OSYPENKO, Ukraine – If someone told Anna Burkut that one day she would tend to geese and goats and change her native town of Avdiyivka in the Donbas to a small village in Zaporizhzhya Oblast, she would have never believed it.
In early 2014, Burkut, 35, her husband and their three children were just about to move into a new apartment in Avdiyivka, an eastern Ukrainian city 700 kilometers southeast of Kyiv. But the war that Russia started in eastern Ukraine through its proxies interrupted her plans.
It was when their town was captured by separatist fighters in April and her own brother was severely wounded by a mine explosion that she knew they had to put their plans on hold and evacuate.
Since then, Avdiyivka, with its pre-war population of 37,000 people, has been balancing over the brink of humanitarian disaster amid the escalation of hostilities instigated by Russian-backed militants.
The Burkuts decided to head south to Berdyansk where they had an old 32-square-meter house in the village of Osypenko just near the city. They didn’t visit it often: the old house was way too small for the Burkuts and needed heavy renovation. But their plans to sell the house had been constantly falling apart.
“Every time we were about to close the deal, something happened and the buyers backed off,” Burkut explains. As it turned out, it was for good.
New life
The Burkuts moved into their tiny village house in summer of 2014 and started new life from scratch.
Osypenko with its 4,000 residents felt strange to the city-type Burkuts. First, there was no work, secondly, there were no friends or any activities for the children. On top of that, the family had to register as internally displaced people (IDPs) to get state aid which was time-consuming.
In the meantime, Burkut decided to look for startup grants that encouraged entrepreneurship in the IDPs community and the creation of small businesses.
“I never wrote a business plan in my life, but I decided to give it a try. Basically, I squeezed everything and more from my brain to pitch it,” she explains, gesturing lively in her kitchen piled with construction materials.
Burkut got her first small grant of Hr 26,000 ($900) for breeding geese. Burkut also kept an eye on all the training for entrepreneurs and later started approaching the village head with the ideas on how to improve the village’s life by organizing concerts, holiday celebrations in school, dance classes for children and modernizing local library.
“I’ve always been very active, I was a member of a dance troupe in Avdyivka once and now really wanted to help the community,” the woman explains. “But the most frequent question I heard was ‘Are you an expert?’ It felt like they didn’t need anyone who actually wanted to make a change.”
It didn’t let Burkut down. She started her activism by helping the local choir organize a school concert for the Women’s Day.
Despite her optimism, however, Burkut often looked back at their life in Avdiyivka and even wanted to return there in summer 2016 when the situation in the town became more stable.
“You know, we always wanted to make Avdiyivka famous and it eventually happened… but not in the way we planned,” Burkut explains. “Also, children started going to school here so it wasn’t a good time to move anyways.”
Downshifting
Eventually, it was Avdiyivka that in summer 2017 connected the Burkuts with a U.S.-born blogger Peter Santenello – someone they now call a member of their family.
Santenello, 40, grew up about four hours from New York City in Panton, Vermont. He always wanted to travel the world and was curious what the former Soviet Union nations were like. He started fulfilling his dream in 2012. Four years later, he arrived in Ukraine for the first time.
“I remember I had pen pals when I was 14. We wrote letters back and forth with people from parts of the Soviet Union. I would write to them and they would write to me and it piqued my interest,” he was quoted as saying in one of his recent interviews.
He returned to Ukraine in 2017 to work on his video blogs about the country’s life and try all the things Ukrainian.
One thing was missing in his plan: a host family. That’s when Santenello’s Ukrainian assistant, a native of Avdiyivka, decided to reach out to the Burkuts, a family she knew well.
Burkut was excited about the idea, but her husband was reluctant.
“He didn’t want the whole country to see our life,” she recalls, adding that eventually, she ensured the husband that it will be fine for them to share their house with Santenello and he probably won’t film much in their house. “And then he arrived with his film crew and I was like ‘oops’,” she adds, laughing.
Santenello stayed with them for 1.5 months. He documented his life in Osypenko with the Burkuts in the YouTube series called “Fish Out Of Water.”
“The most difficult part of my experience was worrying that the content I was producing about their story could bring the family any negativity,” Santenello told the Kyiv Post. “They were bold to open up their doors and hearts and let their story out to the world. Most people wouldn’t have the courage to do that at such a close level. And there is a vulnerability in this, which I consider a strength.”
Santenello immersed himself in rural life, helping the family to dig a well, sell corn on the local beach, mow the garden and repair a house that didn’t have either gas or running water.
“We were surprised by his open mind and sincerity,” Burkut explains. “He’s so genuinely curious and kind that soon people started bringing him presents.”
Transformation
Their lives were never the same after meeting Santenello, Burkut says. The American has even influenced their eating habits.
“He’s living a healthy lifestyle and didn’t eat sausage, for instance, which we liked a lot,” she says. “He left and we stopped eating it too.”
Later, Burkut’s elder son Maksym, 14, got a camera as a present from Santenello and now travels to Berdyansk to take photo classes. His siblings, 6-year-old Alisa and 3-year-old Mark now prefer English-language cartoons over Ukrainian or Russian ones.
“I feel this family has a power in teaching many lessons to Ukrainians and the world,” Santenello said.
Despite the young age, Alisa became Santenello’s teacher and a friend.
“When I just arrived, I was shocked, I did not understand what was happening, I could not talk to people. It was very difficult, but this girl – Alisa – she just approached me and smiled. She’s incredible – and she made me want to have my own children, too,” Santanello says.
It was a bittersweet moment to say goodbye, but they kept messaging every day to keep their friendship growing.
The biggest surprise for the family, however, came a few months after Santenello’s departure. He started a fundraising campaign and collected more than $2,300 so that the Burkuts could have an indoor bathroom and running water.
When Burkut shows their bathroom, she can’t help smiling. “I remember how Peter couldn’t have a proper shower in here, now – thanks to him, things are different.”
Even though they had a chance to relocate to other countries they never did.
“I love Ukraine and I don’t want to leave,” the woman explains. “I know what I can do for the community and I’m ready for it.” To the Burkut’s great surprise, their American friend now decided to stay in the country for a while, too.
“What is still surprising to me is that some people in Kyiv don’t often see the beauty of the city, or the culture, and think that Europe or the US has all of the answers,” Santenello says. “I get it, if someone wants to move for a better opportunity this makes complete sense but they will miss some of the things that are special about Kyiv and Ukraine that they won’t find in the rest of Europe or the USA.”
Check out more videos from Ukraine at Peter Santenello’s YouTube channel.
Read more about displaced people in Berdyansk here.
