Voice of Ukraine

VOU: Mark Agarkov, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology, one of the pastors at Kharkiv Presbyterian Church, and president of the church’s wartime humanitarian foundation is part of this article.

For young people in eastern Kharkiv, staying is an act of resistance

From: World by William Fleeson

When Liza Andreeva fled her eastern hometown of Kharkiv in March 2022, the evacuation train she took with her mother and 3-year-old brother was so full, people sat and slept in the aisles. The refugees leaned against the walls, their luggage, and each other. Those with children or pets did their best to keep them quiet, to avoid disturbing fellow passengers already stressed to the breaking point.

Andereeva spent the next 18 months as a displaced person in Poland, then Germany. After that, she decided to come home to study in Kharkiv—even as the war continued nearby and even though Kharkiv lies just 20 miles from Ukraine’s border with Russia. 

“We can’t leave [behind] everything that we have in Kharkiv,” Andreeva, now 19, told me as we sat in a downtown Kharkiv coffeeshop in April with her school friend Zheniya Komissarova. For Andreeva, who is majoring in foreign languages, the city is “native” and “familiar.” She cited “houses, families, our pets” as reasons enough to keep living here. Komissarova, also 19, nodded her agreement as her friend talked. 

When I asked Andreeva if she would consider leaving Kharkiv again, she shook her head. 

“I want to stay, really,” she said, adding that her mother made the decision to leave in 2022, not her. Now enrolled at one of Kharkiv’s three dozen universities, Andreeva has asserted her adulthood as much through her wish to live and study here as through the self-expression of her green eyes, all-black outfit, purple fingernails, and bright blue hair.

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