I came across this beautiful and inspiring site to teach us how to create Sunflowers;
Ukrainian Paper Sunflower
Here’s how to make your own Ukrainian paper sunflower:
Its so unfortunate everything that is happening in the world these days...
According to an entry in the1993 Encyclopaedia of Ukraine, Spaniards brought sunflowers from the New World to Europe in the early 17th Century. The flowers were subsequently introduced in Ukraine in the mid-18th century. Ukranians snacked on the flower?s seeds or crushed them into oil.
Today, sunflowers are a key component of the Ukrainian economy, with Ukraine and Russia contributing upward of 70 to 80 percent of global sunflower oil exports. The flowers are abundant across Ukrainian villages, gardens and fields; Jennifer Cole of the Star notes that locals feature sunflowers as woven decorations in clothes and wear them as headdresses during celebrations.
For Ukrainians, sunflowers’ cultural significance goes beyond their prolific growth and role as an economic driver. As Olivia B. Waxman writes for Time, the flower has historically represented peace. In June 1996, ministers from the United States, Russia and Ukraine marked Ukraine’s nuclear weapon disarmament by planting sunflowers at the Pervomaysk missile base. As U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry said at the ceremony, per the Washington Post’s James Rupert, the three nations’ shared goal was “ensuring that our children and our grandchildren will live in peace.”
Another link between sunflowers and nuclear weapons dates back to 1986, when an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine released radioactive material into the environment, killing 31 people within a few weeks. After the disaster, scientists planted sunflowers—hyperaccumulators capable of extracting toxins from soil—to remove radioactive elements from surrounding soil and ponds. A similar planting project took place in Japan after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
The Russians captured Chernobyl on the very first day of the ongoing invasion, holding the technicians who oversee the now-defunct power plant hostage. This week, reports BBC News, Ukraine’s state nuclear company announced that most of the occupying Russian forces had left Chernobyl after being exposed to “significant doses” of radiation.
“There is no scenario, however grim, in which those now being written in the shelled and traumatized streets of Ukraine will be forgotten,” writes Jeremy Cliffe for the New Statesman. “Sunflowers will grow, somewhere. Bright yellow sunflowers against a deep blue sky.”
