By Kana Matsukawa

“As an 11-year-old, you don’t really know a lot about democracy, or you don’t think a lot about politics,” she said. “You are 11 years old, and all you think about is school.”

Oleksandra Ladychenko

“I want Ukraine to be known not only by the war,” an exchange student from Ukraine Oleksandra Ladychenko said. Ladychenko devotes her time at UofA to disseminating Ukraine from a variety of perspectives from her own war experience to cultural aspects.

“I’ll start with the year 2014, and that’s when the Revolution of Dignity happened, which really is marking the beginning of all things,” she said.

The Revolution of Dignity, also known as the EuroMaidan Revolution, is one of the most significant events in Ukraine’s modern history, according to the Kyive Independent. After Former Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign a long-awaited EU association agreement in November 2013, hundreds of thousands of people gathered at  Independence Square in Kyiv to protest the president’s decision, which lasted until February 2014. 

Last month, the 20th edition of the Human Library was held at Holcombe Hall. The annual event is sponsored by Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education, International Students and Scholars and other campus organizations. 

Ladychenko participated as a human book to talk about her war experience in Ukraine. 

When the war started in 2014, she was 11 years old, Ladychenko said. 

“As an 11-year-old, you don’t really know a lot about democracy, or you don’t think a lot about politics,” she said. “You are 11 years old, and all you think about is school.”

Despite her young age and separation from politics, the situation was steadily getting worse enough for her to notice that something was going on.

One day, her schoolmates came to the classroom, pale faced, saying they did not sleep all night because they heard charging and shots. From this story, Ladychenko said her first thought was ‘Oh, something is going on’.

For Ladychenko, that “something” was obviously serious because everyone around her, including her friends, parents, teachers were talking about it.

The situation started getting worse by the time she turned 12 and heard about Crimea being attacked by the Russian military while her grandmother was there, Ladychenko said. 

After Crimia, the Russian military started attacking Donetsk and Luhansk. People from these regions evacuated and some students transferred schools.

“You see these people saying ‘hi, we are here for this year, maybe next year, a year after that, we don’t really know.” Ladychenko said. 

Ladychenko started studying journalism and advertising in university when she turned 17, She learned how hybrid war works and how Russian propaganda affects Ukraine, the war and the world. 

At this point, even though there was a war between Russia and Ukraine, it felt like it would not be coming closer than the regions already affected. However,she was not able to visit her grandmother in Crimea and those who evacuated were still in Kyiv, and  this was how it had been for nine years, Ladychenko told her audience. 

However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had begun. On Feb. 24, Russia started attacking major cities in Ukraine including Kyiv.

“At that time, my screen time was like 12 hours per day,” Ladychenko said, “if I’m awake, I’m scrolling my phone because many of my university friends were in Bucha and Irpin, where the attack was coming from.”

Ladychenko’s relatives called the landline, which is no longer commonly used in Ukraine, to tell her and her family that they needed to wake up, pack and leave Kyiv because Russian forces bumped, so they decided to go to her uncle’s place, which had a basement, to evacuate, she said.

She packed some basic stuff and her laptop in her backpack because she thought she was leaving only for a few days and she needed to work. 

While she and her family were staying at her uncle’s place, she could not help herself scrolling her phone, Ladychenko said. 

“At that time, my screen time was like 12 hours per day,” Ladychenko said, “if I’m awake, I’m scrolling my phone because many of my university friends were in Bucha and Irpin, where the attack was coming from.”

When the missile got into one of her mother’s colleagues’ house and blew the second floor, Ladychenko and her family decided to go even further to Bulgaria going through Romania. 

However, it turned out that only the men who had three or more children under 18 were able to get out, and she needed to separate from her parents and two of her sisters because she went with her cousins and  her uncle, Ladychenko siad. 

A day before she left, her mother came to Ladychenko and gave her her jewelry box and showed her earrings with small diamonds in it, saying that they were from her father when Ladychenko was born. She felt more terrified when her mother said that because for her, it seemed to mean a goodbye to her, she said. 

After four months of separation, her parents ended up back home last June and Ladychenko reunited them a month later. 

Ladychenko came to the U.S. in January through the U.S. Department of State Program and she will study here for a semester.

While she is studying in UofA, she has felt the importance of connection as a student from Ukraine, Ladychenko said. 

Ladychenko has participated in one of the projects that Hugs From Friends, a volunteering organization based in Bentonville, Arkansas hosts, which connects children from Ukraine and the United States. 

“It seems like a little thing, you know, what is the exchange of journeys?” Ladychencko said. “Then, it shows connection, and I think connection is extremely important nowadays because that’s what we want to feel with Western world, the connection that we belong here because that’s what we are fighting for.”

Ladychenko also found that people here often ask her questions not only about the war but the country itself and herself, and appreciate these questions, she said.

“I want Ukraine to be known not only by the war because for example, culture-related stuff will make people relate more to us and help us with the war,” Ladychenko said. “I’m really glad that people here are more open.”

She thinks approaching the cultural aspect is a good way to keep people’s attention to Ukraine because war is one of the political topics, which many people feel is difficult to get into. 

“I think culture brings people together in some ways, so I want our culture to be seen for people to relate to know that we are not just a country in the middle of nowhere. I want people to know that something they enjoy is also related to my country,” Ladychenko said. “And that will make them feel closer to us and it will make them not skip information about what’s going on in Ukraine.”