It was their first ever plane trip, they’d never been to the ocean before and they’d not ridden bikes let alone gone skiing. Nor could they speak English.
But six months on from having fled war-ravaged Ukraine for Raglan, three sisters – Katya, Nastya and Anya – have done all those things, and most importantly are safely ensconced in the home of close family in Violet St, overlooking Whaingaroa Harbour.
They came here in April with their mother Vika Levchenko, who had to leave behind her husband – now in the Ukrainian military reserves – her own mother and her 89-year-old grandmother, all in the city of Sumy which at last report was being constantly shelled.
Sumy – population 350,000 – is so close to the Russian border that her grandmother’s front yard has been used to launch missiles, Vika says. Fortunately her nanna is now living with her mother in a nearby apartment.
Vika got the chance to escape to Raglan with her daughters courtesy of younger sister Mariia and her Kiwi husband Chris Atkins, who set up an online givealittle page to get their Ukrainian family to New Zealand after war broke out in February.
Two months later – their visas and flights secured thanks to the $5,665 raised in five weeks – the relieved quartet arrived in New Zealand, having fled to Poland in March with virtually no luggage.
“We each had a backpack,” recalls Vika. “We were only allowed to take survival stuff.”
They’re now living with Mariia and Chris and their four-year-old son Vitaly. And while it’s a bit of a squash – all seven of them in a three bedroom, one bathroom house – they are very grateful.
Vika told the Chronicle in halting English how overwhelmed she is at the support since leaving her motherland. The 43 year old wanted to thank her Raglan family in particular for “organising our trip, for hosting us, for their generosity and understanding”.
“They have big hearts,” she added with tears in her eyes.
And what does Vika think of Raglan? “Very, very, very beautiful,” she says.
Her two youngest daughters – 11-year-old Nastya and 8-year-old Anya – were welcomed at Te Uku School where teachers helped by introducing to the curriculum Ukrainian words and their English counterparts.
The girls continue learning online with their Ukraine school, at night because of the time difference, as does 19-year-old Katya, who is in her third year of an engineering degree at a Ukrainian university.
Vika herself is studying English through Manukau Institute of Technology.
All four were “terrified” at first by the siren that sounds from the local fire station each week, signalling the onset of firefighters’ practice nights. It is too close to their reality back home in Ukraine, they say, and having to hide in shelters while Sumy was being shelled.
When the Local Rag visited, the family were out in the garden building planter boxes for vegetables to supplement a burgeoning grocery bill. And work had also begun on a new room underneath the house – extra space, Chris explained, because no-one knew when or even if the family could return to their homeland.
Chris – a business development manager at Armourguard Security – knew when the war began that he and Mariia had to do something. “We will need just about everything for them including … beds, clothes, food, education and ongoing support,” he detailed on the givealittle page.
And that is exactly what has been achieved, through the help of friends and family.
There’s no assistance however from the New Zealand Government, Chris explains, as the newly arrived family’s not classed as refugees. Although Vika and Katya are here essentially on working visas, they can’t actually work until a raft of requirements is met – not least of which is “getting their English up to speed”, and sorting the likes of bank accounts and IRD numbers now they have no home address back in the Ukraine.
“It’s a bit of an eye-opener,” says Chris. He reckons he’s kept busy just “working through processes and ticking all the boxes”.
Meantime he and Mariia are focused on trying to make their young nieces’ lives “exciting” too. Anya has guitar lessons locally and learns jazz dancing downtown at Freedom2fly while Nastya, an accomplished rhythmic gymnast, also attends Freedom2fly classes in aerial skills and is involved in school drama productions.
“They want to thank everyone in Raglan for making them feel so welcome,” says Mariia, adding the girls have also been bike-riding and skiing for the first time.
Mariia and Chris, who’ve lived in Raglan about eight years now, are grateful for all the community help they’ve had getting their Ukraine family settled here. Local excavator Lee Poolton has voluntarily dug up a concrete pad only recently laid for Chris’s new fish filleting bench – to allow space for that extra room – and Roy Hengeveld of Cohe Group has donated waterproofing for the build.
Then there’s Rylock Waikato – a sponsor of Raglan Volunteer Coastguard, of which Chris is a member – to thank for adding the joinery, and gratitude too to Fagan Contracting in Raglan for “invaluable” free advice.
Meanwhile Mariia’s boss at property development company Da-Silva Builders has come up with a seven-seater wagon that’s just the ticket to ride for a family which more than doubled in size overnight.
