was there is a story in itself. Partly it was my background: both my parents were Ukrainian, and I had always felt a pull toward the country they left behind. But there was another reason too, one that stung at the time. The British government had recently introduced new security rules that barred people like me — with two Ukrainian parents — from working in certain areas of public service. I had just graduated, full of plans, only to discover that my heritage disqualified me. It felt like a door slamming shut.
So I went to the Soviet Union. I wasn’t sure what I expected to find. Perhaps I was looking for a sense of belonging, or perhaps I was simply reacting to the feeling of rejection at home. In any case, there I was in Kiev, living in a strange mixture of curiosity, ambivalence, and cultural dislocation.
And then, toward the end of my stay, the Falklands war erupted.
I was shocked. It seemed absurd that such a conflict could happen in the late twentieth century. People asked my opinion, but I had almost no access to reliable news — just the occasional BBC World Service broadcast, fading in and out. I couldn’t form a steady picture of what was happening or why. All I knew was that something extraordinary was unfolding, and I was watching it from behind the Iron Curtain.
At first, the Soviet officials around me tried to maintain a polite neutrality. My uncle even looked up the islands on his Soviet map and pointed out the word printed next to them: spornie — “disputed.” But it didn’t take long for the propaganda machine to warm up. Soon Britain was being denounced as a neo‑colonialist aggressor, and Argentina was cast as the heroic anti‑imperialist underdog. I remember being shown a propaganda film that was so one‑sided it made my stomach turn.
By that point, I was already wilting from my time in the country — the atmosphere, the distortions, the constant ideological pressure. The Falklands coverage was almost a final straw. And then something unexpected happened. Instead of distancing me from Britain, the propaganda had the opposite effect. I began to feel a renewed sense of connection, even pride. Not because Britain was perfect — I knew its flaws all too well — but because, in the end, it was home. And from Kiev, of all places, I could suddenly see that more clearly than ever.
The final twist came in May, when the British victory was announced. It happened to coincide with the Soviet Union’s own Victory Day celebrations — Den’ Pobediy, the commemoration of the defeat of Nazi Germany. I walked into the office of my Soviet mentors, raised my fist, and declared, “Den’ Pobediy!” But I wasn’t referring to 1945. I meant the Falklands.
They knew exactly what I meant. They couldn’t say a word.
Looking back now, it feels like a small, strange, intensely personal moment — a collision of identity, history, and youthful defiance. And perhaps that’s why it has stayed with me. It was the moment I realised that, despite everything, Britain was my home.
And as for my friend, Bob, back in the UK, who wrote to me sporadically through the unreliable Soviet post, his summary of the whole affair still makes me smile. He called it a “rum do.” Try translating that into Russian!
Looking back, that cry of “Den’ Pobediy!” was probably one of my finest moments. It summed up something essential about me: a tendency toward mischief, a taste for the absurdities of life, and a habit of taking the occasional pot‑shot at authority — but always obliquely, never crudely. The sort of remark that seems harmless on the surface, yet lands with a quiet thud of meaning. Even now, I can still see the expressions on their faces. They understood perfectly. And that, I admit, gave me no small satisfaction.
Footnote: A Small Act of Entomological Dissent. The First Crack in the Soviet System.
There is one more small episode from my time in Kiev that deserves mention, if only because it still makes me smile. In the meeting room where we Western students occasionally gathered with Soviet officials, there stood a bust of Lenin — just his head on a plinth, gazing sternly across the room. One day, feeling particularly fed up with the atmosphere of ideological earnestness, I found a dead fly on the windowsill and, without much thought, placed it delicately on Lenin’s bald pate.
It sat there for days.
No one noticed — or if they did, they said nothing. The moment only came to light later, when an American friend, looking at an official photograph, spotted a tiny black dot on Lenin’s head and marvelled that a fly would dare land there. I had to confess that it hadn’t landed at all; I had put it there. He was astonished. I sometimes wonder what would have happened had anyone caught me in this act of microscopic subversion. Perhaps there was a clause in the Soviet penal code against defacing public statuary, especially of the great leader. But I needn’t have worried. I got away with it.
And if the Soviet Union began to wobble soon after, who’s to say my little fly didn’t play its part?
The real subversion wasn’t placing the fly there, but knowing that no one dared acknowledge it.
Final Reflection: Between Worlds
Looking back, I realise that much of what I saw in Kiev — the propaganda, the silences, the absurdities, the tiny acts of mischief — made sense to me precisely because I stood between worlds. My Ukrainian relatives, who lived inside that system, couldn’t see it from the angle I did. My friends in the West, no matter how well informed, couldn’t quite grasp the texture of life behind the Iron Curtain. I occupied a narrow strip of ground between the two, able to see both perspectives yet not fully claimed by either. It was an odd place to stand, but it gave me a clarity I’ve carried ever since.