UKRAINIAN SERVICE & CULTURAL CENTER CHERVONA RUTA
FROM BUCHA TO SAN FRANCISCO: THE COST OF SURVIVAL
By David Bogachyk
Bucha is a little town near Kyiv. It became a symbol of atrocities committed by Russian occupiers against unarmed civilians. Bucha, Borodianka, Irpin, Hostomel and villages around were first to meet Russians coming across Belarusian boarder. I met Hanna with her two sons at a Ukrainian rally at the SF City Hall. A week before, in a miraculous Kharkiv counteroffensive dozens of occupied towns were liberated. And we learnt that what happened in Bucha was not an excessive accident, the same atrocities repeated in Kharkiv oblast. Isium, 400 disfigured bodies, raped, tortured, murdered. And many other towns and villages. I found myself unable to process it. Then I embroiled a doll, an angel in a Ukrainian attire, white dress covered with blood, and called it “Buchan Angel.” Then on social media I saw a performance of Julia Kosivchuk, based in San Francisco Ukrainian artist wearing the same white dress all in blood. She protested staging Eugene Onegin at San Francisco opera. Pushkin may not be responsible for what it’s going on in Ukraine but on the occupied territories Russians force to learn Pushkin while burning Ukrainian literature. And kill Ukrainian authors like Volodymyr Vakulenko, a single father raising his son with disabilities. He started to write his fairy tales for him. He was found killed in Isium. So for us, Eugene Onegin opera sounds in approximately the same way as Wagner’s Valciria while Jews have been taken to Auschwitz gas chambers in an accompaniment of this musical piece. I went to the that rally to actually meet Yulia, but met Hanna, a Buchan Angel alive. She was invited to a mic, and started crying. We cried simultaneously.
Hanna came to SF in early April, 2022. For a few first months, she was just crying. She is from Bucha, where she with her family ran a small business. In February 2022, as for many Ukrainians, her life has changed forever.
“At 5 AM my son dashed to me: “Mom, explosions.” I tried to pack a suitcase, unsuccessfully. Grasped photo albums with kids in their early years. Some random stuff… We were warned of having a go-bag, emergency kit, but nobody believed it to be true,” Hanna says. Everyone was in shock, no clue what to do.” She called her farther in Borodianka, another Kyivan suburb town occupied in the first hours of big invasion. He didn’t want to leave.
It seemed there were no options to leave though, all the roads clogged including country lanes: people fled from Kyiv. “We feared. Columns of armed vehicles entered from Belarus boarder, troops landed in the nearby airport. When we had internet, we followed news. But they bombed, bombed everything around. They pranged our “Mriia” (“Dream” – the biggest Ukrainian airplane destroyed in airport of Hostomel – D.B.). Later our forces blew up bridges to prevent an advance to Kyiv.”
Three generations of Hanna’s extended family had been hiding in a cellar. “We are running to a cellar, out dog ahead, knocking us down. We took shovels, pinch-bar, to dig up in case the house would collapse, and a lot of water and food.” Their house was on the outskirts, at the edge of the forest, so they were more lucky than other Buchans who lived in central neihborhoods. Later on, Volodymyr, the older Hanna’s son, learnt of his 70 y.o. first teacher killed together with her entire family, and his schoolmate dismembered with parts of his body scattered over the town. Then, in the cellar, they didn’t receive much news. They slept there on potato piles, Ukrainians always store up lots of potato. Now Hanna’s protesting me adding this fact to the story. “Slept on potato, what people’d think of us?” They used to come out to the yard to quickly cook on a fire, pancakes, soups, and potatoes, of course. Once a shell flew to the yard of their neighbors across the street, and shrapnels flew to them. “Thanks God, we were in the cellar at the moment. I downloaded text of “Our Father” when we had internet, and we with kids prayed.” Soon Russians reached their outlying lake. A neighbor having come out to smoke on a yard was shot at the spot. Tanks were crossing along the road.
Then occupiers came and shot their dog. The family decided to flee. It was dangerous but they’ve heard from neighbors that there was a corridor to break through. They drove through the streets littered with corpses. Everything was burning around. After their escape, occupiers came to their home, set a garage on fire, looted the house. But the family was saved. Not the extended one.
In Borodianka, Hanna’s cousin Natasha was hiding with a husband and neighbors in a basement of 9-floor apartment building. Once, they were on a phone call with the niece who heard explosion after which the connection was lost. The building was totally destroyed, and two days later locals heard howl from the basement. “Everything was burning, no air, and they were dying there slowly,” Hanna says. Just a few months ago she shared with me family versions how Natasha could survive. She might be taking into captivity, she might be… “Because her body was not ever found,” she argued. Excavations started after de-occupation, and Natasha’s body was not found. The number of corpses greatly exceeded capacity of the local morgue so they were taken to different ones in neighboring towns. Natasha’s son who lived with his own family in another town, went through all the morgues, and didn’t recognize his mother. “I come, they open sacks, and there are only black coals there, how would I recognize,” he told Hanna.
In the West of Ukraine, Hanna and family hoped to be back home soon. But increasing shelling on civilian neighborhoods all over Ukraine, including territories in the West, and relatives from the U.S. had finally convinced them to leave the country. Everything was decided in two days. Hanna’s husband joined to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Hanna, Volodymyr, 17 y.o. at the moment, and Oleksii, 12, have arrived to Tijuana, Mexico at the end of March, 2022.
“Volunteers helped us with everything. At the fourth day they were allowed to cross the boarder. We passed the control, then were taken to offices, by groups of 20 people, everyone is waiting until the last person’s humanitarian parole gets approved. Then a tremendous wall, we were told to follow the officer in single file. Crossed the boarder, our relatives met us. They were hugging us and crying.”
“First months in San Francisco I felt emptiness. Such a beauty around, the ocean, and all that, but the pain in the soul, nothing rejoiced me. I cried several first months, and felt I couldn't talk with anyone about it. Tried to occupy myself with work, whatever work. Then all that documentation process. Then I met people who became my friends, and I very like the city. People are so friendly, sincere, everybody smiles, many helped us. People from the church helped a lot – with housing, financially, and emotionally supported us. I love the spirit of freedom in this city, that you can express yourself in your own way, and no one will say that you are stupid. We hang out in the Castro, I was wearing crowns and different fancy dresses. San Francisco has been felt as my city, I always liked crowns and bizarre stuff. At home, we used to carry out parties, women dressed as men, put mustaches, and men dressed as women. There is some connections with home, even though when I recall those times, it hurts me. I felt lifted when we decided to build a community [The idea of this Ukrainian Refugees Community building project first emerged in a conversation with Hanna – D.B.], to help people, to find more like-minded people, to learn, and to become a part of this society,” Hanna says.