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Full Photo Album: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAWh2M
In 2014, Russian-backed separatists forced Anastasia’s family to move from their home in the Donbas region to Kyiv and start all over. They were adjusting well when the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022.
Anastasia and her little brother were sent to Paris. At the same time, her mother, a doctor, and father, a soldier, remained behind to serve. In June 2022, Anastasia and I traversed from France into Western Ukraine (L’viv). Anastasia continued to Kyiv to reunite with her mother before returning to Paris. You can see photos from that 2022 journey here https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzZrcr and read the blog post HERE.
A year later, on this trip, in June of 2023, Anastasia and her little brother were back in Kyiv, and I was visiting Ukraine for a month. We traveled to Kharkiv, just a few miles from the Russian border, to film. As fate would have it, Anastasia’s father, Oleg, was due in Kharkiv while we were there to get some repair work on the truck that Raw Travel viewers had helped fund for Oleg’s troop.
Anastasia had not seen her father in months. Oleg was recently relieved from a brutal month of fighting in Bakhmut, where casualty rates reached 50%. Four weeks on the front without a break is brutally difficult, but Oleg showed no signs of stress.
Stoic and quiet, he arrived on location at H.U.G.S. for Ukraine, driving the “Raw Travel” truck. Anastasia could hardly hide her joy, but I was by far the most emotional of the bunch! I was so happy for both. I’m just a sappy romantic at heart, folks.
We had a great reunion dinner. I presented Oleg with a 3D Heart of Courage Pin that my Polish-American friend and vocal Ukrainian supporter Olga made back in NYC. She asked me to deliver it to someone courageous in Ukraine. Finding someone heroic and brave in Ukraine is not difficult, but when I met Oleg, I knew this was where the Heart of Courage was meant to be pinned.
After I turned in to get much-needed sleep, Anastasia and her father spent some father-daughter time together. I don’t have too many regrets, but not having a daughter is one of them. Perhaps that’s why I get so emotional when talking about Anastasia’s relationship with her father.
The following day we all met for breakfast, as Oleg had to return to his troop quickly. But only after giving him a Ukrainian flag to have his soldiers sign. My pal Yaroslav from Razom Ukraine (Together Ukraine) in New York City had given me the flag to take to Ukraine to have some Ukrainian soldiers sign.
The flag could then be auctioned off* to support Ukraine or be moral support for those helping Ukraine back in the USA. It’s a way to provide a tangible connection and is symbolic of the troops sacrificing so much in Ukraine and the folks supporting them.
Anastasia and I watched as Oleg drove off in the truck, flag in tow. I, again, was the most emotional of the bunch. I would make a terrible, stoic Slav! I’m a very un-stoic, emotionally charged American. I am what I am.
It turned out Oleg had a gift for me as well. Back in Kyiv, the evening before I was due to depart for L’viv and onward to Poland to catch a flight home, Anastasia gifted me with a lovely surprise: a certificate from Oleg’s troop thanking me for my commitment and service to Ukraine. It hangs in my apartment in New York with pride, and I dare say it will follow me to the grave, hopefully, many years from now. It means that much to me.
Days later, on my final night in Ukraine, I was in Lviv and due to cross the border into Poland the next day to return home to the USA. Anastasia messaged me and told me the flag had been signed already and was in her possession in Kyiv.
Since I was set to return to Poland the following day, Anastasia arranged to send the flag on a complimentary bus ride from Kyiv to L’viv on one of Ukraine’s excellent bus services.
The bus had just a short stopover in L’viv before carrying on, but I retrieved the flag just before it took off again (they waited for me). It was just a few minutes before curfew on my final night in L’viv when I returned to my hotel with the precious cargo of the signed flag.
There are many more twists and turns in this dramatic, near-miss story that serendipitously turned out okay, but that must wait for another time.
But it reminded me how everything worked out for me on this trip. It gave me a sense of fate and that I was meant to be here, at this time, finally pursuing a cause so much bigger than myself. No matter what I give to Ukraine, I will never be able to repay the debt that Ukraine has given to me. A sense of purpose, rediscovered humanity, and a newly discovered love of liberty, freedom, and a deep love of my country.
But what a price for Ukraine’s dead, wounded, displaced, kidnapped, and traumatized people to pay for my fulfillment? I would trade it all away for this to never happen to them. They do not deserve it, but they, with our help, will prevail.
*POSTSCRIPT: Yaroslav, seen in this photo, decided to leave Razom to enlist in the Ukrainian army in December 2023. The flag was auctioned off at Yaro’s going away party and helped us raise more than $3,000 in donations to help soldiers in Ukraine this winter.
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