‘They want to stay and fight it out’: Ukrainian students worry about family

PHOTO: Sophomore Iryna Monastyrska, who is from Ukraine, attended a rally against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attacks on Ukraine in front of the California capitol building. (Courtesy / Iryna Monastyrska)

By Shira Kalish,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

The day after Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine, Davis High sophomore Iryna Monastyrska’s mother tried desperately to call Iryna’s grandmother, who lives in a small Ukrainian village. Her grandmother did not pick up.

“It was pretty scary … We were worried maybe they bombed her area or something. But it was just the power lines that got destroyed,” Monastyrska said.

Monastyrska was born in Ukraine, and moved to America in 2009. All of her extended family still lives in Ukraine.

The power lines in her grandmother’s village have since been fixed, so they can reach her now. The village itself has not been bombed, but her grandmother can hear the artillery flying overhead.

“It’s a lot of stress on my parents because they want to try to get everyone from Ukraine to move here, but no one wants to leave. They want to stay and fight it out,” Monastyrska said.

Monastyrska’s community at school has been supportive of her through this stressful time. Several of her teachers who know that she is Ukrainian have approached her to check in and see how her family is doing.

“Sometimes at school I can’t really focus, because I’m thinking about what’s going on,” Monastyrska said.

Before the war, kids at school would call her Russian as a joke. “They didn’t know why I would hate that,” Monastyrska said.

But ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, the teasing has stopped.

Senior Alexandra Fomina considers herself to be half Ukrainian, half Russian. She was born in Russia, but both of her parents are from Ukraine. She moved to America when she was six, and has a lot of family in both Ukraine and Russia.

“It’s very sad, and very stressful. I’m worried about my family in Ukraine, and about the future of the entire world,” Fomina said.

Her dad has a house in Ukraine. There are currently Ukrainians fleeing from nearby areas and taking refuge in the basement of that house to hide from the bombings.

Fomina has seen several other students joking about the situation in Ukraine which makes her very uncomfortable because Ukraine is such a big part of her cultural heritage and identity.

“Even if people aren’t Ukrainian, they should still be aware of what’s happening,” Fomina said. “I don’t know if a lot of my classmates … know what’s happening or understand the significance.”