Curtis “B.J.” Bjelajac won the Kyiv Post’s first-ever Spirit of Kyiv award last year.
This year’s winner will be announced on Jan. 27, at the newspaper’s 10th annual Best of Kyiv awards.
Bjelajac, a 42-year-old American citizen known as “B.J.,” served as the president of the Kyiv Lions Club between January 2009 and March 2010, during which he managed to help the service organization raise $165,000 for charitable projects – a record amount that came amid last year’s sharp economic downturn.
The money got spent on about 20 projects in and around Kyiv. For instance, $50,000 was spent to purchase equipment for the Ohmatdit Children’s Hospital. A similar amount went for renovation and equipment at the pediatrician department of the neurological institute in Kyiv.
Bjelajac, pleasant in manner and quick with a smile, was something of a consensus choice as exemplifying the best of the Spirit of Kyiv. He said winning the award helped raise the profile of the Kyiv Lions Club.
Kyiv is an amazing city, with very cool people, and we are here because we want to be here.”
– Curtis ‘B.J.’ Bjelajac
“In association with the Kyiv Post, the Kyiv Lions Club enhanced its reputation as a reliable charity organization in Kyiv,” Bjelajac said. “For me it was very flattering. I was extremely proud to win the award, especially because other people were nominated for it, including [lawyer] Bates C. Toms and [American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine president] Jorge Zukoski, both amazing people. Now I feel even more responsible to always try to do my best to support Kyiv and people who live here.”
So what qualities is Bjelajac looking for in the next Spirit of Kyiv winner? He hopes the Kyiv Post chooses a person who is actively trying to enhance the quality of life in as many ways as possible.
“They should not just take, they need to give back to the city,” B.J. said. “To live here in Kyiv, to make money and give nothing to the city and then leave, I don’t believe that is the Spirit of Kyiv. I think the Spirit of Kyiv appears when a person arrives to the city and then makes it a better place because of the job he’s done.”
As a past president, Bjelajac’s continues to take part in Lion’s Club activities. At the moment, he is helping to organize a Christmas fair to be held in Vyshenky village near Kyiv on Dec. 5. The money raised will go towards Lions Club projects and New Year’s presents for children from orphanages and boarding schools.
I think the Spirit of Kyiv appears when a person arrives to the city and then makes it a better place because of the job he’s done.
– Curtis ‘B.J.’ Bjelajac
Bjelajac works as chief financial officer of the Science and Technology Center of Ukraine. The organization redirects Ukrainian scientists that used to work with weapons of mass destruction to work on peaceful applications.
The Spirit of Kyiv winner arrived in Ukraine from the American state of California in 1997. Bjelajac came as a volunteer of MBA Enterprise Corps, an organization which deploys recently-graduated MBAs from the top 52 U.S. business schools for long-term volunteer assignments with the goal of driving growth in emerging economies worldwide. Bjelajac helped Ukrainian businesses work on the transition to market economics. He consulted on how to write business plans and apply accounting systems.
During his first time in Kyiv, Bjelajac met his wife. Together they are raising a daughter and are expecting a second child. Once or twice a year, Bjelajac visits the United States, but would prefer to stay in Kyiv.
“I miss my friends and relatives in the U.S., but I don’t miss the United States. My life is here now,” he said. “My family and I are committed to Ukraine, and for the next 10 years we want to live here. My wife and I would like our children to learn the three languages of their family — Ukrainian, Russian, and English.”
Bjelajac’s grandparents moved to the United Stated from the former Yugoslavia before World War II for economic reasons. “I am second-generation American,” Bjelajac said. “Some of my father’s family was from Slovenia, my grandmother was from Croatia and grandfather was Serbian.”
His surname in Serbian means “white.” But the word is so hard to pronounce that Bjelajac does not mind if colleagues call him just “B.J.” He’s been answering to the nickname since he was age 9, when there there was another boy named Curtis on his soccer team. The coach distinguished the two boys by calling Bjelajac “B.J.” and it stuck.
“When I moved to Kyiv, cooking became something I did more than in the United States. We like to cook spicy things like Thai and Mexican food,” Bjelajac said. “We live near Shevchenko Park and like to walk there very much. We enjoy going outside Kyiv for different ‘shashlyk’ restaurants where they have children’s playgrounds.”
“B.J.” is a man content with his place in life. “Kyiv is an amazing city, with very cool people, and we are here because we want to be here,” he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Faryna can be reached at [email protected]
