Miscellaneous / Off-topic: YouTube Video

This video shows the winner of "Ukraine’s Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated

sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the

German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which

admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.

The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in

the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about £75,000.

She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding

hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear

and the happy scene is obliterated.

It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby

arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns

and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a

young woman’s face appears.

She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and

sad, before the image turns into a monument to an

Unknown Soldier..

This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the

viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.

In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and

a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against

the glass, saying goodbye.

The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted

in one in four of the population being killed with eight to

11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.