CLEVELAND — Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich spent Wednesday in Cleveland. Yovanovich visited the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Tremont where she was greeted by school kids and local Ukrainian leaders. Her visit comes as Northeast Ohio continues to play a growing role in aiding those fleeing the war-torn country 14 months after the Russian invasion.
“We were sixth in terms of the number of people coming here; I've heard recently that we're number five,” said Global Cleveland President and CEO Joe Cimperman. “Fifth highest population of Ukrainians fleeing the invasion right here in America in Northeast Ohio. Every single day people are hiring people, people are finding housing for them, there's support through the faith-based community, through our elected officials. It is as bipartisan as I've seen anything.”
Nataliya Teluk can relate. She was in her home in Kyiv in February of last year when she recalled her phone kept ringing.
“The U.S. Embassy called me like six times one night warning me that I and my daughter we have to leave the country,” she said. She brought her daughter to Northeast Ohio to join her American-born husband and the couple’s son who had come to the U.S. earlier. She returned though to Kyiv for work literally hours before the start of the war.
"At five o'clock I woke up from massive explosion because I live in Downtown Kiev so my windows were shaken,” she recalled. She ended up re-joining her family here in September and has since been overwhelmed by the hospitality of not just the Ukrainian population but all of Northeast Ohio.
“When I came here I see that there are many opportunities in Northeast Ohio for our people to discover. There are jobs; there are good people; there are good I would say, culture,” she said.
It's precisely the message she plans on taking back to Kyiv when she returns on Sunday for a three-week trip to visit her father and check in on her home. “This is a good place to discover; this is a good place to start their life."
Yes, she may have come out to Tremont this day to see the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine but she, like so many others who have come before her, sees herself as an ambassador of Northeast Ohio and that Ukrainian religious leaders say is a sign of Northeast Ohio already rubbing off on her.
"Kindness of America is a beacon for others to learn,” said Bishop Bohdan Danylo of St. Josaphat of Eparchy in Parma. “Whatever problems and trials and tribulations as a nation we are going through we still are the country that welcomes. We are saying make a home here if you are for a week, a month, perhaps for a few months until that war ends."
