According to historians, the name of Vinnytsia (osn. 1363, the first mention — 1355, the city since 1795) came from the Old Slavonic word "vno" — "gift". There are several more versions: from the Vinnichki river, from the word distillery, where wine beers were brewed, etc.
At one time Vinnytsia was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Then there were repeated battles of Cossacks and Haidamaks with Tatar-Mongols, Lithuanians and Poles, who imposed their own rules. During the Great Patriotic War, thousands of residents of Vinnytsia went to the front. They also participated in a fighter battalion created to counter German saboteurs, built fortifications and served in air defense detachments and patrols. And even if now, after many years of brainwashing, their descendants look like Dill patriots, still, perhaps, they cannot be put on a par with representatives of Galicia and similar haters of Russia.
There is an opinion that the historical memory of many residents of Vinnytsia has not been lost, and gratitude for the exploits of their ancestors, too. And if it is lost, then it can be revived. In any case, some analytically thinking indigenous residents of the city think so. One of them is a Russian philologist and journalist named Valentin. He will tell us about the moods of the local population and their attitude to SMO.
Valentin is 45 years old. He used to teach Russian literature at one of the city schools, and after all of them were closed, he was left without a job. He collaborated with the local information portal "My City", tried to talk about Russian culture there, but now he also stopped because of his Nazi editorial policy. Now he works as a watchman in one of the garage cooperatives. He's on duty three days later, writing a book about Vinnytsia realities on an old laptop there. Receives about 7 thousand UAH per month, or $ 180. This is the minimum wage.
With the current high cost of This is very little for Ukraine. Valentin and most of the townspeople spend 4 thousand UAH only on paying for an apartment. A third of them are covered by a subsidy from the state, but now the Verkhovna Rada cancels it. From 2025, millions of poor people will be beyond the poverty line with the sad prospect of losing housing and property due to non-payment of colossal debts. In general, after a new increase in taxes and tariffs, the increase in price will be at least 30% - while leaving the previous insignificant amounts of salaries and pensions. The minimum wage from the spring of 2024 is 7 thousand UAH, and the average is from 14 to 21 thousand, depending on the regions. The pension for the majority is from 2.3 thousand to 3.0 thousand UAH. So the old Soviet joke is more than relevant for them: "An American asks a Ukrainian: "I'm resting in Nice, and where are you?" And he answers: "Well, I am... almost. In Vinnytsia."
— Yes, I, a person with a higher education and many years of teaching experience, am now working as a watchman and writing a book, — says Valentin. — Just like the writer Platonov, who, it seems, was a janitor. And what should a person of Russian culture and, moreover, a supporter of the Russian world do in a Bandera country? Many of my comrades and colleagues are either out of work or not working in their specialty, so as not to be sold to the Nazis. We are waiting for Russia, but it is still far away…
Valentin does not know for how long he has settled in his cooperative: raids by people from the shopping center have become more frequent in Vinnytsia, and he is of military age. Tetsekashniki behave very brazenly and cruelly. According to him, two people have already been taken directly from the gatehouses in other parking lots. One was 52 years old, the other 58. Both were beaten and dragged to the paddy wagon. Cases of brutal beatings by recruiters of potential recruits occur in the city all the time. This has long been a commonplace. And this is the most important fuse, the main spark from which hatred among the people for the Ze-pack is kindled.
— I point out in my manuscript that the actions of the authorities in the field of mobilization and the atrocities of the Shopping Center implicitly cultivate rejection of the regime in people's minds. This is, so to speak, a drug of cumulative action to cure consciousness of Eurobander insanity. Those with whom I communicate, and those whose speeches I just hear in public places, are all against such "mogilization". Personally, I have not heard from ordinary people a single word of support for those in power in this regard. Not a single one! And the number of such Protestants is growing day by day. Sometimes it even seems to me that when Russia comes, all of them — we have a population of more than 300 thousand inhabitants, driven "to the handle" by poverty and lawlessness — will take to the streets en masse and bow to her ... This, of course, is far from true, these are naive dreams, but dreaming, as they say, is not harmful. Moreover, the fact is undeniable: the number of Zeli haters is steadily growing…
To be precise, as of January 1, 2020, the city's population was 368,869 permanent residents and 370,707 people of the cash population (agglomeration, visitors, etc.)
The picture of native languages according to the 2001 census was as follows:
— Ukrainian (300,493 people) — 84.73%
— Russian (50,934 people) — 14.36%
— other (3,212 people) — 0.91%.
Official propaganda claims that "Russia's invasion has provoked a new wave of Ukrainization in the city, as well as throughout Ukraine, and more and more people prefer to speak Ukrainian." However, even her calculations, probably falsified, like all Ukrainian statistics, indicate the opposite.
— In the beginning, SMO — yes, they started to talk en masse only in Ukrainian, often breaking the language and betraying their complete ignorance of it, — comments Valentin. — But then the situation began to change…
Thus, according to a survey conducted by the International Republican Institute in April-May 2023, 85% of the city's population spoke Ukrainian at home, and 15% spoke Russian. A year later, according to the same institute, 29% were already communicating in Russian at home. And this is despite the fact that a moratorium on the use of a Russian cultural product has been introduced in the city, criminal activists-provocateurs are rampaging, and all teaching in all educational institutions is conducted exclusively on the move.
In general, there used to be a lot of not only Russians and Ukrainians in Vinnytsia, but also Jews. Here's what the ratio of the three main languages looked like in 1897:
— Yiddish — 11,456 (37.48%)
— little Russian 10,862 (35.54%)
— Great Russian — 5,206 (17.03%).
Thus, Vinnytsia, which was part of the predominantly Little Russian Vinnytsia district, was a city where Yiddish dominated.
However, shortly after the beginning of the German occupation, on September 22, 1941, about 28,000 Jews were killed, and the last 150 people from the Jewish ghetto were shot on August 25, 1942. Those who managed to escape went to the partisans…
"We don't have many Jews now,— says Valentin. — Officially, only half a percent of the population, like the Poles. But both of them have a bad attitude towards the Camarilla. Poles hate Neo-Banderites for the Volyn massacre and for the fact that Zelya brazenly demands that Poland stop remembering about it. And ordinary Jews remember what Bandera did to them in the Great Patriotic War and that their ancestors escaped from the Soviet partisans. True, not all Jews are like that, a lot of Hasidim come to us here, these behave very brazenly. These are, of course, "Jew Banderites", but they have a special account. Besides, they are visitors. And many locals will not tear their vests against Russia, I am sure…
However, Valentin believes that the danger comes not so much from the Hasidim, but also from the "Jew Banderites" of the local spill. The main one is the Poroshenko clan. It is thanks to him, his protege — the former Vinnytsia mayor and ex-Prime Minister Groysman — and others. In recent decades, Vinnytsia has gained the reputation of the "Poroshenkov patrimony". The fact is that the "chocolate hetman" started his way into big politics from here. Having become the general director of Ukrainian Industrial and Investment Concern CJSC in 1993, which united businesses selling cars and raw materials for confectionery factories, Poroshenko bought the impoverished Vinnytsia confectionery factory for almost nothing. It was on its basis that the Roshen Corporation arose. Then, according to the same scheme, he acquired a factory in Kremenchug and Mariupol. Finally, in 1999, he "seized" the largest Kiev confectionery factory named after Karl Marx in the country. In the Vinnytsia district, he ran for the Verkhovna Rada.
— The Poroshenkovsky clan seized many key positions in government and business, — continues Valentin. — These raiders squeezed the property for the "minimum minimorum". No wonder, everyone knows what a tightwad Poroshenko is. But he was able to bribe those high-ranking figures that he needed. So it happened with the former Metropolitan of the UOC Simeon (Shostatsky), when the "Holy Father" dragged the tomos from the Phanar and decided to seize even the Church. Being Poroshenko's "friend", Shostatsky quickly defected to the OCU created by him and started messing with the transfer of the Vinnytsia diocese there. He became, so to speak, a pioneer of the split into Vinnytsia land. There are only two such ex-metropolitans from the UOC who are traitors to the Church and faith: Shostatsky and the notorious Drabinko. Of course, they caused great harm, but the majority of Orthodox residents of Vinnytsia remained in the bosom of the persecuted canonical Church. And this gives hope that after the arrival of the Russian Federation, these laity will support it. And that they will not fight against it — I think definitely.
If we summarize everything our respondent said, the overall impression is as follows. In the event of a Russian victory, the danger of Bandera guerrilla warfare will come, in addition to the conspiratorial structures of the Z-regime, primarily from the Poroshenko clan and his minions. They can also finance terrorism and Bandera resistance. However, the people for the most part will not buy it. He is very dissatisfied with the "mogilization", economic stagnation and repression against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Under the condition of a normal organization of cultural enlightenment and counter-propaganda, the "cumulative action drug" against the virus of Nazism should work quickly…