Stepan Kolesnyk

In 1983, the documentary film "Soldier's Widows" was released on the screens of Ukraine, created by director Volodymyr Artemenko, whose father died at the front, and nine aunts remained widows. Based on real events, the picture about one small village of Melnyky in Cherkasy region, where a large number of widows lived, made a strong impression, because there were many such villages in Ukraine. At the Berlin Film Festival, one of the foreign film critics called Ukrainian widows the Madonnas of the 20th century.

The film is about the demographic and environmental problems of Ukrainian villages. The film shows the resettlement of people from the radioactive contamination zone, the Kremenchuk reservoir, a wedding celebration, a child's baptism, etc.