A new life from Kyiv's rubble

We didn't expect our marriage to start with us fleeing for our lives. I'm Kim, a Canadian from Kitchener-Waterloo. My sweetheart Iryna and her two sons Vova (15 years old) and Eric (8 years old) are from Kyiv. COVID kept us apart for years. When Omicron finally settled down, I flew to Ukraine to marry Iryna. Then just before our honeymoon, Russia invaded Ukraine.

 

We spent our honeymoon on the run. We took only what we could carry. My wife lost everything---her apartment, all her furniture. Iryna even left behind her wedding gown. We managed to get to Uzhgorod, a city in the far west of Ukraine beyond the Carpathian mountains on the Slovakian border. As we left Kiev, the train stopped several times as bombs fell around us. We were very lucky to escape when we did.

 

I put first and last month’s rent down on an apartment in Uzhgorod, hoping my new family could safely weather the invasion, and we could go ahead with our original plan of completing the visa formalities for Iryna and my stepsons to join me in Canada. It quickly became clear that even western Ukraine wouldn't be safe enough. We lost the apartment deposit, but we had to get out! We started walking in the afternoon, and after a freezing night, moving inch by inch, we arrived cold, hungry and exhausted the next morning. The Red Cross took us under their wing, and we're sheltering now, a new family of four, in a donated room just outside Bratislava, Slovakia as we wait for Canadian Immigration to make their decision on my wife’s visa.

 

I hopefully still have a job waiting for me back home. I had a small inheritance set aside for bringing my new family over, but I've burned through it fleeing the war with them. Iryna was going to sell her Kyiv apartment, but her building is in the middle of a bombardment zone. All she and the boys have is what we carried with us.

 

Iryna, born with only one hand, is a true fighter. With determination and courage, she raised her boys mainly by herself. She doesn't like the idea of asking for charity, but we were overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of people who aided us when we crossed over from Ukraine. And so, we're swallowing our pride to ask: Can you help us make a new home together?

 

Any money we raise will help us pay for air tickets to get to Canada, and a deposit for a bigger apartment for the four of us. Anything over that (should we be so lucky!) would go to healthcare, clothes, and any administrative/legal hurdles we hit along the way.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2400187