I have been to Ukraine.
Romanian friends of mine regularly traveled the 40 kilometers from Suceava (su-CHA-va), the city where I lived to the city of Chernivitsi, a western Ukraine city south of Kyiv.
In autumn of 2007, I was serving in Romania, a free democratic country since 1989, as a Peace Corps volunteer. I served as a non-profit professional, but my background is history and teaching social studies.
The three times that I accompanied my friends on their trips across the border, I stood in the historic downtown, mouth agape, admiring the gorgeous, Baroque, Gothic and Byzantine architecture, and we shopped at what was for me, born and raised in Colorado, an incredibly large, multi-item market.
At the market, my companions bought Ukrainian wines and liquors, condiments, clothing, and rice. I bought Babushka nesting dolls, souvenir t-shirts, and hand-stitched tablecloths that have become family treasures.
Mostly, I took photos to record an experience that I never would have believed could happen to me, if I hadn’t been there in the flesh.
That part of the world had been so distant during my lifetime, that if you asked me which was more likely, that I would stand on the moon or in Ukraine, the answer would have been easy: “The moon.” It was inconceivable that one day my feet might be standing on Soviet soil,.
I grew up under the threat of thermo-nuclear war. In 1960 Colorado, we first grade six-year-olds practiced air raid drills where we cowered under our little desks to protect ourselves from dropping bombs that we were told would come from the Soviet Union. I didn’t understand what bombs were until years later; as a child I simply knew that they must be scary if we had to hide when a siren blared. What were the adults thinking, I wonder now? A child’s desk is no protection from nuclear explosives. Still, we practiced, and some neighbors built air raid shelters in their back yards filled with canned goods and water—the lucky ones I thought at the time, though now I know there would have been no such thing.
The fear of atomic attack became accepted as normal, and air raid drills in schools became a thing of the past, the stuff of fables. When I graduated from high school in 1972 and college in 1976, the Iron Curtain, beyond which lived and lurked the threat of nuclear war, was firmly in place, a part of our world, invisible but woven into daily life. On the other side of it were people I had little chance of ever meeting, sharing meals with, learning their histories. There were stories about Americans, with very special visas, sneaking in bibles or blue jeans. If caught, they would be arrested and—in the best-case scenario—sent home. Magazine stories and news reports indicated that the people who received these precious commodities, could be persecuted, imprisoned, possibly killed.
The Sighet Memorial Museum in northern Romania is a former Communist prison where many dissidents and innocent people were incarcerated and tormented. I visited there in August 2008, and it is a grim place. People were imprisoned for such heinous crimes as writing a letter to a friend in England, painting pictures without authorization, stealing milk for their starving relatives. I wept to think that their despotic leaders had committed these atrocities against their own fellow citizens.
This was life—and still is, I believe—under Russian rule.
But life takes twists and turns, doesn’t it? My husband and I wanted to be Peace Corps volunteers, but for important reasons—jobs, experiences, children—we postponed applying until our 50s. By the time we did, in 2006, Eastern Europe was an option for service, and we were invited to serve in Romania. We looked at each other with joy and said, “Where the hell is Romania?”
It’s embarrassing for me to admit this, but true for many that I spoke to in the Peace Corps: we just didn’t know about Eastern Europe because, until the Berlin Wall came crashing down in November 1989, it had been closed off from most Americans for many decades. However, by the early 2000s, Romania and Ukraine hosted hundreds of volunteers.
Suceava, the city we served in, was just south of Ukraine and many of the people living in the area spoke both languages. We frequently attended “Get Acquainted” conferences where citizens from Ukraine and Romania—and us because we were American and added a Western element to their attendance lists—gathered for a few days to come up with mutual projects. For example, the teacher’s association I worked with organized a children’s summer camp of shared folk dancing and music with a Ukrainian school. Sometimes no project was created, but always friends were made, and celebrations were held, often at fine hotels with pristine white tablecloths, an abundant variety of alcohol, cultural foods, and regular toasting.
While Romania is close to my heart, Ukraine holds its own special place. I saw no armed guards but plenty of welcoming smiles. Commerce was thriving. I witnessed the influence and acceptance of Western ideals: freedom, democracy, and pride. The Iron Curtain had indeed come down.
These past weeks, watching the invasion of Ukraine by Russians, I wept again. Those wonderful people threatened with reassimilation under that harsh, autocratic rule!
But then, a surprise! They were holding their ground. Their President refused to flee. Governments from across the globe are pledging support. The assault has met with stiff resistance.
Just one more reason to respect Ukrainians: after surviving decades of despotic dictatorship, faced with its return, they are repulsing the incursion. They are fighting for their beautiful historic cities, the choice to elect their own leaders, the betterment of their children’s futures, and the kinds of freedom we take for granted.
Losing this newly freed country to a Russian dictator would be a heinous criminal injustice.
I am not like Vladimir Putin. I don’t want a return of the Iron Curtain; living on this side of it was horrific enough.
I don’t want Ukraine to be as distant as the moon.
I want Russia out of there.
Published in Mid-week Message, First United Methodist Church, 23 March, 2022
