"Winter Wedding under the Snow (Kyiv, Ukraine)", 2002 Wladimir Wertelecki, M.D. St. Michael Monastery Gate, Kyiv, Ukraine

Matrimony dignifies the materialization of matter into maternity - a ceremony that celebrates Ceres as an emblem of fertility that provides humanity with cereals to feed their cerebrum. Rice, often sprinkled during weddings as if to induce fertility, is not the most popular grain in Ukraine, wheat, the emblem of Ceres, is. Wheat reached China rather recently, it trickled from the West along silk trade pathways. Another emblem, Chornobyl, casts a darker shadow on Ukrainian nuptials. The resolution of the specter of ionizing radiation risks to the unborn and children for birth defects and developmental disorders has been largely of little interest to those who benefit the most from atomic industry.