Anchor of invincibility
As people take a stroll along the Finikoudes embankment in Larnaca, they often stop to admire the anchor monument, whose arms form a heart shape. This anchor is a small piece of Ukraine in Cyprus, gifted to Larnaca by the sister city of Odessa in 2019.
Нe full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the anchor has become a meeting place for the Ukrainian community in Larnaca. In the midst of despair and confusion during the initial days of the Russian aggression, Ukrainians living far away from their homeland searched for a place that would connect them, even if only slightly, to their motherland. The anchor-heart, donated by Odessa, became a psychological anchor, a site for rallies and meetings of Ukrainians, a place to grieve, mourn the dead, support each other, and find a shoulder to lean on. Unsurprisingly, the anchor soon became an informal memorial. People brought and lit candles, children painted stones in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, and artists created symbolic illustrations depicting the most shocking events of the war, including the strikes on residential high-rise buildings resulting in the deaths of entire families, the atrocities of the occupying army in captured territories, and the brutal Russian massacres of prisoners of war.
This Ukrainian memorial attracts significant attention from passers-by and tourists. People stop, read inscriptions on stones, remember the events in Ukraine, and offer their sympathies.
But it turned out that in addition to normal human empathy and support, the memorial is capable of evoking the opposite emotions. The anchor-heart became a bone in the throat for pro-Russian residents of Cyprus, who are quite numerous on the island. Mentions of the war crimes and atrocities of the
