A woman from Hrodna travels to the Białystok region and visits places related to her ancestors.
Axana Prus was born and grew up in Hrodna, where she obtained the proper education and became a choreographer, for many years she worked as a dance teacher. She had an abundance of work and she did not think about emigration. However, in her mind, she often moved to Podlachia. It was from here that her grandparents left the vicinity of Hajnówka in the first post-war years. In search of work, they changed their place of residence several times, until in 1948 they bought a house in Hrodna. The family settled there for the next two generations.
Performances by groups led by Axana Prus often had brought her to the Białystok region. In Poland, she met her future husband. The spouses decided to live in Podlachia. Axana soon got a job and began to achieve professional success as the manager of, among others, the Belarusian AB-BA association’s children’s ensemble Podlachian Wreath, and dance groups at the “Śródmieście” Culture Center in Białystok.
Axana travels around places related to her grandparents. She visits Wólka Terechowska, where they lived, the church in Werstok, where they got married. In neighboring Wojnówka, she and her husband visit the writer Michał Androsiuk, with whom they travel to the neighboring Jodłówka manor: Axana’s grandmother and Michał’s grandmother worked there in the interwar period. The last stage of this short journey ends with the search for the family home and the grave of great-grandmother and great-grandfather in Wólka Terechowska. Axana also wants to be buried with her ancestors, in her native land.
Reportage, director Rafał Androsiuk, 2021, Poland
