Outlook Newspapers | Building strong communities, one smile at a time.
First published in the April 22 print issue of the South Pasadena Review.
When is safe not safe enough?
That’s the dilemma faced by Ukrainian native Daria Akulova, who is grateful to the people who have offered her refuge in South Pasadena for the past month.
But her mind is not safe from news of her home in Ukraine — where her father is on territorial patrol in Kyiv and taking care of her ailing grandmother. And her mother and sister are in Spain.
Also, a cousin has not been heard of for a month, while the family waits for any news to come out of bomb-blasted Mariupol in the southern part of the country.
“The people I have been staying with in South Pasadena have been very nice to me. They have been very kind,” said the 24-year-old native of Kyiv, who fled with her mother and sister across the southern Ukrainian border and then made her way to Turkey. She then flew to L.A., via New York, on a tourist visa.
“I am living in a normal life setting with people with normal problems, but whenever I hear a fire truck or a police siren, I still get goose bumps,” she said.
Akulova’s past remains her present. The sounds of war haven’t left her mind, and her mother’s tears of separation and words from friends in war-torn villages leave new scars daily on her mind.
“You can’t imagine how people in Ukraine are living,” Akulova said in an interview last weekend, which was broken occasionally by long pauses and deep sighs.
“I just want the war to stop. I am so full of emotion when I hear news of the violence. It is so horrible when you don’t know. No one can be ready for this,” she added.
It has gotten to the point that Akulova doesn’t even watch the news on television, but relies on people in the war zone.
“I have friends who tell me that tanks came into the backyards of their houses, and (soldiers) stole — acting like pigs. I expect they are crazy with no morals. I can’t explain their actions. You can’t live in the homes anymore,” she said.
“People spent all of their life’s savings to live in homes near Kyiv and now (the Russians) have broken people’s lives and left them with no options,” she added.
The last really happy family memory ironically was her younger sister’s ninth birthday party. The family was awakened a few hours later to the sound of bombs exploding.
She said the situation had been bad since Russia occupied Crimea and because of the situation in the eastern part of the country.
“In the beginning, there was just fear. Now, everyone is trying to adapt and it is just very hard. Until we have a life again, we have to spread the word about what is happening,” she said.
“I won’t be silent.”
That is why — two days after she arrived in town — she made an appearance at a non-denominational prayer gathering in front of the library’s Community Room, giving personal testament to what is going on in her native land.
She said she is proud that Ukrainians have kept Kyiv from falling and have taken back other towns.
Her father — a veterinarian who had never fired a rifle — was first sent on patrol in Odessa in the south, and he is now back in Kyiv.
“I am so proud that people can come home and what has been done,” said Akulova, who said her grandmother is at her family home, but she isn’t sure of the condition of the place she lived.
Her days here have been spent making contact and seeing what the future might hold for her in America. She visited relatives in North Carolina last September, and her tourist visa currently lasts through September.
She noted that there are all sorts of legal and political obstacles as well as questions, and until they are solved or answered, she cannot work. That being said, she also was pleased that the Biden administration recently began allowing Ukrainians who have been on American soil since April 11 to apply for a humanitarian designation for their visas.
Akulova has a master’s degree in international business and trade and worked as head of communications and marketing for a renewable-energy company.
She is exploring options and points to other countries as being more helpful to Ukrainians who are fleeing the war. Without a Social Security number, Akulova has had to start a GoFundMe account to help both herself and others in her family.
She’d like one day to go home to Ukraine and reunite with her family, but admits that many portions of her country are in rubble.
“It is so hard — even though I live in sunny L.A. — I still have to live like this,” she said. “But I live in a guest house, in a garden and I am happy to have a roof over my head … I am very happy for this.”
Akulova’s GoFundMe link is gofund.me/24697b75.
