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While waiting four months for Canadian visas in 2022, 17-year-old siblings Albina Holokhvastova and Danyil Holokhvastov stayed with host families in three countries. Each home moved them further and further away from their home in Bila Tserkva, located just outside of Kyiv, Ukraine.
They first stayed in Zamość, Poland for nearly two months. It was their first time travelling alone and they didn’t know any Polish.
Holokhvastova said some host families expected the siblings to be more extroverted and explore their cities — something easier said than done.
“All I wanted to do was to sit in my room and talk to my friends and look at the news,” Holokhvastova said. “It’s not really a journey or travelling. You’re escaping your own home.”
When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Holokhvastova’s parents were vacationing in the Dominican Republic with family friends who lived in Canada. Following the invasion, one of them helped Holokhvastova’s parents move to Canada.
Holokhvastova remained in Bila Tserkva with her brother and uncle. Her mother called daily, pleading with her to move to Canada, but Holokhvastova resisted.
“There were videos of people stopping the tanks with their hands and I was going to be one of them,” Holokhvastova said. “I was like, ‘Mama, I’m not leaving.’”
When bombs started dropping over Bila Tserkva in late February, residents were encouraged to shelter in basements. Holokhvastova recalled walking to her local community centre’s basement with her dog, Jessie — the lightest of her 10 pets she could carry.
“The basement was not safe, it was super small … and it was mad old,” Holokhvastova said. “I have a better chance of living in my house if it falls down than in this basement trapped underground.”
Holokhavastova stayed in the basement for just one night. She said it was terrifying to know the shelter could be hit at any second — and she would be powerless to stop it.
“It’s almost like your body is always tense.”
By March, Holokhvastova said she believed she was safe in her home, despite routinely falling asleep to the sounds of sirens. That changed when her cousin’s friend’s house — close to her school and a 15-minute drive from her home — was bombed.
After the bombing, her mother quickly arranged for Holokhvastova and her brother to stay with family friends in Poland. They boarded an evacuation bus the next day.
“I still kind of have this survivor’s guilt,” Holokhvastova said. “Part of me is like, ‘Why did I get a chance to leave?’”
Their first stop was a school gymnasium full of tents, where they received blankets and tea. Despite the language barrier, Holokhvastova said volunteers at the emergency centre provided much-needed care.
“It was really wholesome, experiencing that kindness,” she said.
After spending the next two months with a host family, the siblings moved to Kessel, Germany for three weeks, where they met Margo Kobliakova, who had fled Kyiv in February 2022.
Kobliakova said the pair immediately became friends, spending two weeks together chatting on walks and in cafés.
“I wasn’t expecting to meet that kind of smiley and really outgoing girl,” Kobliakova said. “Albina is like sunshine.”
Three years later, the two keep in touch over social media. Kobliakova, who returned to Kyiv last year, said she hopes Holokhvastova will also return to Ukraine so the two can meet again.
“Those two years in Germany were difficult for me,” Kobliakva said. “Hanging out with [Holokhvastova] was one of the most bright and colorful memories of my German life.”
Holokhvastova and her brother then spent a week in Belgium before receiving Canadian visas and moving to Ottawa.
Holokhvastova recalled the whirlwind of meeting people in evacuation lines, new friendships and families opening up their homes to her and her brother.
“These people … have been there for you during the hardest times,” Holokhvastova said. “I switched three host families, I met so many people and I haven’t learned how to say goodbye yet.”
After four months of separation, Holokhvastova and her parents were reunited in June 2022.
In September 2022, Holokhvastova started her first day of Canadian high school. She had already graduated in Ukraine, but needed to take English classes to get into university.
At the time, she understood English but couldn’t speak fluently. Students and teachers consistently asked if she was an international student, despite her saying she was from Ukraine.
She said she felt “really alone” and like nobody knew about the war in her country.
“It was just really hard to speak about my experience and explain it to people.”
On that first day of school, Holokhvastova wrote a reflection in her notes: “I’m a refugee, I’m not an immigrant.”
Looking back, she said she understands why people can be afraid to use the word “refugee.”
“Not everyone is fine to be called that,” she said. “To me personally, it just acknowledges the fact that I fled war. I’m here not because I was immigrating, I genuinely was escaping home.”
Holokhvastova is now a first-year communications and media studies student at Carleton University. After she finishes her degree, she said she’s going back to Ukraine.
“That’s where I belong,” she said. “I still feel a lot of guilt that I’m here in safety … I have to do something.”
To that end, Holokhvastova found work as a nanny for a Ukrainian family and started donating to the war effort. She attended Ukrainian events and hosted her own fundraisers. On her social media, she committed to posting at least once a day about the conflict.
But Holokhvastova said her “real advocacy work” began when she discovered Carleton’s Ukrainian Students’ Club in 2024. Since then, she’s spoken with members of Parliament about her experiences as a Ukrainian refugee, but she said events which showcase Ukrainian culture, like Discover Ukraine, are equally as important for her country’s preservation.
“War is not the only thing that you can learn about Ukraine,” she said. “It’s a beautiful country and that’s what we are fighting for. When we show this music, art and photography, this is what we are afraid to lose.”
Erin Okrainec, a member of Carleton’s Ukrainian Students’ Club, said Holokhvastova reached out before starting at Carleton to learn more about the club’s advocacy work.
“Even though she wasn’t a student, she wanted to help,” Okrainec said. “She would repost our stories and posts on Instagram, Facebook.”
Now as a club member, Okrainec said Holokhvastova continues to “help wherever she can” and look for creative ways to raise awareness about Ukraine.
“She always wants to do the best she can,” Okrainec said.
Holokhvastova stopped short of calling herself an activist, saying there is still work for her to do and everyone should commit to activism.
“There should be at least something you genuinely care about,” she said. “To that degree, I guess everyone can be called an activist.”
Almost three years since Russia’s invasion, Holokhvastova said it’s important to remember the conflict began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and that it is about people and their fate, “not just a place on the map.”
She said she sees strength in keeping Ukrainian cultural practices alive and that her people’s resilience inspires her continued advocacy for her country.
“I just see a lot of strength in how unbreakable people are,” Holokhvastova said.
“Resilience is in the fact that we still fight for what’s ours.”
Featured Image by Sadeen Mohsen/the Charlatan.
