Ukrainian Mother, Recently Arrived In The U.S., Shares Her Experience At Easter Event

Sunlight flooded through the glass windows and doors of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons in Shinnecock Hills on Saturday morning, where children sat at large tables dyeing and decorating Easter eggs after attending liturgy.

When brothers Vlad and Oleh Korchynskyi, 13 and 10 years old, respectively, were done painting their eggs, they did not stay inside for long. Taking advantage of the beautiful spring day, they immediately went outside.

And when their mother, Iryna Korchynska, went looking for them to take a photo, that’s where she found them.

The simple pleasure of running around on the emerald green grass lawn under a blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds, soaking up the warmth of a spring day, had not been an option for them only a week earlier. In their hometown of Ternopil, in western Ukraine, they were instead spending most of their days and nights in basement bomb shelters, listening to an ongoing litany of warning sirens.

As her sons mingled with a few other Ukrainian-speaking children at the church on Saturday and stretched their limbs outside, Korchynska spoke about what life has been like for her family since arriving in the area less than two weeks ago.

She expressed gratitude for the fact that she has family here, including her younger sister, East Hampton resident Olga Gavryliuk, who interpreted for her sister as she spoke. Korchynska said she was also grateful for the support of the local community, not just the church but in particular the new charitable organization, iLoveUkraine, founded and run by Natalie Massa, a native of Ukraine.

Massa’s organization has grown by leaps and bounds since the start of the war in Ukraine. To date, with the help of the church and several other community members and groups — including the Heart of the Hamptons and the East Hampton Airport — she has been able to donate more than 10,000 pounds of much needed goods to several hard-hit areas of Ukraine, pulling together a system of shipping the goods while also working with several other organizations on the ground in the country.

As the conflict has stretched on, with no clear end in sight, the need for continued donations and all kinds of support has grown, and Massa has expanded her mission to include not only sending goods to those still doing their best to survive in war torn areas of Ukraine such as Bucha, where war crimes have been committed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces, but also to support refugees fleeing to nearby countries and, when they can, across the Atlantic. Massa has lately been busy trying to help process and expedite asylum and visa requests for Ukrainian refugees eager to come to the United States or Canada.

For Korchynska, arriving on Long Island created a sense of relief, but it has also been bittersweet. While she is comforted by the presence of family, it has been a difficult and bittersweet transition, mainly because Korchynska’s husband, Igor Korchynskyi, has had to stay home and enlist in the Ukrainian army.

The journey to get to the United States was slow and arduous at first, but then sped up. Korchynska and her sons first had to make their way to a neighboring country, because the embassies and consulates in Ukraine are all currently closed. They chose to go to nearby Poland, because Korchynska speaks Polish, and applied for a visa once they arrived there. The process moved quickly after that — so quickly, in fact, that Korchynska is still processing how drastically her life has changed in a relatively short period of time.

When asked to compare life before and after the conflict started, her answer reflected that feeling.

“I can’t say there was life before and after,” she said. “It just stopped at that moment. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen next. But we’re happy we’re here and in safety now, and that we have a family we can come to. A lot of people don’t have this opportunity, and they’re forced to go to other European countries and stay with strangers.”

There is immediate relief for Korchynska that her boys can be outside on a sunny day and know they are safe. But plenty of other challenges remain. Korchynska is a petite woman, whose oldest son, at just 13, is already taller than her. She smiles broadly when she speaks of her children, and there is emotion in her eyes and in the tenor of her voice when she speaks about her husband, and about how he has already noticed physical changes in his sons in the short time they’ve been separated, when they connect over FaceTime. But she does not fall apart or cry, even when sharing how heart-wrenching it has been to leave her husband behind in a dangerous situation, and move to a country where she does not speak the language, and where she will stay for an undetermined length of time.

“Can you imagine?” Massa says later on, when discussing what Korchynska has been through and is still going through. As a mother, it is both possible and impossible to imagine what it must be like — the ever-present battle to remain strong for the children, to figure out the right way to explain what is happening, to be honest without overwhelming them, to carry the burden of deciding whether or not to tell them everything is going to be okay when it’s impossible to know if that’s true. Those are the kinds of questions Korchynska is facing as a parent, and the hardest part, she says, is facing it without her partner.

“We try to always be open with them, and tell things as they are,” she said of talking to her sons about everything that is going on at home. “We tried to phrase [coming to the United States] as an adventure, and a positive trip, an opportunity to see their family, who they weren’t able to see because of COVID.

“It’s hard, because sometimes I have to make my own decisions without speaking to my husband first,” Korchynska added, assessing her new reality. “We’re used to making decisions together.”

She said that while the conversations with her sons, and making unilateral choices can be hard at times, the bigger trauma was listening to sirens and staying in bomb shelters, when their immediate physical safety was under constant threat.

Now the challenges have become more manageable, but still present. Korchynska said her sons miss their father and their friends, and miss being around people who speak their language. Massa said she is hoping to find a place for the boys, once they are ready and more well-adjusted, to play their favorite sport, soccer, with the Southampton Town United soccer club, which has been assisting her organization in many ways.

That will be a welcome diversion, Korchynska said. “They love soccer. That will be the first thing they’d like to do,” she said. “It’s the only thing that keeps them distracted.”

Being welcomed by a community that includes many native Ukrainians and Ukrainian speakers has been extremely helpful as well, Korchynska said, adding that she was happy to meet Massa and give her kids the chance on Saturday to meet some children who speak their language.

She was grateful for those who offered support in other ways, whether that was donating clothing or other goods they might need, noting that they were of course limited in what they could grab and take with them when it came time to leave their home.

Keeping that kind of support flowing for families like Korchynska’s and also for people still overseas in Ukraine and nearby countries has been possible thanks to several supporters of iLoveUkraine. Massa said the church has been a huge supporter, offering its basement storage room and hosting Saturday’s egg decorating event, which was an homage to the Ukrainian tradition of painting eggs called pysanky.

On Saturday, they did not follow that tradition exactly to the letter, because of the intricacy involved in the process and the fact that most participants were young children. Pysanky is a centuries-old Ukrainian tradition where the yolks are blown out of the eggs, and then melted beeswax is used to create intricate designs, which are then colored by dipping the eggs in dye. The result is stunningly beautiful and intricately detailed works of art, and they carry deep meaning in Ukrainian culture.

Creating iLoveUkraine has deep meaning for Massa because of her still strong connections to her home country, but supporting the new nonprofit has been important and meaningful for several other East End residents as well.

Brittany Epley of Southampton Village was at Saturday’s event, wearing an iLoveUkraine sweatshirt while her own children painted eggs. Epley and her husband, Zach Epley, met Massa when their children were in school together. Zach had taken one of their children to a birthday party where he met Massa days after Russia had invaded Ukraine and later shared with his wife how distraught she had been, sharing that she hadn’t heard from her father in days.

“I couldn’t sleep that night,” Brittany said. “I reached out and told her to let me know if there was anything I could do. I didn’t think she’d ask me to do anything, but thankfully she did, and we hit the ground running.”

Brittany got involved with the organization right away, and has been helping out ever since, praising Massa’s mission and her efforts and energy.

Massa said the support of the church has been crucial as well. Father Alex Karloutsos was also on hand on Saturday. After delivering Mass and then mingling with churchgoers and other guests, he sat outside on the terrace, gently folding palm fronds into the shape of a cross as he spoke about why it was imperative that the church support Massa’s organization, and anyone affected by the war in Ukraine — and why this particular conflict hits close to home for him and the church.

“We feel that a church that’s not reaching beyond its own walls isn’t really much of a church,” he said. “Christ told us to go share his gospel with everybody. Most of his gospel is about love, which means you have to go and love everybody.”

Father Alex said that the Ukraine crisis “strikes particularly close to home” because most Ukrainians are orthodox Christians, adding there are roughly a dozen Ukrainian families who are members of the Southampton church.

Father Alex said it has been particularly painful to watch such a bloody and devastating conflict play out between two countries that share so much in common, pointing out that orthodox Christianity is a dominant religion in Russia as well.

“This should not be happening,” he said. “These are people who should be united in faith and in the similarities between their cultures, and the fact that there are families who live in Russia and Ukraine. But because of Putin’s maniacal expansionist policies, he claims he wants to unify the Ukrainians with the Russian people, but what he’s really doing is drawing a starker distinction and creating a great distance between them. It’s heartbreaking, because it hurts the people. But for us, we also see it as something that really hurts the church.”

How and when the war will end still remains unclear, and it seems like continued heartache and anguish for the Ukrainian people is the only sure bet for the near future. But Massa and those supporting iLoveUkraine are doing their best to help alleviate that suffering, supporting people like Korchynska, giving them everything they can while hoping one day soon they will see the outcome everyone wants.

“The only thing I want is for this to be over,” Korchynska said. “And for it to be a victory not just for Ukraine, but for everybody.”

In the meantime, at least for a few hours on Saturday morning, she was able to sit in the sun with her sons by her side, posing for a photo, with a smile.