Three tales of safe refuge in Niagara
Two years after invasion, families living ‘another life’
Kateryna Hawrylenko was enjoying a small vacation from work, spending time with her husband and their two daughters. They didn’t have much planned, outside of an upcoming trip to purchase a new car. It seemed like an ordinary few days.
There were rumours of a potential Russian attack — including in conversations with her sister in Canada — but few believed it to be true.
Looking back, she said “nobody could imagine” what was to come.
At 4:40 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022, Hawrylenko woke to the sound of bombs going off in her village of Nova Kakhovka. Within hours, Russian tanks and helicopters had descended upon her home in the Kherson region of Ukraine.
She remembers thinking the attack would only last a few hours, with Russia just looking to scare Ukraine — until her husband, Ihor, turned to her and said be ready to move.
They packed one suitcase, picked up her mother and began travelling west. A 10-hour car ride instead took about 21 hours, driving through fields and past Russian soldiers to find safety.
“I had a wonderful life, all was good. I never thought (we) should move somewhere,” said Hawrylenko.
A thousand kilometres west in Zhovkva, Svitlana Pidsosna watched as gossip became reality. At that point in time, she didn’t know if or when Russian soldiers would be “on our land.”
But her mind felt clear — all she wanted was to get her family to safety. Quickly, she gathered her children’s documents and, along with her husband, sent them across the Poland border.
Pidsosna didn’t go with them, unwilling to leave her ailing father behind. For the next month she travelled more than a dozen times
‘‘ I knew that I had to survive, I had to protect my kids.
SVITLANA PIDSOSNA UKRAINIAN NOW IN NIAGARA
between Ukraine and Poland, taking the risk to visit her father in hospital. When her father died one month later, she left her country for the final time.
“I knew that I had to survive, I had to protect my kids, and in this period of time it wasn’t so scary as to (remember) now.”
Near the Russian border, Olena Donenko and her husband Eduard were living and working in the city of Mariupol. That Thursday, they left everything behind and moved into a bomb shelter.
Donenko went to her apartment each day to feed her cat, shielding her face from dead bodies on streets, and unsure when the next bomb might drop.
They stayed in the shelter for two months, with 40 others who lost their homes.
“Every day was worse than before,” she said.
For all of them, it’s hard to comprehend it’s been two years since that day Russia invaded Ukraine, determined to erase the country and its history.
Since the war began, the United Nations has said more than 10,000 civilians have died (there are no statistics on death in occupied territories), 3.7 million people displaced and another 6.3 million Ukrainian refugees scattered across the world.
Whether through family ties or a long-held Canadian dreams, Hawrylenko, Pidsosna and Donenko and their families each arrived in Niagara in 2022. They were among more than 210,000 Ukrainians to come to Canada through the emergency visa program — each one leaving their lives and families behind for safety.
“I still remember all the days, every minute. I can tell what happened, when it happened, what I did in this moment. Like another life,” said Hawrylenko.
“After this two years, it is another life.”
Early days of war
Hawrylenko and her family stayed with Ihor’s relatives in west Ukraine until early March. Her sister kept calling, telling them to come to Canada, but they wanted to wait and see if anything changed.
Eventually they began to understand there was no home to return to — months later, the Kakhovka Dam, a hydroelectric power generator on Dnieper River, would be destroyed, flooding homes including theirs in Nova Kakhovka.
On March 4, 2022, Hawrylenko took her children and her mom to Poland. Ihor — who had a white ticket exempting him from military service — remained in Ukraine.
“It was so hard to make the decision. He just stayed to fight with Russia. It’s our land, it’s our home, nobody can just come and take,” she said.
She said they made the best decision they could for their children — they did not want to see their daughters cry or be in fear for their safety. It’s still difficult for the youngest, Arina, to hear fire alarms go off at school.
“The most important part is just to save them. Not about me, not about my husband, just for them. To save their lives. I want to see them just smile, be happy,” she said.
In Mariupol, Donenko said she and her husband were offered space in another bomb shelter, a theatre. It seemed like a safe option, but before they could leave they were told it no longer had spaces available.
The theatre, Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol, was bombed by Russia on March 16, killing about 600 civilians. Donenko said its lack of capacity is likely why she is alive today.
After two months, they were tired and with limited places to go, decided to drive to Russia.
They travelled from Russia to Georgia to Poland to Germany, before finding an organization — Niagara Supports Ukraine — that assisted Donenko in applying for visas for herself, her husband — whose dream it was to live in Canada — as well as her mother and brother in Poland.
“When I lived six months in Germany and almost three months in Georgia, I always saw a lot of bad dreams,” she said. “Only here, when I came to Canada and when I started to go to work, when we find apartment, I am feeling relaxed.”
Starting over
Pidsosna and her family arrived in Canada on May 13, 2022, and it was those early months that were the most challenging.
Pidsosna said she thought they knew English well, but after arriving “realized our language level was zero.” Each worked to improve, knowing it was crucial to creating a good life for themselves. Now her daughter, Diana, 7, is fluent in both Ukrainian and English.
“She switch very fast but for younger son (Demian, 4), it’s very difficult. He spent lots of time at school speaking English and it’s difficult for him to catch Ukrainian,” she said.
Pidsosna works for a Niagara Falls window company and takes English courses at Niagara College. Her husband Andriy works in construction.
Both her mother and grandmother were already living in Niagara, having come years before the war.
“Mom drives kids to school, (helps) prepare lunches … I am always calm about my kids because I know they are safe now,” she said. “They gave us basement, we have separate conditions for living and we are lucky.”
On May 16, 2022, Hawrylenko arrived in Niagara. She said the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Niagara branch, as well as other local Ukrainians, offered her family unconditional support.
The Niagara community has been crucial in getting her family on their feet. Anna specifically had a hard time first three months, until she began speaking English.
The youngest picked the language up “too easy,” and Hawrylenko is now considering enrolling them in French immersion because “not enough just English for one year, let’s try more.”
She has a job working in a local winery, and tries to always have a positive attitude, so that nobody can complain and say “it’s a bad life.”
“No, we have a wonderful life, we have a safe life. We can wake up every day and smile,” said Hawrylenko. “It doesn’t matter what you have in this day but you have this day so just try to get all what you can.”
The assistance from Niagara Supports Ukraine continued after Donenko arrived in Niagara Falls. Resulting relationships have helped her take her neardeath experience to a new lease on life.
For her, Niagara is a clean start. She wants to take advantage of every opportunity, such as learning piano and joining Lingua Vaudeville, a Ukrainian theatre troupe that performs and spreads Ukrainian traditions.
“I’m still alive and I don’t know what’s happening tomorrow,” she said. “Right now, I want to try everything.”
Heart in Ukraine
Every morning, Anna and Arina start their day with a phone call back home to their dad. After school, they call again to share what they learned and check in with a father they haven’t been able to hug in 22 months.
The family is unable to get back the time they’ve been apart, but when she sees her children happy and smiling, “I understand why I’m here, I understand that I’m here safe and it’s most important thing.”
Hawrylenko said she will always miss her country, but knows starting over again in Ukraine would be difficult. Now she feels “more confident, more comfortable” with her new life.
Donenko spent the first quarter of her life in Ukraine, and is now only learning about her culture. For too long, she took for granted Ukrainian art and traditions, and is now using her role in the theatre to carry on her country’s legacy.
And while there is nothing to go back to with her city occupied and apartment destroyed, Donenko feels happy.
“I want to stay here because I’m safe and I see my future here,” she said.
It has been almost two years since the war started, but Pidsosna still has an app on her phone that sends out warning alerts anytime a rocket flies in Ukraine.
She starts the day watching the news for updates and checks in with her brother, who is helping with humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
“Better for us to do, for now, is stay,” she said. “We will continue to hope for victory in Ukraine, even if we decide to stay in Canada, and we still hope this terrible situation in Ukraine will stop because it is part of our life, of our heart.
“My heart still belongs to Ukraine.”