Allan Appel Photo
Yevgeny and Kristyna with baby Leonell Sunday at St. Michael's Church.
Yevgeny and Kristyna Biziaieva and their three children observed Palm Sunday on George Street, the first Ukrainian refugee family to be welcomed in New Haven since the war broke out.
The Biziaievas fled the Russian invasion and shelling of Kharkiv and arrived Thursday night at the home of Gaye Hyre.
They were welcomed warmly at a moving get-together after Palm Sunday mass that drew 100 people to St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church on George Street.
Kristyna and Yvegeny Biziaieva and their three little boys Daniel (age 6), Adam (3), and baby Leonell (1), connected with Gaye Hyre over the Harvard-student run site ukrainetakeshelter.com, which matches refugees with temporary available housing.
But first, on Feb. 27, three days after the war started, the Biziaievas made a harrowing escape by car from their home in Kharkiv just after shelling destroyed the hospital 100 meters on one side of their apartment building and a military school on the other side.
Russian tanks, half tracks, and infantry were entering their neighborhood as the family fled, Kristyna Biziaieva recalled Sunday. At the halfway point on the journey, near Dnipro, they saw tanks on the road. The generalized dread accompanying them turned to acute fear, she said. Then, however, there was relief: “They were ours.”
The family drove three days to the safety of Moldova, a trip, Yvegeny said that usually takes ten hours. From there it was on to Romania, and then Germany.
Yvegeny Biziaieva with sons Daniel and Adam.
Kristyna is an internet marketer and Yvegeny an importer/exporter of fabric for outerwear, so they know their way around the web. Business has brought them to the U.S. already several times. They also have a visitors’ visa and relatives in Boston and New York.
Still, they needed temporary shelter on an emergency basis. They listed themselves on ukraineshelter.com. They saw a posting there from Hyre.
“ ‘I have a bedroom, a study, a little bathroom,’ ” Hyre recalled posting. “ ‘If you need room, I have it. I can give you a bed, I can feed you, and I can do your laundry. After that I’ll need help, and we can figure it out together.’
“I put that on the website and within two weeks I heard back: ‘Is the room still available’? That was Kristyna. I said, ‘Yes, of course.’ ”
This past Wednesday, April 6, Hyre received an email message at 4 a.m. stating that her refugee family was arriving at JFK the following day at 4 p.m.
“And they were on my doorstep at 8:45. We thought we had more time to clean up!”
That extra help began to come in several forms including car seats, high chairs, Legos and other kid games contributed from congregant families at the Beth El-Keser Israel synagogue in Westville, not far from where Hyre lives on the New Haven/West Haven border.
Over the weekend Myron Melnyk from St. Michael’s Church met the family at Hyre’s home, along with Chris George of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS). (George told the Independent he doesn’t know of other Ukrainian families to have arrived yet in New Haven.) Among other next steps was attendance at the Palm Sunday mass. The idea was to get to know the local Ukrainian community and also, in no small part, so the Biziaieva boys could participate in the Easter Egg festivities.
Shtetl Memories
Gaye Hyre Sunday flanked by Paul Zalonski and Myron Melnyk of St. Michael's Church.
“I know a little of what it means to be chased out by Russians,” Gaye Hyre confided to the Biziaieva family when they arrived at her home.
Gaye Hyre’s Jewish grandmother was born on the Ukraine/Polish borderlands.
She and her family fled in 1912 as a 5‑year-old child after a Russian-incited pogrom and fire destroyed their country village, or shtetl. Hyre’s grandmother’s family made it to Odesa then to New York.
When Hyre was a small child, her grandmother never spoke about the experience — except when Hyre grew upset. “Then my grandmother would take me aside and say, ‘Darling, no matter how upset you are, it always could be worse. You could be in Russia.’ ”
The Biziaieva family’s concerns remain, needless to say, at a high level of anxiety.
Most of their relatives, to the best of their knowledge, are still in safe places. But they had one good friend killed and his wife badly injured in the shelling. Kristyna’s mother and nephew are still in Mariupol; despite Kristyna’s attempts to organize, online and from afar, some kind of evacuation, she has been unsuccessful. She hasn’t had cell phone or other contact with them for more than two weeks.
“Neighbors told me they are alive as of 23 March. They are hiding [somewhere] close to the Azov Sea. They are between the [Russian] ships and the missiles go over their heads. I don’t know how they survive.”
There was a particular worry about their nephew, age 17, which is one year before conscription age in Russia. “Russian troops are taking hostages to Russia,” said Yvegeny. “We are afraid of this situation for our relative.”
“He will be 18 and if goes, to Russia, they’ll force him to be a soldier. They will give him a rifle and force him to shoot Ukrainians.”
Yvegeny said he and Kristyna didn’t believe the invasion would actually occur until it happened. “We believed Russia is not just our neighbor but our brother. Now the Ukrainian people will never forgive.”
Kristyna’s prediction: “Ukrainians are very brave. This war has made our country even braver. They destroy buildings and civilians, but they can’t kill our hearts.”
The family plans to get situated locally, getting the older boys into school and pre-school. They have a long-term plan to settle in New York City, where Yvegeny has a brother.
The oldest child Daniel pronounced (through a helpful translator) life in the West Haven/New Haven area so far “excellent.”
Sponsors Sought For Ukrainians At Mexican Border
Galyna Borzenkova with potato pierogis for post-Palm Sunday mass feast.
Also on hand Sunday was immigration attorney Dana Bucin. She was in search of sponsors among congregants for a trip she is taking on April 13 to assist Ukrainian refugees at the Mexican border.
Many Ukrainians have mistakenly signed up for asylum, she said, when they should be requesting “humanitarian parole.” The former path takes years, she said, whereas humanitarian parole gives you an automatic year of stay and the right to work.
“So I’m going to the border to fix some cases.”
She said she also might need sponsors, not necessarily physically to go with her, but just to offer their names should she encounter refugees who know no one in the U.S. She has already assembled a small group to accompany her on the trip.
If you are interested in helping, she can be reached at DBUCIN@MURTHALAW.COM.