Going abroad for a week is an adventure, but moving to another country is a life-changing decision.
Iryna Yeroshko, a 20-year-old Kyiv student and freelance photographer who interned at the Kyiv Post, wants to explore how long-serving expatriates live in Ukraine. In her photography project “Second Home” she profiles expats from developed countries who moved to Ukraine over three years ago and settled here to live and work.
She records the expats’ stories on her blog at www.behance.net/irennes along with their photos.
Yeroshko says it was her own travelling experience that made her wonder about the fate of expats. Raised in a developing country to where many of her peers have considered emigrating, Yeroshko eagerly compared Ukraine to the countries she visited. She questions whether life in Ukraine really is worse than abroad. So, she asked a bunch of expats.
Yeroshko started the project in March towards the end of the EuroMaidan revolution. She aims to discover why people migrate to Ukraine while many Ukrainians want to flee.
“The immigrants who moved here made a conscious choice to live in a much poorer and less prosperous state than the country of their origin. So, I was interested what could be the reason for that,” Yeroshko told the Kyiv Post.
So far, Yeroshko has collected the stories of six expats in Kyiv and Lviv, all Americans. The photographer aims to collect stories from citizens of other first-world nations as well.
The most remarkable interview that Yeroshko recalls was with Cara Denney, a 50-year-old former American publishing company employee.
“All interviews are special to me, but Cara’s move to Ukraine was the most complicated,” Yeroshko said.
Before coming to Ukraine Denney had a successful career in the U.S., but she dropped it all to “start doing some meaningful work that would make a change in society.” Denney is currently involved in several social projects in Ukraine and volunteered during the EuroMaidan Revolution.
“We even cried together with Cara a couple of times when remembering the events of EuroMaidan,” Yeroshko said.
The student plans to travel around smaller Ukrainian cities to meet the expats who live there.
“Ukrainians should focus more on Ukraine. There always will be Stalins and Putins, Hitlers and Yanukovychs, but Ukraine should be the best Ukraine it can possibly be,” Denney said in an interview with Yeroshko.
Yeroshko hopes that such thoughts can help Ukrainians who discover the “Second Home” to re-think their attitude towards Ukraine as their motherland.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected].
