Current conflict changes the idea of remembrance
Growing up in Ukraine, Anastasiia Tatarulieva recalls attending parades and concerts on Victory Day over Nazism, a public holiday held in May to commemorate the end of the Second World War.
It was a more sombre occasion for veterans surely, but for school age children it was exciting to see military vehicles and have a day off school.
She expects that will change in the years to come as the Russia-Ukraine War is leaving fresh scars on people of all ages.
“It will be a different mood than in the days before,” said Tatarulieva. “When a lot of people – some you knew before – were killed in the war it gives you a new way of seeing war.”
“We will be thankful for the end of the war, hopefully soon. It will be about remembering the people who saved your life, your country, and your independence.”
She was 17 when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, setting into motion the largest conflict in Europe since the Second World War.
The family was living in the central city of Kryvyi Rih when the attack started. The city was not occupied by Russian forces but was vulnerable to missile fire. A nuclear station in the next town over was on fire as a result of a missile strike.
Tatarulieva said her parents, Olexsandr and Natalia, decided to leave the country for a few weeks to see how things unfolded. Theysought refuge first in Slovakia and then Poland. But with an influx of Ukrainians there was no work to be found so when Canada opened its borders to Ukrainians, they took the opportunity.
“There was nothing keeping us in Europe,” said Tatarulieva. “I think it was the best choice for my parents to make, to keep us safe.”
Tatarulieva says when they applied for work permits, she had an idea of what it might be like to move to a country like Canada but emigration usually involves a lot of prep and they had no time.
When Tatarulieva left Ukraine she was in military college, where students studied to be police officers or prepare for other careers in law enforcement. The school system in Ukraine is so completely different from Canada’s so Tatarulieva found herself back in high school. Tatarulieva describes the experience as “weird,” but she also thinks that being completely immersed in the language at school helped her.
She said Ukrainian students study English, the same way students in English language Canadian schools study core French, so she and her brother Vlad, who was 12 and still in elementary school, had some basic language skills but it was by far the biggest barrier to integrating into the local community.
Their host family is the reason they ended up in Creemore, moving from a city of 600,000 to a small village, and helped set Tatarulieva’s parents up with jobs. Her father is an electrician and her mother is a surveyor and they found work in a water bottling facility in Feversham before finding jobs in their fields.
The Ukrainians who came to Canada through special immigration measures were allowed work permits for three years. Tatarulieva’s family has successfully applied for a second term taking them until 2027.
As for the future, Tatarulieva says it’s impossible to think too far ahead. “Before the war, I had a lot of plans for my future, then one day it changed completely. I try not to make a long- term plan because no one knows what is going to happen tomorrow,” she said. “It could be years before the war ends.”
Yes, Tatarulieva hopes to return to Ukraine but she is not sure if she will return as a visitor or a resident. She may end up living in a European country closer to home, but planning for the future is impossible.
“We are living here and we have already built a community. My brother has friends and my parents have a job,” said Tatarulieva.
She said it will be hard to rebuild a life back in Ukraine at their ages after so much has changed in the past two- and-a-half years.
She regularly checks the news from home when she wakes up in the morning. Her grandfather is a soldier on the frontline and her aunts and uncles and other close family members are there.
“Not everybody can leave and not everybody wants to leave so you can’t take everybody out with you,” said Tatarulieva.
The family home in Kryvyi Rih is currently inhabited by a family that was pushed out of a Russian occupied part of Ukraine.
As recently as Oct. 20 an overnight missile strike injured 17 people in the city. Tatarulieva said when people checked on her aunt and uncle’s vacant house after the attack, they found that the windows and doors had been blown out due to the force of the explosion.
As war rages on in Ukraine, Tatarulieva hopes to see continued support from people around the world. Support was strong in the early days of the conflict and Tatarulieva says it can be easy to forget about a conflict on another continent, but she asks that people continue to pay attention, pray and donate.
