A Ukrainian sister city?
Former Miss Conn. urges Greenwich to help war-torn town get ‘back on its feet’
GREENWICH — The Ukrainian city of Izium has been devastated by Russia’s invasion, but Greenwich may become a beacon of support as the city rebuilds.
Greenwich is preparing to establish a sister city connection with Izium (also spelled Izyum), a town on the eastern side of Ukraine that bore a resemblance to Greenwich before the war started last year.
“We’ll be able to get our town and local communities together so that we could also help in the restoration, the rebuild and getting Izium back on its feet,” said Olga Litvinenko, a Ukrainian-born
Greenwich resident who is driving the push to make Izium and Greenwich sister cities.
The connection would be both symbolic and material. The two cities would exchange cultural mementos and Litvinenko — a former Miss Connecticut who represented the state in the Miss USA pageant in 2017 — is working to organize a fundraising campaign to start this summer.
The war motivated Litvinenko to push for the connection, but she hopes the bond will endure for decades to come.
“What’s really important for the long term is to truly establish this method of exchange,” she said. “Both these places have such wonderful traditions, such wonderful cultures, such wonderful community learnings to share with one another.”
The sister city connection has not been officially approved by the town, but the Board of Selectmen discussed it at its meeting last week. Viktor Marchenko, Izium ’s mayor, addressed the meeting via Zoom and thanked the selectmen for their support, with Litvi
nenko acting as a translator.
First Selectman Fred Camillo called it the town’s first international Zoom meeting and said he looked forward to forging a connection with Izium .
Greenwich already has sister city relationships with three other towns. Greenwich signed official agreements with Hangzhou, China in 2017 as well as two Italian towns — Morra De Sanctis, in Campana, and Rose, in Calabria — back in 2013.
The connection with Hangzhou was made to strengthen cultural and business ties and Rose and Morra De Sanctis were selected because many immigrants left that part of Italy before settling in Greenwich.
Litvinenko was born in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, but she grew up and attended school in Greenwich.
More recently, she started a group called USA for Ukraine as a way to provide aid to the humans and animals displaced by the war. Litvinenko said she has been to Ukraine at least 10 times since the fighting
started, including trips to help her aunt and her mother get to safety last year.
Litvinenko got the idea for Greenwich to find a Ukrainian sister city when she heard that Westport and Lyman established a sister city relationship earlier this year. Westport residents have since raised thousands of dollars for their distant kin in Lyman, which was also captured by Russian forces and liberated.
Izium is in the eastern part of Ukraine, about three hours from the Russian border by car. Like Greenwich, Izium is a suburb to a major city, Kharkiv in Izium’s case.
Izium was one of the early battle sites when the war broke out last year and it was occupied by Russian forces for six months before it was liberated by the Ukrainian army last September.
Hundreds were killed in the fighting and civilians were tortured during the occupation. Upon liberation, the Ukrainians found mass graves in Izium and people are still navigating landmines left in the town.
Before the war, Izium had a population around 50,000, but it has since declined significantly;
Last year a city council member said just 10,000 people remain in the city and Litvinenko said there are around 20,000 in the city now.
There is no active fighting in Izium today, but the
front line is still close, especially around Bakhmut, which is about 60 miles from Izium.
Litvinenko will soon return to Ukraine, a trip that she said takes about 30 hours and requires
travel on train, in cars and on foot, depending on conditions.
She said that there is still danger away from the front, but it does not deter her.
“I take as much precaution
as possible,” she said. “I guess a part of me has also become a little accustomed when I go in there, and I know what to expect. But you can’t stop. You can’t stop helping people.”