MOOSE JAW — A telephone’s shrill ring at 5 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2022, surprised Snizhana Fomychova, as the voice of a military friend told her to leave Ukraine because war had begun.
The woman was already awake, as she was preparing tea for her ill husband, Artur Levytskyi, and feeding their baby.
“At first, we didn’t believe him (because) it sounded unreal. But just a few minutes later, we heard the first explosions,” Fomychova said recently during a presentation at the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery.
The couple, who had lived on the Crimean Peninsula for several years, had moved to Kyiv a week earlier because they wanted their children to learn the Ukrainian language. That wasn’t possible on the peninsula because Russia had occupied it since 2014.
Now, with explosions rocking the Ukrainian capital, Fomychova, Levytskyi, and their four children stayed inside their apartment, leaving only for food, she recalled. They did not shower or change their clothes for three days, while they sometimes lived in the basement.
However, most nights, they slept in the hallway because that provided enough protection from missiles, Fomychova continued. However, she had finally had enough and told her husband that they needed to leave; he agreed to go.
The family arrived at the train station, which was “a zoo” because everyone was fleeing as well, said Fomychova. The family waited 11 hours before they acquired a spot on the train. After finding seats, all four children immediately fell asleep, but not Fomychova.
“The adrenaline didn’t let me rest,” she recalled.
After reaching the home of Levytskyi’s parents — his parents decided to remain — the family found strangers to drive them to the Polish border. Fomychova recalled heading toward Poland and encountering traffic jams 100 kilometres long. They eventually reached a border town and stayed with her father’s friends before boarding a bus and entering the country.
Red Cross volunteers offered plenty of support, with one person giving them first-class train tickets to Gdansk, she said. The family travelled to the Baltic Sea city, where someone offered them a rustic home for several years until they started a new life.
“We had only about $3,000 left, so it was a big help,” Fomychova remarked.
One day, Fomychova received an email from a Canadian suggesting she move to Quebec. Even though the remote community was small and required either a helicopter or a snowmobile to access, the family accepted the offer.
An airline provided the family with free tickets since they were refugees.
“We had almost no money, but we had big hopes,” Fomychova said.
The family flew from Gdansk to Paris, France, where Fomychova lost a backpack filled with family jewelry, valuable coins and other heirlooms. They then flew to Montreal, where their sponsor met them and provided them with paperwork to live in Canada.
They then began a multi-aircraft journey that took them over sparsely populated land, until, by helicopter, they arrived in the 100-person village of Tête-à-la-Baleine on Quebec’s east coast; the school had six children.
“When we arrived, people welcomed us with great kindness,” said Fomychova, noting residents provided the family with food — including seal meat — and clothing.
Meanwhile, since not all their luggage fit in the helicopter, their sponsor offered to bring their possessions by snowmobile and sled across frozen lakes and through forests. The family thought that was how Canadians did things and didn’t question his actions.
However, Fomychova learned that that was the man’s first long-distance snowmobile trip, while he had only lived in the village for a few years. During his journey, the temperature plummeted to minus-30 Celsius, and his machine broke down. After failing to fix it, he found a cabin and remained there until help arrived.
Life in the village was difficult as there were no jobs. Yet, the family received attention from reporters because they were only the second group of Ukrainian refugees in the region.
Later, Fomychova and Levytskyi moved to a bigger village that had jobs, fresh food, was closer to cities — like Montreal — and had better living accommodations. At Christmas, the village decorated a tree “that really looked like something from a movie; so beautiful and full of love.”
While the family loved the new village, they grew tired of the clouds of black flies, while Levytskyi wanted a new job. So, Fomychova began searching online and connected with Moose Jaw’s Christy Schweiger, who ran a Facebook page dedicated to helping Ukrainians.
Levytskyi arrived first in Moose Jaw and lived with an English teacher who helped Ukrainian refugees; Levytskyi found a job two weeks after he arrived, while Fomychova and the four girls came soon after.
“We were so inspired by this new chapter. Even going to a big store like Superstore felt magical,” said Fomychova, noting that the province’s Ukrainian heritage also attracted them to Saskatchewan. “After living in tiny villages, it felt like a dream.”
Since arriving in Moose Jaw, the family has explored the community and travelled across Canada; Fomychova has started a business called “Spirit of Moss Eco Décor Studio.” They also hope to become permanent residents and support other Ukrainian refugees.
For more information, visit spiritofmoss.ca or mjmag.ca.
