Ukrainian families displaced by war find support in Norfolk as they chase American dreams

A red Santa Claus hat slipped over 7-year-old Kateryna’s eyes as she bounced down the stairs to join her family for a game of Uno.

“She is dressed for Christmas,” her mother, Hanna Tovsta, said as she adjusted Kateryna’s hat.

After the card game, Tovsta put a pot of water on the stove to boil while husband and father Roman Tovstyi washed and cut vegetables. Kateryna and her sister, Anastasiia, 15, huddled at the table, quietly talking as they played on their mother’s cellphone.

The recent Thursday was routine. Tovstyi began work at 3 a.m., driving for Amazon Flex. Anastasiia was off to school around 6:45, followed by Kateryna at 8:45. Tovsta logged on to her remote job at 9 a.m. That night, the girls got into cake and played games while their parents prepared dinner — a cucumber and tomato salad with sunflower oil, hot dogs and buckwheat.

The Ghent house they live in is approximately 5,160 miles from Ukraine. But their thoughts never stray far from their home country.

“We love our country but everything changed after the war,” Tovsta said.

It has been six months since the family of four arrived in Norfolk through Uniting for Ukraine, a program offered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Under the program, Ukrainian citizens fleeing Russia’s invasion may come to the U.S. for up to two years. Ukrainians participating in the program must have a supporter in the U.S. who agrees to provide them with financial support for the duration of their stay.

They fled their home in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 1, 2022. When Russia invaded five days before, they had climbed into a 6-foot-by-6-foot root cellar where they stayed in the frozen ground among their meats and vegetables while Tovstyi kept watch for Russian forces above ground.

Less than 20 miles from Russia’s border, Kharkiv was one of the first cities attacked. The invasion sparked an 85-day battle as Ukranians worked to push Russian forces out of the city. Reuters reported the civilian death toll had reached 600 by June 2022. That number continues to rise as the war rages on.

“They plan to do school for the younger children underground now,” Tovsta said. “If we stayed, Kateryna would be at school underground. It is in a subway. It was built when they were in competition with America — the Cold War. It is a bomb shelter.”

The family has long accepted that they cannot go back to Ukraine and are instead focused on building lives in the U.S.

“We have no roots,” Tovsta told The Virginian-Pilot in June. “We are trying to begin our lives from scratch, to find our way, because we can’t go back.”

They have the monumental task of adapting to a country foreign to them in every way — language, lifestyle, customs and holidays. Six months in, they have finally found their footing and are making strides in achieving their “American dream” and helping other Ukrainian families along the way.

Welcoming families to their new beginnings

A vibrant blue and yellow Ukrainian flag stretched across a small group of people gathered at Norfolk International Airport. They waved and repeated “welcome, welcome” as Olga Kolesnichenko and her 8-year-old daughter, Yaryna, came into view.

Tears threatened to fall from their eyes as the newcomers received hugs. Yaryna’s worried eyes looked up at a pair of purple and pink balloons, the strings held by a stranger, before she nestled her face into her mother.

Fleeing Russia’s war on Ukraine, Kolesnichenko and Yaryna traveled from Berlin, where they sought refuge for the past 18 months, to Norfolk in late August. They will live with a host family under the Uniting for Ukraine program for up to two years.

But the mother and daughter are not forced to figure out life in the U.S. alone. Tovsta and Tovstyi were on hand to welcome the pair.

“Someone needs to go through this before you do. People that come to the United States alone and think they can handle everything on their own — they are so wrong,” Tovsta said.

Tovsta and her family act as a built-in community for the Kolesnichenkos, bonding over shared cultures, languages, experiences and situations.

“It can be really stressful and confusing,” Tovsta said of trying to learn how to function in the U.S. “But you need to integrate into the community here in America. They need to understand it is not so scary as they think. It is safe here.”

Early the next morning, Kolesnichenko buttoned Yaryna’s shirt as they prepared for the 8-year-old’s first day of school in the U.S. Yaryna’s long blonde locks were tied back with a pink ribbon. She was excited but anxious, Kolesnichenko said, as they waited to be driven to school by their host family.

“It will be a challenge for us. It is very new,” Kolesnichenko said. “But we have no choice. We must do something to improve the life of our children.”

The Kolesnichenkos are from Mykolaiv, a Black Sea port city in southern Ukraine. Though Russian forces have never taken the city, it has been the target of bombings since the first days of the conflict. The Kolesnichenkos tried to stay but were forced to leave within days. They fled to Moldova, making it to the border on March 6, 2022, before making their way to Germany as refugees.

“I am afraid to grow my child in Ukraine right now. I want her to have normal childhood where she can grow up without all this panic,” Kolesnichenko said.

Tovsta and Mari Pohlhaus met the Kolesnichenkos at Taylor Elementary, where Yaryna and Kateryna were enrolled. Pohlhaus arranged for both families to come to Norfolk. She said placing the children in school immediately is pertinent to adjusting to life in the U.S.

“I grease the skids for them. If you have just got off a plane in a country where you don’t speak the language and have to immediately make a life for yourself, you would not know what to do,” Pohlhaus said.

While Pohlhaus is not a sponsor or host for either family, she aids the families in applying for all the resources and benefits they may qualify for, including Social Security numbers, health care, financial assistance and employment. Pohlhaus connected the families with members of Norfolk’s Trinity Presbyterian Church, who volunteer to drive the families to appointments or collect donated clothing, books, and furniture.

Pohlhaus works to find ways for the families to become more independent in Hampton Roads and seeks positive learning experiences for the children, from music lessons to church group activities.

“These things are so intangible — guitar lessons and voice lessons,” Pohlhaus said. “They gave up so much of their childhood to this war.”

Navigating a new language and culture

In September, Kateryna and Yaryna began weekly dance classes on a scholarship offered by Studio 360 at Old Dominion University. The two girls, dressed in baby blue leotards and white tights, giggled as they stretched and posed at the start of class one Tuesday. Kateryna, whose English was improving, helped Ukrainian-speaking Yaryna communicate with the other young dancers.

The mothers said both girls were improving in school, and they were quickly picking up the language. Tovsta joked that Kateryna was surpassing even her in English while Kolesnichenko said Yaryna was doing well reading it.

Tovsta and Kolesnichenko said the classes helped their daughters adapt to their new lives.

By October, the girls were ready to venture out for a popular American custom: trick-or-treating in Norfolk’s Botetourt neighborhood.

“I feel like I preparing her for the wedding,” Tovsta said as she carefully applied turquoise gems and eyeliner to Kateryna’s face.

Kateryna spoke to her mother in Ukrainian — her brow furrowed and heading shaking.

“She doesn’t like the lines. Too picky,” Tovsta said, adding, “Tsk, tsk.”

Kateryna, dressed as the Disney princess Jasmine, was ushered out the door by her mother. With Tovstyi at work and Anastasiia ill, it was just the two of them meeting the Kolesnichenkos to go trick-or-treating on Halloween night.

It was the Tovsta family’s first time celebrating Halloween. In Ukraine, Halloween celebrations are not widespread. It has only recently been adopted by younger generations. For those who follow the Eastern Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the holiday can have negative implications.

“This is all new to us,” Tovsta said.

The Tovsta family strung up toy bats on the porch and carved jack-o’-lanterns to get into the Halloween spirit.

“But the pumpkin spoiled. We didn’t know they only last two or three days. We had a pumpkin funeral yesterday and put them in the trash. Next year we will be much more smarter,” Tovsta said with a laugh.

Kolesnichenko said she was familiar with Halloween but believed costumes had to be scary.

“We did not know you could be everything. Yaryna was so excited, picking many, many costumes — vampire, princess, or like elf,” Kolesnichenko said.

Yaryna ultimately decided to be an elf princess, donning pointed ears and a long blue and pink dress under her winter jacket. As the girls bounced down the front steps of a house on Pembroke Avenue, candy in hand, Kateryna cheered in Ukrainian.

“She said, ‘I love this day’,” Tovsta translated with a laugh.

Kolesnichenko tugged Yaryna’s jacket tighter around her chest. The night was chilly, with the temperatures dropping into the 50s and a misty rain left moisture on trick-or-treaters’ cheeks. Kolesnichenko spoke to Yaryna in Ukrainian before translating to English, “We can’t have you getting sick.”

When they came to the U.S., the families applied for Medicaid, a joint federal and state program that provides health coverage to qualified people with limited income and resources. Tovsta said her family received full coverage but Kolesnichenko said an error on their paperwork resulted in them having limited coverage, or only medical help for emergencies, until she appealed. They were granted full coverage Medicaid in November.

“We understand that all these medical services in USA, they are very expensive. I even didn’t realize how much they can cost. And when somebody told me, I was shocked because it can be $1,000 for one day in hospital or at appointment with a doctor,” Kolesnichenko said.

As the rain began to fall harder, the mothers told the girls it was time to head home. They stopped by one last house.

“Good Halloween — oh, no, Happy Halloween,” Kateryna said, correcting herself, after receiving a handful of candy.

“Thank you, that was very nice,” the resident responded.

Careers may not translate

While the children have thrived, the parents have struggled in their job searches.

Tovsta said her husband worked in construction when they lived in Ukraine. For months, his only work was driving for Doordash and Amazon Flex. His biggest obstacle, she said, was the language barrier.

“He does jobs he doesn’t need English for,” Tovsta said.

Tovsta and Kolesnichenko are both advanced English speakers. Kolesnichenko tested into a college-level English course to improve her proficiency but Tovstyi was unable to test into any course. Instead, he is being tutored by a church volunteer at their Ghent home once a week.

“He understands everything American people told him but he is scared to speak because he is afraid to say something wrong. Adults have cockroaches in our head,” Tovsta said with a laugh.

Kolesnichenko laughed with Tovsta, praising her for using a metaphor — something Kolesnichenko learned in her English course and had shared with her. Metaphors, Tovsta said, have been especially challenging for her family to learn.

“English is difficult for us because if you say thing like ‘I see’ in U.S. it means like, ‘I get it.’ But for us, it translates ‘to see something with your eyes,'” Tovsta said.

Despite speaking English, Tovsta and Kolesnichenko faced other barriers to employment.

Kolesnichenko’s experience does not translate to the U.S. She worked for 15 years as a lawyer in Ukraine. Working in the same field in the U.S. would require years of law school.

“I have communicated with a lot of people to understand how it works here. I think I can work as a paralegal but I need to find a company who wants to hire such a person,” she said.

Kolesnichenko has not yet been offered a job, but is seeking out potential employers each day.

“We don’t have any accumulation of money. I need to work,” Kolesnichenko said.

Tovsta, who has a background in information technology and software development, experienced difficulty after advancing to interviews for multiple job opportunities.

“And most of them say, ‘We hire only citizens. We don’t want to have problems with visa.’ But I said, ‘I don’t need your sponsorship with visa. I already have authorization.’ But they said, ‘Sorry, it’s our company policy,’ ” Tovsta said.

Finally, Tovsta landed a remote IT job and Tovstyi was offered a position at a local steel fabrication company. He hopes to get certified in welding to grow in his new job.

“We are dreaming about having a big house, dog, cat maybe. He is dreaming about big backyard because he likes gardening. A garage. Two cars,” Tovsta said.

New home for the holidays

A Christmas tree adorned with vintage glass ornaments and twinkling lights occupies the entryway of the Ghent home the Tovstyi family share with host Bjorn Marshall. Five stockings line the mantle in the family room — one for each of them.

Traditionally, parts of Ukraine have celebrated Christmas on Jan. 7 in accordance with the Eastern Orthodox religious calendar. It would kick off with a New Year’s Eve celebration, including Christmas tree decorating. In July, the Associated Press reported Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law moving the official Christmas Day holiday to Dec. 25 in an effort to break away from Russian culture and traditions.

“When Bjorn said we need to get a Christmas tree, I thought it is so early. Before the war, we put Christmas tree up Dec. 30, maybe in the 20s, but not so early,” Tovsta said with a laugh.

Ukrainian Christmas also differs in that it has Ded Moroz — or Grandfather Frost — rather than Santa Claus. Grandfather Frost brings gifts to children on New Year’s Eve. Christmas is an intimate family gathering with food. The Christmas tree and decorations are typically left up through the winter.

“Maybe we will ask Bjorn to leave the Christmas tree for our Ukraine Christmas,” Tovsta said.

The Christmas holiday has brought a little magic to their home as they wrap up six months of culture shock in an unknown country where only Tovsta initially spoke the language.

They have been forced to learn firsthand about tornadoes, Amber Alerts, driving and how to find their preferred ingredients for cooking meals. All the while, they have balanced figuring out complex American systems such as health care, work authorization and school districts.

“Life in Ukraine before the war was perfect but I hadn’t understood that before. I thought life was hard, but no, right now is hard. Sometimes I feel like I am falling for pieces and I can’t collect myself,” Tovsta said. “I am tired.”

As they enter the new year, Tovsta said the family is excited about what the future holds.

Her husband will continue to drive for Amazon Flex as time allows to help the family save money as they work toward permanent citizenship in the U.S. They would also like to open a family business — “a restaurant with delicious food,” Tovsta said.

“We are continuing dreaming,” Tovsta said.

Like Tovstyi and Tovsta, Kolesnichenko says her family has left their life in Ukraine behind for good. She is focused on building a life in the U.S. for herself and her daughter. She hopes it is a life her husband will be able to be part of in the future. A member of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Kolesnichenko’s husband had to stay behind to fight for the country.

“That is his duty. My duty is to make a safe life for Yaryna,” she said. “This life will be ready for him to join when the war is over.”

While the families work toward their “American dreams,” they continue to be supported by the local community. Community members have donated clothing, furniture, a vehicle and countless hours of time to both families.

“They accept us with our Ukrainian baggage — lots of mental baggage, not physical, because we have only one suitcase,” Kolesnichenko said with a laugh. “It’s so amazing that we have found such people here.”

Caitlyn Burchett, caitlyn.burchett@virginiamedia.com