Essay
The «Mayak» Youth Education Center on Berdyansk Spit has opened, occupying the territory of the former children’s camp. During the day, the usual vibrant life of a modern forum takes place here: lectures, workshops, intensives, project defenses, and a dense, minute-by-minute schedule. Life has another side—a quiet, unscripted one. While the forum operates on a strict timeline, what people remember is what lies beyond it.
Away from the academic buildings is a bonfire amphitheater, begun during the construction of «Mayak.» It was completed in 2024, and two years later, during the «Youth South» forum, a poetry evening was held here, gathering participants from different cities around the fire.
As evening falls, the amphitheater fills up. A bonfire is lit in the center of the space, with listeners settling onto the steps and benches. The amphitheater has eight faces oriented toward the cardinal directions. Guitars, blankets, and notebooks remain nearby. Here, people recite poems, sing songs, talk, and meet one another.
This is how the 2026 poetry evening looked. Poems were read by the fire, music sounded, and the conversations continued after the applause. The fire illuminated the amphitheater, the Berdyansk Spit darkened behind it, and the sea whispered nearby. This setting encourages lingering late into the night—listening to the next performer or simply recalling Pushkin oneself.
During the day, «Mayak» participants are constantly moving: to a lecture, a workshop, a project defense, or to support friends and acquaintances during their presentations. The route ends at the bonfire amphitheater. All that remains is to sit down in an appealing or unoccupied spot and watch the tongues of flame. And songs played on guitar and recited poems only add warmth to the evening and help completely clear the mind of the day’s worries.
For this reason, everyone attending the «Youth South» forum should see the bonfire amphitheater. You can attend the evening program, or you can simply turn toward the fire after finishing your last commitment. Sit on the steps, listen to the guitar, poems, and conversations, watch the Berdyansk Spit darken behind the bonfire, and forget where you need to go next. Sometimes, these very evenings become what people remember about the forum long after it’s over.
The Fairy Tale «Don’t Play with Fire»
The «Mayak» Center stood by the water, where the sea breeze carried the scent of salty dampness and seaweed. Many talented young people gathered here—they came to present social projects, demonstrate their knowledge, and compete for grants to realize their ambitious plans. The center housed students and young adults who spent their days studying, preparing projects, playing sports, and juggling a dozen other tasks that left their heads throbbing by evening. Those responsible for organizing this important, necessary, and engaging event also felt the strain—the center’s staff. They coordinated logistics, met arriving buses, stood watch through the nights, set up equipment, and managed security.
Lena was among these staff members. She felt the strain more intensely than many others: work and endless tasks weighed on her simultaneously, causing frequent headaches, and she only caught glimpses of the sunshine. By evening, she was so exhausted that she didn’t even want to think about walks or sunsets. Her colleagues invited her to «Ogonyok"—an evening of poetry readings—but she dismissed such commotion due to chronic fatigue, or she responded briefly and curtly to make them leave her alone so she could sleep an extra hour.
Every evening, the youth gathered around the bonfire. They recited poetry, sang to the guitar, or simply stared silently into the flames. When only the older members remained by the fire, the scary stories, laughter, and the need to feed the wood to prevent freezing would begin. One night, someone recounted:
«Did you know this fire has a master? If you anger it, it will sulk, and then a wind with rain will blow, ruining all our plans!»
But no one took the words seriously, because the scare story was old, and they had heard it countless times.
Lena sometimes had to pick up extra shifts to cover for colleagues when hands were short. This is how she ended up on the organizing committee for their center. The students were busy preparing for the forum—painting posters, developing brochures—and they also had a supervisor named Tanya, who was like a frantic energy source, unable to sit still for a minute.
From the first day, Lena labeled Tanya an anti-muse. Lena got her work done, while Tanya constantly found something to nitpick. Lena finished rewriting the invitation text and deservedly laid down to sleep. Tanya, however, burst into the office and, seeing Lena asleep under a jacket, immediately started to snipe:
— You overslept the planning meeting, missed the evening gathering, and now you’re sleeping like the dead? Do you just not care about us?
— Oh, if you knew how much I didn’t care, you’d cry, — Lena replied without lifting her head. — Leave me alone, okay? I cut those postcards yesterday…
— Those were brochures! How can you say that when we are preparing for the forum? People will be coming from all over the country! — Tanya threw her hands up. — The guys are trying, and you’re just sipping your sweet drinks over there!
— Well, I’m trying too, — Lena mumbled, clearly not wanting to get out from under her warm jacket.
This was how every day went. Tanya thought Lena was slacking, and Lena thought Tanya cared too much about some simple forum…
One evening, by the campfire after the poetry contest, the boldest remained—those who weren’t bound by the curfew. Someone brought a guitar, someone brought a speaker, but the music made it hard to talk, so they turned off the speaker. At first, they told jokes, and they were so bad that even the campfire seemed to crackle with embarrassment. Lena, sitting with her knees tucked up to her chest, didn’t think about falling asleep sooner than ever before.
Then they moved on to scary stories, and they were just as bad as the jokes, if not worse.
— When he was climbing the mountain, he fell, and his friends abandoned him, — the guy with the guitar recounted. — So there he was, dying in the dark and cold, and before he died, he cursed every member of the expedition. And literally on the next climb, half the mountaineers vanished without a trace! — The campfire crackled, a spark flew up, and dissolved into the black sky. Lena lowered her gaze to the embers, which had just begun to glow from the wind.
— Oh, I’m dying of fear! Listen to mine instead, — this was somewhere around the sixth terrible scary story. Lena had already relaxed and was laughing with everyone when their idyll was broken by a familiar, sharp voice.
— What are you all doing here!? Security patrol started, and you aren’t home?
One of the guys waved his hand and said they were just kidding, that they’d say «Charlie, Charlie, come» a couple more times, and then they’d go to sleep. Everyone laughed; some even dramatically crossed their arms and uttered the silly spell, then burst out laughing. Tanya looked at them, shook her head, and left. Before leaving, she noticed Lena; their eyes met for a fleeting moment. No one said anything, but both knew the planning session would start again tomorrow. If, of course, Lena showed up.
After Tanya left, the previous good times didn’t return. Everyone scattered as if blown away by the wind. The fire went out abruptly, as if someone had extinguished it with a single puff, though there was no wind that day. Only Lena, walking last, turned back and looked at the black embers that had been glowing with amber streaks of fire just a second before.The next morning, a downpour was already in full swing. By lunchtime, the rain had intensified. The sea wind became fierce and sharp; the paths between the buildings were flooded so badly that people struggled to walk, yet no one canceled classes…During the day, everything went awry: someone stumbled during a project defense, someone else’s presentation crashed, the technology malfunctioned, and the connection kept dropping. Lena initially thought it was just a streak of bad luck, weather-related sensitivity, or a simple coincidence over the last week and a half!But sometimes, walking past the bonfire amphitheater, she slowed her pace. The pit was blurred by the water; the embers had long been scattered across the cobblestones, yet she felt as if an otherworldly cold emanated from it. Today, she stopped and stared at the black embers for a long time, recalling how a spark from a coal had risen and dissolved into the sky on that warm evening.At night, she dreamed of a bonfire that burned brightly and steadily, and people whom Lena had never seen before sat around it. They were singing something quiet and drawn-out. She wanted to walk closer, but her feet felt stuck in a swamp. Then, one of the people sitting there turned around and looked into her eyes. Lena couldn’t discern the faces, only the reflection of the fire on that stranger’s skin gave him some human features, and he mumbled, «You forgot why you came.» That night, Lena woke up startled by a clap of thunder, and the rain was still drumming against the window.The organizing committee was falling behind deadlines, the decorations were getting damaged, and plans were changing—they were forced to work together every day. One day, they argued over posters that the artists had accidentally soaked, and after that, they didn’t speak all day. Even Tanya didn’t try to bring everyone back together with some childish game.In the evening, the girls were left alone among the ruined decorations, and Lena began nervously:— It’s a coincidence. We were just sitting, having fun, the fire went out, the weather turned bad—that’s just how things happen!
«I thought so too, ” Tania replied, her voice lacking its usual energy—only uncertainty and weakness remained. „But the sparks were going the wrong way. Like, you don’t make sparks like that from coals! Usually, they just whoosh out of the fire and die! And the flame was writhing, as if someone big and strong were blowing on it, even though it was completely calm.“
„And the coals were flaring up brighter, ” Lena added, though she wanted to remain silent.
„So, we saw the same thing, ” Tania nodded. „So, we haven’t gone crazy.“ Lena realized there was no escaping this admission.
The girls were walking along the embankment within the center grounds when the wind howled without the accompaniment of rain. They walked silently, hunching their necks into their windbreaker collars and keeping their hands in their pockets. Without raising their heads, they unexpectedly stumbled upon an unfamiliar fisherman with white whiskers who seemed entirely out of place in the forum, and who didn’t resemble the invited guest either. The fisherman sat in a folding chair with a cup of tea, looking at them as if he had been waiting for exactly them his whole life. Since the mood was not conducive to conversation, Tania started talking merely out of curiosity:
„Hello, you seem to be a local. But how did you get onto the center grounds?“
A shiver ran down the girls’ spines. The old man smiled slyly, glancing first at the shore with the docked boat, then at the girls. They exhaled, and Tania asked:
„Have you heard anything about the fire master and his sensitivity?“
„It’s just a spook story, ” he said, shrugging. „I don’t think you can ‘offend’ a great element like fire.“
„But what if it’s possible?“ Lena voiced.
„Fire doesn’t get offended; it simply fades when it stops being valued and respected. And when it stops burning, everything else stops working too.“ The old man cast his line and, in that moment, pulled a fat fish out of the water. „I’ve never shown disrespect to anyone, nor have I offended anyone! But if things have become too difficult for you, go to the place where you last built a fire and remember why fire was given to people in the first place.“
The girls exchanged glances, thanked the fisherman, and turned back toward the center. But before they had walked a few steps, a quiet rustling sound came from behind them. They turned around and saw only the empty folding chair.
„We both saw him, right?“ Lena swallowed.
«Did you see?» Tanya suddenly laughed and shook her head. «So I suggest we not dwell on it! We have ‘Young South’ coming up, and we can’t right now…» she walked briskly.
«Perhaps I agree with you…»
First, Lena and Tanya went to find the guys from that fateful get-together. They found the guitar owner who was tuning a new string.
«Do you think the master or mistress of fire actually exists?»
«I’ve heard of him once, ” the guy plucked a string. „But I don’t think it’s true. It’s just a tall tale so kids don’t throw trash into the fire.“
„And now?“ Lena asked.
The guy remained silent, staring at three packets of ruined strings. Lena and Tanya exchanged glances and moved on to look for the others.
„We were sitting there, laughing at ghost stories, trying to summon all sorts of spirits, ” Lena said. „So, we disregarded what fire is for, and it left?“
„The fisherman said exactly that, ” Tanya replied. „Fire doesn’t get offended; it simply leaves when it stops being valued and respected. But how are we supposed to call it back?“
The two girls stopped in the middle of the room. Tanya was looking at the sweat-stained posters on the walls, Lena was sorting through the spilled tubes of gouache on the table, and the guitarist had already left, leaving a tangle of ruined strings in the trash can. Tanya looked at the poster about safe picnics and suddenly paused near it.
„We need to fix this somehow. Apologize, maybe. But how do you even apologize to fire?“
„People always did something around the campfire, ” Lena said. „They cooked, warmed up, dried their clothes, sang, read poems, danced—in the end. Maybe that’s the answer.“
Tanya suddenly turned to Lena.
„Listen, we’re having the ‘Young South’ forum anyway. We can host a bonfire evening and include it in the program. We’ll build up the fire, sing, read poems, dance, just like people did all these years. If the weather allows even a little, we’ll light a bonfire in the amphitheater.“
„You want to apologize to the fire spirit through an official event?“
„Why not?“ Tanya said. „We can say it’s a tradition. No one will understand that we’re seriously trying to bring the fire back.“
„What if it doesn’t work?“
„Then at least we’ll try. The forum isn’t going to be canceled because of the rain anyway.“
The weather wore everyone in «Mayak» down, but the forum continued as usual. For the final evening, a bonfire was added to the amphitheater’s program. By evening, young people gathered there—some brought guitars, some blankets, and some salvaged the remaining sweets from the cafeteria. The older students lit the fire, but it initially struggled to catch, barely lighting up the crowd.«Well, since we’re all here, I suggest we officially open the bonfire singing session!» she shouted.The first song was tentative, but soon the voices grew louder and louder. After each song, applause erupted, and the bonfire, as if catching the mood, burned brighter. Soon, its flames illuminated the entire amphitheater.The songs flowed into one another, the students laughed, sang along, and didn’t want to leave. The evening turned out to be exactly what the last night of the forum should be—noisy, warm, heartfelt, and full of smiles.The weather improved the next day, and the forum went perfectly. Lena and Tanya finished the decorating together, and when they gathered by the fire again that evening, Lena wanted to stay and help Tanya bring the evening to a beautiful close.Do what you must and be what you will be…»…How wonderful it is that we are all gathered here today…»Every spoken word carries a message, its own energy. And even if you jokingly say something inappropriate, you always have a chance to fix it—to admit your mistake, find the strength to apologize, and win back someone’s favor, or, as in our case, the element of FIRE.
