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Many had fallen into a slowly degrading limbo: The kolkhoz, or collective farm, that once stood in the heart of Senkivka was abandoned, graffiti on its walls warning that the building was liable to collapse.

Each artel would become a kolkhoz, or collective farm, where workers owned their means of production, and eventually a sovkhoz, the state farm, with centralized ownership and quotas.

“You have to collect your ration coupon at the kolkhoz office.”

At 14, Olena began working at the nearby kolkhoz, a Soviet collective farm, raising beets and tobacco, a job that spanned more than 40 years — until the fall of the Soviet Union.

They talked about how, before the war, the Party bosses had showed up to incorporate everyone into a kolkhoz, and the people protested and protested but finally signed up, having nowhere else to turn.