Cully: a Ukrainian says thank you with models

He lived on Independence Avenue, at home in Ukraine. Today, he has lived on rue de l’Indépendant in Cully for a year and a half. With a big smile, it is with this historical wink that Dmytro Bondaruk begins the meeting. This 30-year-old refugee lives with his wife and their two children aged 3 and 6. In May 2023, he joined them, who had arrived in Switzerland a year earlier. The Culliérans who welcomed his little family had already heard of “Dima”, its diminutive.

Five years in flowers

In Ukraine, after agricultural studies and a few months in the merchant navy around the world, he started as a florist with his wife, Alina, in the town of Ladyzhyn. Five years later, war broke out. “It was panic, everyone was going in all directions,” Dima remembers. Two winters ago, the power plant in his town, like many others in the country, was targeted by the Russians: “Seven bombs fell, but no one died.”

The army not having called him up, he was authorized to leave. “It was hard to leave far from my parents and my loved ones, to leave the country and the language,” he remembers. In Cully, the first times are hard, but he quickly notices that his son is doing very well at school. “I felt better and it really made me want to stay here and put in the effort to build a life.”

More than a thank you

It was then that he began making models at home. For what? “I wanted to do something with my hands, to do more than just say thank you to those who had been there for my wife and children,” explains Dima. I discovered these beautiful houses in Cully and it hooked me.” Little by little, self-taught, he perfected his gestures over hundreds of hours. It then begins with a house in the wine library, whose owner had taken care of his wife, Alina. It continues with the building of a village bakery.

Making models takes up all of his free time, in addition to his French lessons. One day, a Ukrainian soldier at the front gave him this message: could he create a model of the House of Culture in the town of Tchassiv Yar? This light blue building has become a shelter and a support hub for this town of 12,000 inhabitants. Chassiv Yar is a strategic lock that the Russians are shelling and threatening to control. The Maison de la Culture is not spared.

“This model is a symbol of the fight of the Ukrainians against the Russians,” emphasizes Dima. It is a message of hope, to say that the struggle is not in vain. I wanted to represent the building almost as beautiful as before the attacks. I just made a bomb hole. Rebuilding the real House of Culture would take years, but we can see the model right away.”

Waiting in kyiv

Started at the beginning of September, finished in November, the model was delivered to kyiv. The latest news is that she is still waiting in the capital before being able to reach her sponsor. And now, a new project? “I would like to make a model of the house where I grew up. My parents still live there and it is not destroyed.”

Say thank you to those he calls Cully’s “guardian angels”, give a little hope in Ukraine… “It’s sad, but everyone is tired of hearing about this war, even if it’s is hot news, sighs Dima. The Russian army is moving ever deeper into Ukrainian lands, the bombs continue to fall and people continue to die.”

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Jérôme Cachin has been a journalist in the Vaud section since 2019, specializing in politics. He was responsible for the Vaud page of Freedom from 2003 to 2019. He is the author ofVaud political institutions, with Mix & Remix andFamily stories (100 years of Pro Familia Vaud). He is also a member of the French-speaking jury for the word of the year since 2021.More info

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