PAT DUGGINS – The on again, off again. Cease fire and peace talks between Russia and Ukraine appear to be off again. This subject hits home for one, part time, resident of Huntsville. I say part time because Yaryna Zhurba’s family is still living in the city of Zolochiv in Ukraine, near the border with Poland. She visited there as recently as April. Zhurba is working to rebuild her nation. One jigsaw puzzle at a time. We'll explain that one in a minute, but first we discuss the difficulty in making Americans really understand what the Ukrainian people are going through…
PAT-- Here, here in the United States, we fought wars, but it seems like following the US Civil War in the 1860s our major conflicts have been someplace else. It's either going to be Europe or the Pacific or Korea, Vietnam, Ukraine's conflict with with Russia is right there. Do you have difficulty getting Americans to understand what it's like?
YARYNA ZHURBA-- It looks like. It's difficult to understand. You know, more Ukrainian soldiers died fighting in second world war than British American and French together. Really, really tough history, but also heroic history, you know, because we, after going through all that, we exist and we believe that, like, yes. Now we need to win this war that we are going through. You know, at least we are in situations that world understand that this is Ukraine, yes and stands with Ukraine, and we're really grateful to all Americans and in us standing with Ukraine, it's very important, because we have now chance to break, you know, this cycle of history and get our chance to build own country and protect ourselves from future invasions.
The fact that your grandparents fought against the Soviets and they, you know, served time in Siberia. What was that? Was that? Was that a portion of your, your personal history that you discovered yourself, or did your, did your parents sit you down and say you need to know this? And here it is.
YARYNA-- So my grandmother, I remember her. She passed away when I was 12, so I had chance to talk with her, although she didn't talk much. She was very, you know, not not emotional person, not talking much, you know. But I knew I had, you know, like being child. I mean, even was, I had huge respect and little fear even, you know, but, but I knew like that, she is very heroic person, and went through a lot, and on my dad's side, since it was like earlier in history, and I still don't know where he is buried, because he died in Siberia. You know, I never was in Russia, never, and never had, like a desire to visit, to go there, but one, only one thing that I could go in future, you know, if I would have chance to find where my great grandfather is buried.
PAT-- The only bad part about interviewing on the radio is that when someone tunes in, they can't see the bookshelf behind you, because I see, I see at least four of the Puzzle Kits from Ukrainian puzzles, all jigsaw puzzles, many of which have images of landmarks and objects that were, that were, you know, damaged or destroyed by, by by by the Russians as they moved in. Where did the idea for that come from?
YARYNA-- But I came up with that idea because from different point of views, as I mentioned, the people don't know much about Ukraine. You know, it's like terra incognito. And yes, you can read and Google and so on, but it's also like I can do in this way. But also those news, you know, they are very painful about destroying cultural heritage in Ukraine. You know, it's just the flow of that muse was so bad, so and in that very bad emotions, that idea came up, and I thought, Okay, that's it. It's what I will be working on. Because besides other some volunteering activities and so on, and we validated it, you know, first we will do puzzle collections with some of those destroyed destroyed cultural heritage landmarks. So just find that puzzle on our website, Ukrainian puzzles com. You know, you will see.
PAT-- Anybody who visits my office at Alabama public radio is going to see pictures on the wall of. Me with like sportscasters or astronauts or people that I meet talking for the State Department stuff like that. But I gotta say, you got me beat. All right. You have several photographs of you alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy with one of your Puzzle Kits. In fact, the Antonov 225, how did you make that happen?
YARYNA-- It happened in 2023 because this big book fair that I mentioned to you earlier, Kyiv book arsenal (festival) in 2022 they had to cancel it for obvious reasons. But then, you know, they were trying to capture KU for three days. They didn't manage to do that. They were pushed back and restarted the life. And now with traffic jams, you know, as usual, Kyiv is full of activity, although it's very tough to live because almost every night there is targeted missiles and drones. Kyiv for them, you know, this very special target. And, so came back in 2023, so in viva, we had like booths with other puzzles to sell puzzles there. And Zelenskyy visited with his wife. Zelenskyy family visited, yes, and they approached other booths. And we, like, we gifted to them that puzzle. They said that before there are some they have, like teenagers, son and they have two kids, very brief conversation. You know, because of security, we actually, before that, organizers of the festivals said that no posted pictures while they are in the arts. Now it was big security preparations for that. But yes, it was nice, brief but very warm talk.
PAT-- You can hear my full conversation with Yaryna Zhurba, co founder of Ukraine puzzles tonight at 7pm on APR notebook on Alabama Public Radio. I'll see you then.
