Silent Mountains

Winston

Oleh is a 37-year-old man with the callsign “Winston.” For the past six years, he has served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, rising through the ranks from a private to a staff sergeant. After completing another difficult combat mission, he was granted a short leave and went on a trip to the mountains with his wife.

They stayed in a small, old, yet cozy house at the foot of the mountains. The mountains stood majestic and silent, their peaks hidden in the clouds. As Oleh himself says, “It’s hard to take your eyes off such a view, and many times my thoughts would wander back there — under shelling, in the mud, with bullets whizzing by. Because it’s not just a landscape — it’s a promise of peace and silence. A silence that doesn’t hurt your ears after explosions. Back then I thought: if I survive — I’ll come back here again.”

And he did survive. He survived when nearly everyone he went on that mission with did not. His body sustained numerous shrapnel wounds, leaving him with almost no chance of survival. But he made it.

Now, he is walking the long and difficult road to recovery, side by side with his wife, Olga. A delicate woman who, like a soft cloud, surrounds her strong husband with support, care, and love.