Reflecting on the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine, Olexiy and Anna Tyrtyshnyy voiced their appreciation for the Canadians who helped them build a new life in Airdrie.
Olexiy, Anna, their 10 year-old son, and their eight year-old daughter fled five hours after the first attack on their home city of Odessa, in the southwest of Ukraine.
Russian military forces entered Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, declaring the start of the war.
After two years of fighting, Olexiy doesn’t expect an end is in sight.
He believes the war will continue with or without Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that the Russian army will continue to fight Ukrainian soldiers whether they have weapons to defend themselves or not.
“The end of this, it will be very bad because the population of [Russia] is [around] 150 million people and most of them support what happened in Ukraine,” Olexiy said, adding Ukraine needs support from other countries. According to the World Bank, Russia had a population of 143.3 million in 2021, while Ukraine had a population of 43.79 million at the time.
Watching the news of the ongoing war, Anna said she thinks about all the people who have lived through it for two years, and those who have been injured.
She still gets scared when she hears loud noises or airplanes flying above. For people in Ukraine this is reality, she said, it’s a daily challenge.
Anna’s family is still in Ukraine and even after two years there are daily air raid sirens.
“My wife, when she spoke with her parents, she was always crying because she thought that [maybe] this is the last call,” Olexiy said.
Fleeing war
They fled the country along with many others, but Olexiy expected he would have to return to Ukraine.
Men of conscription age, aged 18 to 60, were banned from leaving Ukraine after the Russian invasion, and while the Ukrainian government was not forcing men to fight, there were fears of enforced conscription.
At the time, Olexiy believed this war could take up to 10 years.
After crossing the border into Moldova with just one suitcase filled with their documents and belongings, Olexiy’s friends advised him to stay out of Ukraine to help refugees leaving the country.
“They said to me, they give me advice, ‘Stay there, help other refugees, help other people, help the women with children and do all things that you can do’,” Olexiy said. “And we did this.”
After a short stay in Romania and Italy, they flew to Canada.
While they are now safe and able to provide necessary support, Olexiy and Anna said they always have a feeling of guilt about not being in Ukraine.
Many of Olexiy’s friends are soldiers in the war, but he said they understand not everyone is meant to fight, and that they need Ukrainians on the outside to support them.
“I don't think that everybody could kill [someone],” he said. “You need to live with this –like, you killed somebody and you grabbed somebody’s life. I agree that person occupied our country, he did a lot of bad things, but he has a wife, he has a mother, he has a daughter, and to live with his face when you killed him, it's really very hard. So I decided to support and to do [everything] I could from Canada to help all Ukrainian families.”
Life in Canada
After a brief stay with a host family in Toronto, they moved to Airdrie in June 2022.
Olexiy is grateful for the support and help from Canadians. He said, before the war he never thought he could ask for anything from anybody.
When the war began, their bank accounts were blocked and all they had was $220 in cash.
Now, his goal is to work hard, share information about the war, and support Ukraine financially.
They worked long hours and spent little time as a family, but they had a plan and were motivated. Despite the stresses of starting a new life in Canada, they recently were successful in buying a home.
“Sometimes I think, ‘oh, I have to cry, but oh no, I have to earn money;’ so I don't have a choice,” Olexiy said.
A year ago they would have considered going back to Ukraine, Anna said, but now she doesn’t think they will ever return permanently.
Olexiy described Odessa as a beautiful city with lots of greenery off the coast of the Black Sea.
“Long story short, it was a beautiful life, but we have life before and we have life after [the war],” Anna said.
Despite happy memories of sunny skies and the smell of spring, Olexiy and Anna both agreed that their home city would never be the same.
“The streets, the buildings, the trees, the parks and so on will be the same –but it will not be the same as before the war because before the war, you always smiled, and when the war happened, you never smiled,” Olexiy said.
Going back would require them to start over, find work, and build a home. Because they lost everything, Anna said.
