On Nov. 22, Americans celebrated Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday that is an essential part of the American culture. In Ukraine however, the holiday has always been known merely as something enigmatic and quite foreign mostly portrayed through Hollywood movies and popular sitcoms.
But American expats living in Kyiv gathered together on Nov. 24, the weekend following the Thanksgiving Day celebration, not only to celebrate their national holiday abroad but also to express their gratitude to Ukrainian soldiers and officers defending them from Russia’s aggression in the Donbas region.
The event — Thanksgiving Charity BBQ — was hosted at a restaurant in Kyiv’s eastern left-bank part of the city and organized by Anomaly, a charity run by David Plaster, an American living in Ukraine since 2012.
The American expatriates in Kyiv served customary Thanksgiving meals such as turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and corn casserole.
“The symbol of this – is coming together as a family and showing what we are thankful for,” said David Plaster.
“The idea today is to bring the expat community together with the locals and the spirit of Thanksgiving, to give thanks, primarily to those who are defending the country we live in and allow us to go on with our daily lives and do our business and have our families.”
While enjoying Thanksgiving food in a cozy company of friends and family in Kyiv, as many as 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers and officers are defending Ukraine’s territory in cold winter trenches.
“We’re not living in our home countries, and in this country there’s a war still going on,” Plaster said as he delivered a speech prior to the dinner.
“A lot of young people would like to be with their families. But instead, right now, they are out at the frontlines, fighting so that the rest of us can sit back here.”
Among those invited to the dinner were American military veterans living in Kyiv, U.S., British and Canadian diplomatic envoys, and foreigners involved in veteran charity events in Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian military service people and their families.
Team players of the Kyiv Patriots, a Kyiv-based American football team, also joined the party.
Apart from that, the Anomaly charity also runs many other projects that support veterans, such as the Drinkin’ Bros. community that gathers twice a month at the Pizza Veterano place in central Kyiv to foster companionship among people with military background.
Anomaly’s English native speakers also provide free English lessons to Ukrainian war veterans.
The charity also hosts military medical courses to Ukraine’s Armed Forces and National Guard, and, according to Plaster, over 7,000 Ukrainian soldiers have received such training since 2014.
The Thanksgiving Charity also had a moment of silence in memory of victims of Holodomor, a genocide organized in 1932-1933 under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s leadership, during which millions of Ukrainians were starved to death, mostly peasants living in the bread-rich countryside.
On Nov. 22, the Holodomor commemorative events were held all across Ukraine and also in many foreign countries around the globe.
In the wake of this grim anniversary, the best way to commemorate the victims of the famine was to keep staying united as a family and marking the prevalence of life and peace over death and tyranny, Plaster said.
“(Holodomor) was an act of genocide and an act of terror,” he noted in his speech.
“The best thing we can do is to live our lives and hold our loved ones close — because living a good, productive, and free life is the best way to make our enemies very angry.”
