Hundreds of Ukrainian refugees in Quebec are preparing to celebrate their first Christmas since the invasion of their country by Russia. Less than a week before New Year’s Eve, a visit to the parish hall of the Ukrainian church of Saint-Michel-Archange, rue D’Iberville, in Montreal, reveals the priorities of refugees who have fled the war: finding warm clothes , a toaster, pots, toys for the children…
The two floors of the community center are full of clothes, kitchen items, blankets, toys, shampoo, soap… A freezer is filled with frozen chicken breasts. All these provisions come from donations made to the Ukrainian church. On this snowy Saturday morning, dozens of people who had just arrived from Ukraine came to stock up for the holiday season.
“We are going to celebrate the joy of living in safety. Peace is our greatest gift,” summarizes Irena Ougryn, a young grandmother who arrived last week from Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine.
She speaks Ukrainian. Khrystyna Dereyko, a volunteer who came to lend a hand at the Saint-Michel-Archange church, translates her words for The duty. Tears flow when Irena recounts her relief at being in Montreal with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren.
“We appreciate simple pleasures: we live in heated accommodation. We have electricity and running water. When you hear a siren, you don’t have to run to the basement to take shelter from the bombs,” she says.
“I had a good impression when I arrived in Montreal. It is quiet. The cold reminds me of home. People are smiling, kind, welcoming,” adds Irena.
In Ternopil, this dynamic grandmother worked as an operating room nurse in a cancer clinic. Her priority: to learn French as quickly as possible to find a job in the healthcare network. Whether it’s a nurse or beneficiary attendant position.
Learn French
When we ask the Ukrainian women who have just arrived in Montreal — mostly women, since adult men have not been allowed to leave the country since the beginning of the war — what their plans are, they answer the same thing: ” Learn French. To find work, to make friends, to decode their new country.
Most have already learned one word: “Thank you”. Thank you for the welcome, for the generosity, for the help to manage in this new home. “For us, everything is different compared to Ukraine. We start from scratch. But we are lucky to have a lot of help”, says Olena Oucheykh, originally from Mariupol, located in eastern Ukraine.
She and her friend Nina Romanienko, from Donetsk, near the border with Russia, are almost neighbors, in the Chomedey district, in Laval. They help each other. Exchange tips to find a school, a daycare. They are both mothers of two young children. Nina and Olena came to the parish hall of St. Michael the Archangel Church to find gifts for the children. To garnish their kitchen. To change your mind, too.
“I am worried about my husband and my son who remained there. They go like this, like that, ”says Larysa Tatarovat, a grandmother who came to volunteer to help her compatriots, on this Saturday morning.
Arriving in Montreal in the spring, she can already hold a conversation in French. Calmly. One word at a time. Larysa has watery eyes as she recalls life in Odessa, her hometown. ” No light. No heating. Winter is difficult. »
traumatized people
People arrive traumatized after surviving months of Russian bombardment, says Emilia Pivtorak, who leads Ukraine’s St. Michael the Archangel Church with her husband, pastor Yaroslav Pivtorak. The refugees are worried about their loved ones left behind in Ukraine. Some feel guilty taking a hot shower and having enough to eat in Montreal.
“We have to organize informal events to get people talking, to release their emotions,” she told our interpreter.
For us, everything is different compared to Ukraine. We start from scratch. But we are lucky to have a lot of help.
Emilia plans to offer, during the holiday season, tastings of pierogis, these ravioli stuffed with potatoes, meat or cheese that warm the soul and the heart. These distributions of basic necessities are made possible thanks to the generosity of Quebec donors, underlines Emilia Pivtorak.
When Putin launched the war in February, the donations collected by the Saint-Michel-Archange church were sent to Ukraine. But for the past few weeks, donations have been going to the hundreds of Ukrainians who arrive in Quebec after having left everything behind, explains Emilia.
A survivor
“It’s really stressful to start a new life in a foreign country. We have to relearn everything, ”explains Khrystyna Dereyko, who arrived from western Ukraine, from Lviv, seven years ago. This mother of two teenagers, who speaks impeccable French, lends a hand to the parish of Saint-Michel-Archange in welcoming refugees.
Khrystyna even welcomed her mother, Stefaniia, 74, last March. “I was deported 10 years in Siberia with my family in the early 1950s, says Stefaniia. We survived this ordeal, so we will survive the aggression of Russia. »
The grandmother is looking forward to celebrating Christmas on December 25 — not January 7, the Orthodox Christmas, which she associates with Russia — with her daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons. In the meantime, Stefaniia is making progress in her French lessons, she manages to get to Laval by bus on her own. “I need autonomy,” she says.
Khrystyna Berezanska, in her early twenties, also dreams of progressing in French. She put a cross on her calendar on January 9, 2023, the start of her francization courses in Ville-Émard, in the south-west of Montreal, where she lives with her spouse.
In the meantime, Khrystyna did not take any risks: she picked up a Multidictionary of the French language which she dug up in the parish hall of Saint-Michel-Archange. “The language barrier is what I find most difficult here. I’m going to learn French,” she said through our interpreter.
An early childhood educator in her native country, the young woman wants to improve her lot. She plans to study management. One day. Soon. She is optimistic. In a country at peace, it is allowed to dream.