The first Baba evacuated from the war front arrived at the Archaeological Museum of Dnipro in February of last year. It came from Velyka Novosilka. By the end of that same year, that same operation would have been impossible. The Russians captured the village of Donetsk in January of the current year.
"It was a soldier from the 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade. He saw the statue in a garden in the village and told me about it. By chance, I spoke with a Polish friend and she told me that she had also seen other figures in that same area. In the end, between February and March, we managed to rescue three," recalls Yuriy Fanygin as the vehicle heads towards the village in the province of Dnipropetrovsk.
That operation, as well as the subsequent one, was carried out under the persistent threat of Russian drones and artillery fire. "We had to hide the truck at the entrance of the village. It could only approach when we had already removed the figure from the ground," he adds.
The rescue of the three 'Polovtsian' statues (also known as Babas) marked the beginning of a unique project that aims to evacuate similar effigies, dozens of them, located in eastern Ukraine, which according to Fanygin, are the legacy left by the presence of the 'Cuman' tribes, who lived for several centuries in these steppes until being displaced by the Mongol invasion in the 13th century.
"They were nomads of Turkish origin called 'Cumans' or Polovtsians," indicates the historian and collaborator of the National History Museum of Dnipro.
Experts believe that the carvings were imitations of real characters recognized by the community for being famous warriors or women from influential families.
The Dnipro Museum, which already housed the largest collection of Babas in Ukraine - with over a hundred - has embarked on a joint project with several units of the local army to remove these centuries-old effigies from the eastern regions of the country where Russian troops are advancing.
The preservation of the Babas has taken on a connotation that goes beyond the protection of cultural heritage and is fully immersed in the identity conflict that fueled the Russian offensive from the beginning.
For Moscow, "those territories belong to them, they are Slavic, according to their version. Nomadic peoples like the Polovtsians do not fit with their myths," clarified Oleksandr Starik, director of the Dnipro Museum, to a local publication.
"According to Moscow, we are pure Slavs but the 'Cumans' left an imprint on us, that yellowish hair that many Ukrainians have and that Slavs lack," Fanygin adds, grabbing his hair, precisely of that color.
The expedition of this day is heading to Turhenivka, a location in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Moscow's forces continue to advance.
On this occasion, Fanygin has managed to enlist the assistance of a crane from the Da Vinci Wolves Battalion, a well-known Ukrainian military unit. Slavko, the 46-year-old soldier driving the transport vehicle, has already participated in four similar rescues in the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk provinces.
The effigy is located in an open field, next to a school. A huge figure. "It must weigh more than a ton," estimates Fanygin.
Before starting to unearth the foundations of the figure, the historian initiates a conversation with the stone recreation following an old local belief: "We believe that if you talk to the statue, you will get a wish," he points out.
The sculpture, between two and three meters high, resembles the outline of a man. According to Fanygin, "due to its dimensions, it must have been a warrior. It is missing an arm and is somewhat deteriorated by erosion."
The work to literally extract the carving from the ground extends for more than an hour in which a team of volunteers takes turns with picks and shovels to dig the surroundings. Finally, the statue is hoisted onto the truck with the help of a powerful crane.
The evacuation of the stone recreations to Dnipro - the main city of Dnipropetrovsk - is part of the apprehension that is being generated in this province, which has been very distant from the front line until now, by the advance of Moscow's uniformed personnel. Russia stated in June that it had exceeded the boundaries of Donbas to enter Dnipropetrovsk, something that Kiev did not admit until the end of August.
The head of the Ukrainian uniformed personnel, Oleksandr Syrskyi, acknowledged this month in a meeting with journalists that the Russians "are trying to advance deeply" in that territory but "lack sufficient strength."
Kiev acknowledges that the Russians have already occupied more than a dozen villages in the province. The incursion of Moscow's soldiers in some areas of the region has already reached ten kilometers. The Russians are advancing right in the triangle where the provinces of Dnirpropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia converge.
According to military analyst Denys Popovych, the Russian attacks - which, like in Donbas, move in small groups - are creating "metastasis" in Dnipropetrovsk, which they intend to link to "capture territory." "They are achieving it very slowly, and with great losses, but they are willing to pay that price."
Aware of this reality, Fanygin and the Dnipro Museum decided this summer to accelerate the trips to recover the Babas.
In August, soldiers from the Third Assault Brigade transported a figure from the village of Myrolyubivka. According to the historian and member of that group Oleksandr Alferov, the figure was estimated to be around 900 years old.
"It was literally two kilometers from the front. It was not easy. The area was under artillery fire and surveillance by the 'Orlans' (Russian drones)," he explained.
The soldiers had to ask for help from locals to remove it from the ground, as its enormous weight caused it to break even the rope they were using to try to pull it from its location with an off-road vehicle.
"If it had stayed there, it would have been destroyed or taken to Russia," added Ihor Klymovych, another member of the same military group.
The soldier's words are not mere hyperbole. As reported in early October by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, by that date, Russian attacks had devastated or damaged 1,599 monuments in the country.
In October 2022, in the first year of the general Russian invasion, historian Oksana Semenik reported the destruction of one of these Polovtsian statues in the Kharkiv region.
"Of course, after the victory, it will return to its place. These are the roots of our identity," added Oleksandr Alferov.
On September 7, another military unit managed to rescue two stone carvings, one of them weighing 600 kilos and over 800 years old, from Bilokuzminivka, in Donetsk, a village also located near the front line. The operation had to be carried out at night due to the daily surveillance that area is under by Russian drones.
"For our enemies it would be easier to impose their narrative if they found empty land and said it had no history. On the contrary, we are proud that our culture is full of colors and associated with multi-ethnicity," stated Oleksandr Starik, one of the soldiers quoted by the local media.
For decades, these centuries-old recreations were not assigned any value by the Ukrainian state, which led - Fanygin points out - to the massive looting of "thousands" of them. "We have to preserve our history, our past, or we will not be able to move forward towards the future," concludes the historian.