Mar 17: Ivana Kottassova' & Yulia Kasaieva- Portraits of resilience in Ukraine- CNN
As published by CNN on March 14, 2023
Older women who stayed in Ukraine during the war share their stories of resilience- CNN
By Ivana Kottasová, Yulia Kesaieva and the Visuals team, CNN
Photographs by Brendan Hoffman for CNN
Published March 14, 2023
Ukraine has a large population of older people — one in four of its residents is over the age of 60 — and most of them are women. Some lived through World War II as children, only to see their lives disrupted again in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine began.
When Russia then launched its full-scale invasion last February, many of these women were unable or unwilling to leave. Of the 4.8 million Ukrainians who have registered in other European countries as refugees since the war began, most are younger women and children, while older women stayed in Ukraine.
Here are some of their stories, edited for clarity and brevity.
Valentina Tokariova, 85, was born in Russia. She lived in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine for 60 years until 2014, when she fled to Kyiv:
I am Russian by birth, born in Novosibirsk. So, in my head, I still don’t understand how this happened and how there can be a war. I thought it was impossible.
I came to Donbas in 1962. I was 23 and I followed a young man. He is not worth telling you about. We lived together for seven years and then he abandoned me and our son.
For 60 years, I’ve been living in Ukraine. I worked my whole life for Ukraine, this is my family, my home, this is my country. I am Ukrainian now. I consider Ukrainian culture my own.
Yulia Hermanovska is 79 and has been living on her own in Kyiv since her husband died five years ago:
I have stage-four cancer. I've been fighting it for three years already, this is my fourth.
My doctor evacuated at the exact time I was due to start my treatment, in February 2022. She only came back in May. I felt really bad at the time, but by the end of May I started intensive therapy. I feel so much better now! When I was diagnosed in 2020, I was told I would have two to five years. We'll see.
I have always liked the Ukrainian language more, but I was forced to speak Russian because it was not modern and popular to speak Ukrainian back then. It was considered a villagers’ language.
The last seven-and-a-half years of my career, I worked as a librarian at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. When I had the job interview, they told me if I wanted to work there, I could only use two languages: English or Ukrainian. So I had to switch back to Ukrainian at the age of 50, having spoken Russian all my adult life.
Klara Rozkishna, 94, spent 40 years teaching chemistry in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. She lives in Kyiv with her daughter:
We left Donetsk on May 29, 2014. Once we saw Russian tanks, we left immediately.
Donetsk used to be a beautiful city. It was called the city of a million roses. One would think it's a miners’ city, but there were so many roses! We used to live downtown and I loved walking along the Pushkin Boulevard. It was very green. Me and my husband lived in a house close to the Kalmius river. It was such a beautiful spot, so many flowers!
We abandoned everything we had there and locked our apartment. My husband died in 2009 and is buried in Donetsk. I even bought a spot for myself right next to him. But the cemetery was bombed. Because this is not a war. This is a slaughterhouse. They are barbarians.
But it is ok, Ukraine will win — I am sure.
Hanna Serhiienko: 65, lives in a small village about two hours south of Kyiv, where her house acts as a hub for local volunteers making camouflage nets for the front lines.
The war did not start a year ago. It started in 2014. I was retired but still working and I didn’t know how to help. I could not go to the front lines. Then I saw people weaving camouflage nets on TV. So, I found like-minded people, quit my job and on December 9, 2014 we started weaving.
When I sent a photo of the first net we made to the volunteers in Odesa, they said, ‘This is not a net, this is a carpet!’ It was way too dense.
When the full-scale invasion started, I posted on Facebook calling my neighbors to come and join the weaving. And they did! The children are really enjoying it.
We try to mimic nature. There are no single-colored blocks or straight lines in nature.
I grew up in the Bulgarian district in the Odesa region. Bulgarians settled there during the Russian-Turkish war. Everybody speaks Bulgarian there. When we went to school, they taught us Russian. The first time I heard Ukrainian was in high school. In my first assignment, I made 140 mistakes!
Valentina Tokariova: 85, was born in Russia. She moved to Ukraine as a young woman and lived in Donbas in eastern Ukraine for 60 years, until the war started there in 2014. She fled to Kyiv and has been living there ever since.
spend a lot of time on my computer. I like to watch TV and videos on YouTube. Since the war started, I mostly watch political videos. Lots of news and interviews and experts talking about the situation. I believe we will be victorious. Whatever happens, we will be victorious. You can’t come into a foreign land and take everything, it doesn’t make sense.
I am Russian by birth, born in Novosibirsk. So, in my head, I still don’t understand how this happened and how there can be a war. I thought it was impossible.
I came to Donbas in 1962. I was 23 and I followed a young man. He is not worth telling you about. We lived together for seven years and then he abandoned me and our son.
For 60 years, I’ve been living in Ukraine. I worked my whole life for Ukraine, this is my family, my home, this is my country. I am Ukrainian now. I consider Ukrainian culture my own.
I lived in Donetsk and I had lots of friends there, some of whom I’ve been friends with for 60 years. In 2014, some of my friends left to live with their children in Kyiv region. And they were telling me: “We worry for you. Just come here, don’t be stupid.” So I did.
Continue reading their stories…
Nadiya Lutsenko: 83, is a former teacher of Ukrainian language from Donbas. She was forced to flee her home in 2014 and then again in 2022. She loves Ukrainian literature and keeps up to date with contemporary authors. She now lives with her sister in Kyiv.
“I buried my son and my husband in the village. Their graves were destroyed.”- Nadiya
Lidia Terepniova, 74, is a volunteer at the Halom Jewish Community Center in Kyiv. During the first months of the invasion, she was coordinating humanitarian aid distribution among the center's clients. Her son has emigrated to Israel, but she wants to stay home, where all her friends are.
“If there's a joy, you can share it. If there's a sorrow, it's easier to get through it all together.”- Lidia
Nadia Krasnozhon, 87, is a Ukrainian poet and a former political activist. She was a member of Narodnyi Rukh, the first opposition party in Soviet Ukraine, and took part in the 1990 pro-independence protest campaign known as Revolution on Granite. She returned to the site of the protests — Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square — in 2004 for the Orange Revolution and again in 2014 during the Revolution of Dignity. She lives in a small village about an hour east of Kyiv and is working on a new poetry collection focused on the war with Russia.
I could have never imagined that there would be another war, another occupation. I remember when the Russians brought their military equipment close to our border last year, a nurse asked me: "What do you think, will they attack?” And I said: ‘”That can’t happen.- Nadia
Liudmyla Vaisburg, 92. Apart from a brief period during World War II, she has spent her entire life in Kyiv. She started losing her sight when she was young and says she wasn’t allowed to have children because of her disability. She lives in an assisted-living home in Kyiv.
“We could have never imagined there would be another war. Second war and second evacuation.”- Liudmyla
Yulia Hermanovska is 79. She has been living on her own in Kyiv since her husband died five years ago. She still doesn’t like to go to the room they shared, where he passed away, preferring instead to sleep on the sofa.
I have always liked the Ukrainian language more, but I was forced to speak Russian because it was not modern and popular to speak Ukrainian back then. It was considered a villagers’ language.- Yulia
Klara Rozkishna, 94, spent 40 years teaching chemistry in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. She was forced to flee her home in 2014 when fighting broke out between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces. Thinking she would only be away for a few weeks, she packed the bare minimum. It’s now been nine years since she left the town. She lives in Kyiv with her daughter.
We abandoned everything we had there and locked our apartment. My husband died in 2009 and is buried in Donetsk. I even bought a spot for myself right next to him. But the cemetery was bombed. Because this is not a war. This is a slaughterhouse. They are barbarians. But it is ok, Ukraine will win — I am sure.- Klara
Olha Mykhailivna, 74, lives on her own in a Kyiv apartment block. She hasn’t been outside since July because she is afraid of getting stuck in the elevator if the power goes off, which happens regularly. She spent a few months as a refugee in Moldova after the full-scale war started last February but came back home in the summer.
“Nightmare. It's just a nightmare. But I'm not afraid of anything. I even used to shoot guns. I called the military enlistment office and asked them to give me a gun.”- Olha
Maria Nyzhnyk, 95, dreamed of becoming a singer when she was a young girl. She still enjoys singing and is composing songs about her life in a care home east of Kyiv.
I’ve received medals for my work: I worked as a lathe operator at the same plant in Kyiv for 40 years. I worked there throughout the war. I wanted to become a singer and a journalist, but because of World War II, it all turned out differently.
But I am still writing songs and singing them. Although my hearing is not so good now.
I could never have imagined there would be another war. Maybe Putin is not even alive anymore, maybe someone is there instead of him, going against Ukraine.