Kseniia Hnatovska never kept up with the news. Instead, she was a planner. She loved scheduling vacations and weekend activities, from visiting relatives to spending time in nature.
Born in 1988 under the Soviet Union, Hnatovska had moved with her family to Kharkiv, Ukraine, after the country won independence in 1991. She remembers a childhood full of playdates with friends, ballet classes, sledding, and walking hand-in-hand with her mother on the way to preschool.
“I was satisfied with my life,” Hnatovska says. “We had all that we needed.”
Though she had dreamed as a girl of becoming a designer, Hnatovska and her family decided she should attend the Kharkiv National Agrarian University. Her college friends balked at her disinterest in the news, but Hnatovska focused on furthering her own future and autonomy. She graduated in 2011 with a master’s degree in land management, going on to work for an information technology company that made maps for navigation systems. There, where most of the documents were in English, she advanced her skill in the language.
Soon after, Hnatovska was introduced through mutual friends to the man who would later become her husband. They chatted online for a while before riding bikes through the city on their first date.
“He fell in love just when he saw my picture,” she jokes.
They married in 2018 and moved to a suburban duplex with Hnatovska’s mother. The couple welcomed a daughter, Ahnieta, in July 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hnatovska took maternity leave to look after Ahnieta while her husband worked from home.
“COVID changed our life a lot,” Hnatovska says. Still, she was content: “I had a very happy life when I had a child.”
By the end of 2021, Hnatovska became more aware of current events as talk of a Russian invasion increased.
“We just thought it was propaganda and nothing serious can happen,” she explains. “But then they canceled all flights. It was a little [alarm] bell for us.”
On February 23, 2022, Hnatovska went to bed with the singular thought that she had to call her friend’s father in the morning to wish him a happy birthday. But early on February 24, her husband shook her awake. The Russian military had begun bombing Kharkiv — it was one of the towns closest to the border.
Hnatovska’s 18-month-old daughter was still asleep. Her husband and mother hurried to the grocery store after friends texted that it was running out of food. They could not make it to the gas station before it closed, and their car’s tank was almost empty. With nowhere else to go, the family decided to hide in their cellar. They crammed into the dark space with some chairs and toys for the baby.
“We tried to be okay…I was a mom first, and I was thinking how to protect my baby,” Hnatovska explains. “Sometimes I cried when my daughter didn’t look at me.”
The adults kept up with the war through social media. They heard the sound of distant bombings as they played games with Ahnieta. To Hnatovska’s dismay, her daughter quickly adapted to their new routine but also grew weak from the lack of sun and fresh air. For the entire time, Hnatovska feared her family would not survive.
Days later, a family friend offered them an extra gas canister. The family packed up their car, keeping a light load to maximize their gas mileage. Most of the items were for Ahnieta; Hnatovska took only the clothes on her back as they drove away.
“I was just cuddling my baby, and I realized that I was leaving this place forever,” she says.
The family took six days to travel to Hnatovska’s aunt in Gdańsk, Poland, a trip that normally lasts two days but was slowed due to the wartime curfew and checkpoints. The highway was also packed with cars. At night, they stayed with family or friends of friends, eventually leaving their car and reaching the Polish border by bus. Hnatovska ran into her elementary school teacher at a tram station.
“You just felt that the whole Ukraine is in Poland,” she says.
The family stayed several weeks in Gdańsk before American relatives convinced them to come to the United States and secured plane tickets for them within a matter of days. Hnatovska had never dreamed about the U.S., and she felt empty. But she had to get her family far away from the war.
The journey was a whirlwind, from a train to Warsaw to flights to France, Mexico City, and Tijuana. They took a taxi to the U.S. border, unsure what to expect, but the documentation process for the Ukrainians proved relatively simple.
“They already started to understand the process about people from Ukraine,” Hnatovska says. “They didn’t ask any questions, they just made fingerprints and pictures…More time was spent on the border just waiting for our turn.”
Relatives from San Diego drove them straight to the airport, where the family boarded a flight to Portland. They finally arrived in Salem on March 24, exactly one month after the war began.
Through community networks, a member of a Salem synagogue volunteered her home for the family to stay — Jewish or not. People organized meal trains and brought other supplies. Many became their friends.
“Because of people, we survived, and we made our life here,” Hnatovska says. “It’s a country of immigrants…At first somebody helps you, and then you help someone else.”
In October 2022, Hnatovska continued the cycle by taking a job with Salem for Refugees, developing programs for Ukrainian immigrants. Her work has a ripple effect, she says: Every family helped here supports people back in Ukraine, who then help others.
“It’s just a huge world connected,” she says.
Hnatovska has gained a newfound appreciation for life since the war. She likes to say that memories are much more precious than material items — they are what will stick with you despite all odds. She chooses to live life in the present, no longer making grand plans for tomorrow but focusing on today. And Hnatovska now reads the news every day.
She keeps up with loved ones in Ukraine, though she finds it challenging to share happy moments with those still struggling in the war. Her “double life,” as she calls it, is a delicate balance of old and new. But her family has placed their roots in Salem, and she feels she is most needed by the community here.
“I don’t have another option, just move forward. And I have a little person who I need to show that she can be happy and that your family made everything here to be happy and safe,” she says. “I’m happy for now here. But my heart has two countries.”