Daughter’s death is the unbearable heartache a Ukrainian family has carried to Ireland

They have been friends for as long as they can remember. The names almost rhyme: Olena and Olha. Their mothers, too, were friendly and they grew up together in Poltava as children during what turned out to be the declining years of the Soviet Union, later flourishing as young women even as Ukraine exerted its independence. University took them to Kyiv. Both made homes in the city. They became professionals and, later, mothers themselves. Olha Minina taught at college. Olena Paltsun modelled and worked in fashion design and photography.

Kyiv was designed on a grand scale: even for locals, it is indescribably vast. “To put it literally, her place is two hours from my place,” Olha Mining laughs. When life became busier and faster, they did not see one another as often. But always they stayed in touch, and summers meant visits to Poltava. Nadia, Olena’s mother, still lives there. She is 76 and dauntless. They worry about Nadia now as the true eastern winter bites, but since the war started Nadia has refused to contemplate quitting her house. She says she will be fine. She has her garden, where she grows vegetables and fruit. She has her two cats. She speaks with Olena and her grandchildren on Skype. “Sometimes it doesn’t work because there is no electricity there,” Olena says.

“But she says: ‘I will stay with my neighbours, my garden, my house, my land’. She believes in our victory.”

Olha nods at this and thinks about her friend’s mother.

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“She is a very powerful lady. She is a gardener. She can survive anywhere, I think.”

The women are sitting on a sofa in the Hydro Hotel in Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare, which has been home to them for six months now. It’s a crisp morning, cool enough to see your own breath in the morning air. In the foyer, the log fire was lit at breakfast time. The Christmas decorations are up and the vibe around the place is cheerful and upbeat. The women are joined by Varvara, Olena’s daughter, who is 14. Hlib, Varvara’s brother, is somewhere in the building. Olha’s daughter, Maria (18), is also in Lisdoonvarna. They are beyond grateful to be here. They joke about their initial impressions of driving through the countryside, where the lush greenness was alien to the great productive plains of Ukraine. “We were asking, where are the sunflowers, where is the grain?” They are relaxed in the Hydro and have made good friends here.

“To us, right now, it is the best place in all the world,” Olena says. Still, every day when they wake, there is always a split second of estrangement: a moment of delayed comprehension before they accept that, no, this is not a dream. This year has brought a reality which every Ukrainian must daily come to terms with.

“Yes. It is very strange,” says Varvara, nodding vigorously.

“Sometimes we think: how have we appeared here?” Olena says wonderingly.

“How has this happened?

If theirs is a story of families, then the invasion of Ukraine is also that; of countless families scattered on the wind, of good lives interrupted and, in many cases, destroyed. Olena and Olha have settled into a pattern, of sorts. Their children study. They talk with friends on Instagram. They watch Ukrainian television in the evening. They go for walks. But as we talk, their minds inevitably return to the horrific turmoil in late February when the lives they had made were torn asunder.

Slowly, they retrace the way that a normal, enjoyable Christmas in the closing days of 2021 turned into a New Year period of escalating, ominous rumour and threat. Olha, always an avid news listener with excellent English, searched out reports from the BBC and CNN and had a premonition that her city, her country, was on the verge of something catastrophic. She shared her feelings with Olena and other friends: the stark message that the Russians were coming. But the idea of a full-scale invasion, of Kyiv under attack, was so fantastical that it was hard to visualise. “The information she told me was very scary and unbelievable,” Olena remembers.

“Because most people – and me too – did not realise it or want to believe it. All my friends did not believe that the war would start. Most people did not. That is why we were not… ready or prepared for that. War in Ukraine is not the first war that Russia starts. But when it does not touch your country, you don’t know a lot of the information. Because it is somewhere else. You live in a peaceful country with everyday comforts, and you are doing normal everyday things. We did not realise the danger or how, in the 21st century, how this can happen.”

The invasion exploded on their lives as a casually shocking belligerence. February 21st was the date that Olena heard a bomb for the first time. “But it was far off, away.” In the family apartment, they searched the television for news, uncertain of what to do next. Anxiety and panic had begun to creep through the city: a dread sense that the impossible was approaching. Four days later, in the early hours of the morning, a shell exploded in the apartment next to theirs. It was deafening and terrifying. The Paltsuns awoke to a fiery brightness and noise, the windows of their high-rise apartment framed by fire.

“I have never seen anything like it in my life before,” says Olena. “It was like…” and she pauses to find the right word in English.

“Apocalypse.”

As of early on February 25th, the next few days unfolded as a nightmare that Olena says she replayed in her mind and tried somehow to change “millions of times”. With the apartment block next door in flames, people began to evacuate the building instantly. The Paltsun family gathered a few belongings in 15 minutes. They left with no clear plan.

“We didn’t know where the bomb shelter was. You never think about these things. And we tried to find out.”

Olena and her three children made their way to the shelter, where they waited for several hours. People were saying that Russian tanks were closing in on the city. Kyiv is a city of bridges. Soon, people said, it would be impossible to cross the Dnipro River. They decided to move to Olena’s in-laws, on the outskirts of the city. First, Olena and Sophia, her oldest daughter, went back to the apartment to gather a few more possessions because now, they understood, they were leaving their home for an indefinite period. On the streets, an atmosphere of panic had gripped the city, with sirens and people fleeing. Normality was disintegrating before their eyes. It was beyond terrifying.

“But we did not know what we must take with us,” Olena says carefully.

“We were so scared and frustrated. I was afraid the electricity would close because we live on the 23rd level of our building. That is why I was in a hurry – we wanted to get out while the elevator work. I go out to take the kids from the bomb shelter. At the time, Grandfather goes for us by car to collect us.”

While the rest of the family were at the bomb shelter, her eldest daughter died by suicide.

Sophia’s death made her one of the first victims of the Russian invasion. She was just 25 years old. All her years had been about creativity and the concoction of beautiful things.

“She was very creative. And, also, she was a very sensitive person,” Olha says. “She was un-ordinary; brilliant. And the stress and the shock of that day was like nothing anyone had seen.”

The women sit on the sofa as the terribleness of that day settles around them again. Olha comforts her friend. On that day in late February, Kyiv transformed into something alien. Nothing seemed real: the laws were disintegrating around them.

“Yes. And in that situation: all was in a hurry,” Olha says.

“All people were shocked. There was such panic. Nobody knew what to do. And it is my own tragedy. I feel guilty that I did not protect… I didn’t help.”

Sophia’s death is the unbearable heartache that the family has had to carry with them to Ireland – along with the unusual brightness of her life force. Part of Olena has not left that moment in Kyiv. But in the days afterwards came the dawning realisation that they had to physically leave the city to protect the other children. News that a nuclear station had been struck in Zaporizhzhia settled things for Olena and her husband. They had to get Varvara and Hlib out. Olena and the children would leave. Her husband would stay. Somehow, they all found the courage to keep moving.

Even getting to the train station was an ordeal: two days before, it had come under attack and people had been killed. They arrived to find people asleep at the station and once they boarded a train for Lviv, it was standing room only. Everyone carried just essentials – a toothbrush, water, their phones, perhaps a sandwich. At some stations, volunteers delivered food and water through the doors and windows. The journey took nine hours, and then came the long cold wait at the border. At the same time, Olha and Maria were making their way to Poland on a bus. Both families arrived at different border points, with about five million other people doing the same thing at the frontiers.

“Five million,” Olha repeats, marvelling.

“Can you imagine this? We did not know what to do. Some strangers just took us into their house.”

A Polish fried of Hlib’s collected the Paltsuns from the train station and took them to an apartment. He helped them to buy a laptop, to get necessary papers, to plan what to do next. They met goodwill in abundance. Friends of Olena’s who live in Israel got in touch and insisted they come to live with them and forwarded tickets. They were set to depart but then discovered that Varvara’s passport was out of date by just a couple of days. Sometimes, they wonder about that: a vital quirk of fate.

In another town, Olha searched for work even as her hosts told her she was welcome to stay with them until it was safe to go home.

“But we could not stay any longer because we felt it was too much. For me, I was trying to find a job but everything was crowded and full of people. There was no job for me. So, I phoned Olena. And we decided to move together.”

When the families met up, they decided to go to Ireland simply because it was a country where people spoke English. They flew from Krakow and were taken aback by the efficiency with which they passed through the Irish system for newly arriving people. It was Taco, Olha’s dog, who had the ultimate say on where in Ireland they settled. The Hydro Hotel is one of the few pet-friendly accommodations available. It was one piece of good fortune in a wretched year.

They arrived in Lisdoonvarna on March 15th. After the convulsive shock and violence of those few days in February have come month upon month in the slow rhythm of west of Ireland life. Olena has better English than she will allow, while Olha’s command is flawless. Together, they are terrific communicators. When Olena speaks, she is pleasant and animated but it is clear, in the silences, that her mind returns to home.

It is too harrowing to speak of Sophia directly so instead, she shows video and photographs of her daughter’s art. Sophia worked in what is called content creation: she was talented at videography and designed costumes based on Ukrainian mythology. Varvara, her younger sister, is also sweet-natured and multi-talented. In Kyiv, Varvara excelled as a gymnast, but singing was and remains her true talent. It is what she wants to do with her life. Together, the sisters had collaborated. They were fiercely close. On her phone, Olena finds a video made by Sophia of Varvara singing a translation of Faded, the international synth ballad by Alan Walker.

“Varvara’s image was created by Sophia. My girls wanted to record…an album. Sophia had big plans,” she says, breaking into a sob which she allows to pass before continuing.

“She wanted to make concerts. And all this image and sound…It was Sophia’s project. It was very beautiful. Sophia adds other voices… like background. Everything here was her idea.”

There are many photographs, including some taken by Sophia in Poltava in the summer of 2021, which now feels like an impossibly distant period to them all. Living through this together has made a terrible situation a little more bearable for Olha and Olena and their children. The passing weeks and months have given them time to think and talk about what it means to be Ukrainian. They have started a little project in the hotel rooms, weaving costumes from traditional Ukrainian patterns. Olena learned the technique a few years ago. They don’t have a loom, so they improvise, using the wardrobe door.

“It is an almost forgotten tradition,” Olha says. “So, we decide that we will do it.”

Talk turns to their childhood, in the final years of the Soviet Union. Olena says now that it is clear they were living under the very state propaganda which defines Russia today. Her godmother lives in Moscow and has blocked Olena on social media. “She did not want to know.” Olha’s uncle also lives in Russia. Eight years ago, she tried to explain to him that Russian troops had invaded Crimea. He refused to believe it. “They have Ukrainian blood in their bodies, and they do not trust me,” she says resignedly.

“I tried to explain and explain. I had to give up.”

In the Soviet years, they explain, old Ukrainian Christmas traditions were supplanted by state impositions.

“It started after the revolution in 1917 and they tried to swap things. They tried to change it to a New Year celebration. But because they could not erase the memories of Christmas, they invented a new festivity. Instead of Saint Nicholas for example, they had Father Frost.”

Olha’s grandfather, though, was a stickler: their home always had a Christmas tree and decorations and lights. Over the past few decades, a grand revival of festive traditions has taken place, with traditional Ukrainian costumes and carol singing and folklore. Varvara goes to her room and returns with a Christmas star, a hand-made Christmas symbol often used for carol-singing. The design is elaborate and detailed. Olena explains that this is just a miniature version of the stars designed at home, on a grand scale. Her face lights up momentarily at the description. Her daughter laughs. They chat in Ukrainian for a few moments.

A year ago, both families celebrated Christmas in Kyiv. Nothing could have prepared them for the cataclysmic national upheaval and for the tragedies that were taking shape. Every day, Olena and Olha think about how and when the war might end. They fret about family, neighbours and strangers at home. The staff in the Hydro do their best to make every day as pleasant as possible for their guests. But as they watch the news reports of power cuts and water supplies at home, they worry.

“Sometimes we can’t enjoy this,” Olena says raising her arms and looking around the foyer – “Comfortable things and delicious food and warm rooms, because a lot of people in Ukraine have none of these things, or light or water or hot meals.”

To their astonishment, the days inexplicably pass and turn into months. They know they will be spending this Christmas in Ireland – a fact that is as strange to them as suddenly finding oneself in a hotel in eastern Europe would be for any Irish person. But they repeatedly express their thanks and gratitude to the Irish people. They’ve been learning about Irish history and have seen some of the country – volunteers took them on a tour of scenic Clare; they’ve been to Dublin, where Maria sat her final school exams. Olha asks about Belfast; she has heard about the Peace Wall and is curious.

In June, some of them went to watch Ukraine and Ireland play football in the Aviva stadium. Varvara and Maria – who plays violin – gave a recital in the town hall in Lisdoonvarna in the spring. Olena plays the video: her daughter’s voice is pure music and haunting. Constantly, they’ve been touched by small kindnesses. Somehow, they find the courage to locate humour in life; to laugh, to create, to be grateful, to keep their families together. And always, they wait, in this strange holding pattern in a small west of Ireland town, until the war stops, and the evil recedes, and they can go home again.

“People won’t be able to forget,” Olha says slowly of when all of this is finally over.

“Because it will be easy to remind people. In our digital era you can keep everything. So many witnesses to the crimes are there, that people collect with their phones, their cameras. Their memories.”

* The Samaritans can be contacted on freephone: 116 123 or email: jo@samaritans.ie If you have suffered a bereavement support is available from support Hugg (hugg.ie), Pieta House (pieta.ie), Anam Cara (anamcara.ie) or the HSE