Three days after the cataclysm in Ukraine started, Anna Bushuieva looked at her six-year-old daughter as the night sky was lighting up and the sirens were wailing and thought: “She doesn’t need to see or hear this. She needs to have the best childhood possible.”
A family decision was made and she and her mother, Marianna Golubenko, started a journey that landed them and the little girl 10 weeks later in the Ukrainian Safe Haven at the Grouse Nest property in East Sooke. A dog and two cats made the trip safely as well.
The women spent days during the journey living in their car with the little girl Sasha and the pets. At one jammed checkpoint it took 15 hours to go 15 kilometres, a measure of the upheaval gripping Europe.
Separately, Artur and Fazida Shykhmagomedov made the same decision in Odesa for their son Radzhab and wound up in the same spot.
Now they are all sitting beachfront in the refurbished former resort on the Sooke Basin, almost 9,000 kilometres away, wondering what comes next.
They’ve encountered a lot of difficulties. One of them is getting over their shared personal reservations about asking for help. It doesn’t come easily to successful, self-reliant people to suddenly start relying on strangers.
Bushuieva and Golubenko indicated they are shy and uncomfortable asking for help. They are not from a poor life, Bushuieva said. Her mother is an entrepreneur and the family has a garden-nursery business specializing in vertical space gardens and green walls.
Their husbands are still in Ukraine trying to keep the business going in order to keep their employees working. “Our relatives need some financial help so we need to find the work and help them to live a normal life,” said Bushuieva.
They may be reserved about asking for help, but both families are clear in expressing their appreciation and gratitude for the help they have received to date.
Kindness and charity marked their separate journeys variously through Belarus, Poland, Germany and France, en route to Canada.
Still in touch with friends and family back home, Bushuieva said a lot of the children there have grown used to the sirens and are starting to think it’s normal.
“It’s not normal.”
People knew an invasion was possible but did not consider it likely that “in 21st century civilization such a thing could happen. It’s not human.”
Artur Shykhmagomedov is a former family doctor who changed careers and became a software designer. His family vacated before conscription came into force.
The two young children have become friends and play on the beach together. The daughter likes school in Canada because there’s less homework.
Both families are in constant contact with relatives back home. They are concerned about a cousin who is an army mechanic, currently a POW of the Russians.
The uncertainty about their futures would leave many full of anxiety. But they chat freely about their experiences and seem determined to be optimistic about whatever lies in store.
Their lives for the past few weeks have been full of resettlement details, paperwork and getting reorganized. They take breaks to walk the beach and go cycling. And they constantly check for updates on their families, and the war.
The long-term future is unknown. They are keen to work, but if the war ends, a return home is also a possibility.
Artur kept working for his company for several weeks remotely as they moved across Europe, but the job concluded.
The Ukrainian Safe Haven was created by Brian and Sharon Holowaychuk. They bought the 33 hectare property a year ago with renovation in mind, but pivoted when the war started and began converting it into a refuge.
“We want them to just have that chance to relax after what they’ve been through,” said Sharon. Depending on what’s happening in Ukraine, their guests have good days and bad days, she said.
Brian said the exhausted families landed at Victoria airport after midnight three weeks ago. He took them on the long, dark drive out to East Sooke. “When they got up in the morning, they were looking around like, wow.”
He said: “They’re all here because of the kids.”
The Holowaychuks have worked non-stop since February on the project, buoyed by dozens of volunteers and donations of all kinds of material. Dozens of donated quilts are stacked in one room awaiting new guests.
Brian said the hardest part of the project is turning people away. He gets two or three requests a day for accommodation. But the renovation is complicated and there are limited spaces. He expects another 30 or so people will arrive in coming weeks.
The initial burst of public interest in helping refugees is fading as the war enters its fourth month, Holowaychuk said. But the need for help is still strong.
The couple set up a non-profit (ukrainiansafehaven.org) to coordinate their part in the effort.
