PAT DUGGINS-- Back in February, the US State Department asked me to speak to a foreign delegation about APR’s coverage of human trafficking. One member of that group was an investigative reporter from Ukraine. When I was done, we were all smiling and taking pictures and shaking hands, and this journalist came up and pressed a book into my hands. It was poetry written by Ukrainians about the war with Russia. The stories of pain and loss hammered home for me the fact that I don't know firsthand what it's like in Ukraine, but one part time resident of Huntsville, does. I say part time because Yaryna Zhurba’s hometown is Zolochiv in Ukraine. It's near the city of Lviv, which is close to the border with Poland. She was there as recently as April. The war between Russia and Ukraine may seem recent to us here in the United States, but for Zhurba, it's not. Her grandparents fought against the Soviet Union when the communists ran things. They both spent time in prison in Siberia. Her grandfather died there. We'll talk with Zhurba about that, how Ukraine is doing, and how she's working to rebuild her nation, one jigsaw puzzle at a time That's all coming up on APR Notebook.
PAT-- Yaryna Zhurba is co-founder of Ukrainian Puzzles. We'll be talking a lot about that during our program. She's raising her family in Huntsville, but also maintains strong family ties in Ukraine. And Yaryna, thank you so very much for talking to me.
YARYNA ZHURBA-- Thank you for having me.
PAT-- As we record our talk today, you're just back from visiting family in Ukraine. So can you, can you paint a picture for us with the war going on? What was that visit like?
YARYNA-- First, it's much harder to travel now to Ukraine because all airports are shut down, so travel time now, now it's doubled, and so we go to the airport in Poland is a Krakow, or Warsaw, and then we use land transportation, and it takes time to cross border. So it's the travel itself is very complicated. And then in Ukraine, it's not easy. Is air alerts, you know, because missile strikes, so we need to be cautious of that. And a lot of them and go to hide into like basements. For instance, if one kids at school, you know, they like have in their classes, their classes on upstairs, but with this alert, they go into like, there is a floor in basement that they put also, like desks there, you know, it's much smaller room, so they can, like, have activities play, but they still can read and do crafts and stuff like that. So they spend the time in the basement while the alert, you know, going on missile strikes?
PAT-- I was wondering, uh, here, here in the United States, we fought wars, but it seems like following the U.S .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 Russia is right there. Do you have difficulty getting Americans to understand what it's like?
YARYNA-- 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.
PAT-- 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-- Yeah, 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've been even was I had huge respect and little fear even, you know, 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 be 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, it's only recently started that we can discover our history by ourselves fully, you know, so and to tell it to the world. So it's a lot needs to be done, you know, to have this correct picture of Ukraine, Russian relationship, because and US universities can do a lot in here. Because you had this for long time. You know, being in Cold War, you had the Soviet studies in your colleges. And then when Cold War was over, they all transformed, almost all, to Russian studies, you know, that, or sometimes to Slavic studies. But Slavic studies mainly about, about Russia again. So it's for, for academia in us now, a big task, you know, to introduce Ukrainian studies. You know, to understand, to understand Ukraine. And it's not only because of history, it's also, you know, Ukraine is showing great example of resilience, you know, going through all that challenges, huge, huge ones, Ukraine is still standing and exist. You know, manage to lose it. So it's Ukrainian culture is worth to be learned just to understand the sources of resilience. You know how to survive through very tough times. That is valuable, valuable to know.
PAT-- Now, I understand that you and your sister were the first in your family to go to college. So you're an attorney in Ukraine. How did you wind up becoming to Huntsville?
YARYNA-- I wanted to to go to law school from I decided when I was 12, you know, and during that my work experience, there is an exchange program called Open World program. And it was my very first visit to us. It was back in 2013 so I met many attorneys here, you know, in United States, judges, you know, human rights defenders. During that visit, I met also a guy who we just, it was just brief meeting. We just exchanged our emails, and I came back to Ukraine, and I never saw that. I will be back to Alabama, you know, at least in a short period of time. But, yeah, we were keeping in touch and writing emails to each other longer, longer and longer emails. And then in four months, he came to Ukraine to visit, and we started to date. He might met my parents, and we were dating for several years, going back and forth, and married in 2017 now we have two kids.
PAT-- So when you came to Alabama, was it like what people told you it would be like, or was it different? Or, what do you think?
YARYNA-- In Embassy in Ukraine, you know, in Ukraine, we were like briefed what to expect, and they said to us, so that Americans don't like when you hug them, that you need to keep very big, this personal distance. Don't approach them closely, you know, is the so I remember that very clearly. You may be too friendly if you want to hug somebody. And then, you know, very first person I met like That was meeting me in the airport in Huntsville. She is like, open her arms, like, widely trying to, ah, hug me, you know? And then I had like, hundreds hugs during that stay in Huntsville. It was very hospital, big hospitality experience, very nice. Yeah, I have positive arm remembering from that time.
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 land. Marks and objects that were, that were, you know, damaged or destroyed by the Russians as they moved in. Where did the idea for that come from?
YARYNA-- I came up with that idea because from different point of views. Uh, first, as I mentioned, the people don't know much about Ukraine. You know, it's like terror incognition. 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 news 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. But also that we will do Ukrainian art collection when we started it now, you know, we now have, like, more than 30 different puzzles, but we are adding, adding adding more all the time as other resources allowed to do that. And Ukrainian art collection was released earlier, and discover Ukraine. It's about just different cities and places. But what I realized by myself, you know, working on that puzzle project like because we are trying to do these different collections, right? The one rebuild Ukraine is about destroyed card culture, holidays and then Ukrainian art, about art, yes, and then discover Ukraine. It's about different cities, mountains and so on. But then I understood that really, all of them can be destroyed, that all are under danger of being destroyed places. You know, we did very nice puzzle that's Odessa, you know. So Odessa has Opera Theater is amazing, you know, and is standing on the seaside the view from so just find that puzzle on our website, Ukrainian puzzles com, you know, you will see, but Odessa is targeted so heavily, you know, with missiles, drones, or like all, almost every night, something so. So what is now we discovered Ukraine collection can be destroyed. You know, in white days, it's really Russia. Want to demolish all that and the same Ukrainian art, for instance. Yeah, one of the puzzles that are behind me is with Maria Primachenko art. She is, she is she? She was very unique, naive art and painter, and her museum is what was next, okay, not, not far away. So it was targeted by missiles, so that and burning, and just the people jumped into the fire and rescued what they could, you know, they rescued this art. Almost some of them burned, but almost all they managed to save risking their lives. But I mean, Ukrainian app is also what, what is under, under threat, under under constant risk, and also another moment that is only what we what came to our point. For instance, in 30s, like for poet writers, painters, Ukrainian painters, they were all killed and their artworks were destroyed. For instance, we had this Boychuk school of art that was very, you know, like, innovative for that time. So there are no artworks, almost no artworks, because they were, they were, like, just physically destroyed. You know, it's also like form of henocite, you know, to to destroy cultural heritage in any possible way.
PAT—One puzzle kit I recall has the image of a cathedral in the city of Kharkiv that was damaged. And as we were preparing for this interview, I really got the impression that Kharkiv has special meaning for you. Can you? Can you talk about that.
YARYNA-- Kharkiv is great city. Yes, I didn't live there or study, but I was going to work there to visit and it's located just 20 miles from the border as Russia. So it's targeted. They can strike missiles, you know, just from the other side of border. So Kharkiv is heavily, heavily damaged. And other puzzles, other cardboard puzzles, are made in Kharkiv because Kharkiv has the best industry in publishing and printing. You know, Vivi contract publishing house to make this cardboard puzzles, and unfortunately, there was a missile strike in their facilities in. March 2024, and 2000 of other puzzles burned in as a result of that missile strike. And we never expected to get this 2000 puzzles, you know, like no way. But could you imagine that several months after that, your order of 2000 puzzles is ready, and they said, apologies was a delay. Could you imagine?
PAT-- So again, since we're on radio, listeners can't see your bookshelf, but I see at the very tip top is the kit that Mrs. Duggins and I put together. It's, it's, it's the Antonov 225, cargo plane, which, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, biggest cargo plane in the world, built in Ukraine, and it was one of the first things that the Russians blew up after the invasion. So can you recall where you were and what you were doing when you heard that that that Ukrainian landmark had been destroyed?
ZARYNA-- It was right in very few days of invasion on February 27 at 2022 so they were trying to capture cave, you know. And this airport is near, nearby cave. It's where the this “Mriya” airplane was just like parked, you know, stationary, and it was destroyed there. Yes, it is. It's still very painful for all Ukrainians and for all world, because you have something unique, you know, it's the biggest cargo plane in the world, you know. And because the name is “Mriya” the plane called “Mriya,” it means dream in Ukrainian dream, so like they destroyed our dream. But it's also that we say that we will rebuild our dream. Antonio, they have goal to rebuild is after, after the victory, to rebuild this airplane. By the way, the biggest, next, biggest cargo plane is still Ukrainian. So it's still, now it's called Russlan, you know, it's still Ukrainian. Biggest aircraft, although it's smaller than Diem, but it's symbolically too, you know? So they are trying to kill our dream, but we will rebuild it. We will rebuild it. Maybe I'll show you about that.
PAT-- Anybody who visits my office at Alabama public radio is gonna 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, K Book Arsenal in 2022 (in Kyiv.) They had to cancel it for obvious reasons. But then, you know, they were trying to capture Kyiv for three days. They didn't manage to do that. They were pushed back and Kyiv, you know, restarted the life. And now it's traffic jams, you know, as usual, cave is full of activity, although it's very tough to live, because almost every night there is targeted with missiles and drones and K for them, you know, with very special target. And so K Book Arsenal came back in 2023 so in viva, we had like booths with other puzzles to sell puzzles there. And Zelenskyy visited with his wife, Yalenska, and their family visited, yes. And they approached other booths. And we, like we gifted to them that the puzzle they said it will be for their sons. They have, like teenagers son, and they have to get one is tonight in teenager, so that he will put that puzzle. And we made pictures. Yeah, they are very, very nice couple. I mean, beyond, you know, beyond being like public figures that have, but their family is very nice.
PAT-- Well, Mr. Zelenskyy looked like he was having a good time. I mean, you know, how, yeah, how. What kind of reaction did you get to the puzzles?
YARYNA— So he was trying to pay for that puzzle, you know. And I said, No, no, no, let this. Let me give to let me just make it as a gift, you know. But we will ask you for to make a picture, you know, and that picture will bring much more benefit, you know. He said, Okay, then let's do it. So he was joking. And, yeah, it was 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. About the. Yes, it was nice, brief, but very warm talk.
PAT-- Okay, so as an as an aside, I think I may have mentioned that I had the privilege of covering the US space program for like, 22 years. And you know, back in the days of the shuttle, if it had to go from California to Florida, they put it on the back of a 747, and here's where your Puzzle Kit comes in. The Soviet Union made their own space shuttle, and what did they pick as their, their, their, their cargo plane, but the Antonov 225, so we had, we had the pleasure of putting that, that puzzle kit together. It's hanging in our living room.
YARYNA-- Oh, it's, it's my pleasure. The people you know see value in it. And when they put together it all, it's all what keep us moving forward. You know, what gives us like motivation? And we are glad you know that already three years of our Ukrainian puzzles project, and it's growing. So I hope more and more people will, you know, get to discover Ukraine through puzzles and any other possible way, ways, book, books, you know, just learn about Ukraine. And this is the way to stand with Ukraine too, you know, to understand Ukraine's history, not to believe that what was told about us, or mainly, nothing. NASA was told that we don't exist. So discover Ukraine for yourself, and this is big way to support Ukraine too.
PAT -- Yaryna, as we begin to wrap up our conversation here, I was wondering if, if peace is ever concluded between Ukraine and Russia, a peace that all sides can live with, how long do you think it's going to be before the Ukrainian people recover from the loss, be able to, you know, move ahead with their lives as if the war had not happened.
YARYNA-- That will never be possible. That war changed us so big. You know, many families losses, lost their loved ones, like my auntie. I recently was looking the pictures. You know, we had this like two like more people in other family are fighting, but my Auntie's son, he was 30 years old, only he died in war, and her second son is now fighting on the eastern of Ukraine. So it's, you can't just forget it. It's something that changed us completely. It's trauma will be for generations. You know, we didn't overcome the traumas from previous very big strategies of 20th century follow the more Second World War. And now this is another layer, but trauma. It's not necessarily, it depends how you work with that. It's also because of such a huge sacrifice was made by Ukrainians. So those who are alive, they like, feel obligated and very motivated to do own best to make Ukraine independent, successful countries. That decides own path, you know. So for us, it's like not some empty words, you know, for us, Ukraine is very, very, very valuable, very personal. So it's, it's, we just need that chance, you know, to to get rid of the Russians attempt, you know, and that violent, and we and then just give us space to build own countries. And we will do that. It just needs to be Russian. Russia needs to be stopped. It's Russia will never, you know, make own decision. Oh, okay, let's stop not enough. Never enough, never enough. They just need to be stopped by showing strength. You know this, for moving forward for them, only more losses, and that's only the way they understand this, like bullies. You know, that is the language that bullies. You can't act weak in front of bully. You know, you need to put bullying on put like limits on them. So Russia needs to be stopped, and Ukraine will, like we will overcome that eventually. I mean remembering and it changed us. It just and we will live side by side with Russia. It's where we located. It just we need to be strong enough and to have such a strong army and and weapons that we to be sure they don't invade us again. You know, it's this is the only way to secure peace in that region, strong Ukraine. Strong Ukraine, you know. And. Eventually it will come to dialog, but after, after, it will be justice. You know, it's, it's as a mule Burke process. You know, when those who made those decisions are punished, you know, and country apologize for what they did. Yeah, we can, we can come to dialog, but not before Justice and not before they apologize for what they have done.
PAT-- I studied up a lot before we sat down to talk and but every question that I've offered is from the perspective of an American who does not know what you're going through, does not know what your family's enduring, does not know what the Ukrainian people are going through as we finish up, is there something that I should have asked you that I didn't?
YARYNA-- These are all all great questions. And thank you very much for this conversation. It's like many people ask what they can do. You know, like in us? Because it's probably the same feeling that you are far away and you need to contribute somehow. But how is it? How this is a question? Yes. So there are many, many ways to do to help Ukraine and to learn about Ukraine, to find local groups. You know, for instance, enhanced will we have group that organizing bake sales, and just come and buy bakery for your breakfast, and those money go to support different initiatives in Ukraine. So there are many, many ways and learn about Ukraine. You know, just don't be indifferent. And there are no such thing like small, small contribution here. There are no first thing, because the battle you see is so tight, so tight that each, each action matters and can turn out to be crucial. You know, like, so, so and also one another thing that is very important is to influence your representatives to Congress, because it's where big and very important decisions are made. For instance, it was situation when the weapon supply was stopped to Ukraine, and it's when we asked, like all Americans we know, please call your representative and tell that this is a mistake, that Ukraine needs to have weapons is when you make Ukraine weaker, you only encourage bigger war. So call your congressman, make sure that they and make right, right decision. In decisions is a congress, and we are really grateful, grateful for that support. It's very crucial for for Ukraine now.
PAT—Yaryna Zhurba co founder of Ukrainian puzzles. Thank you so much for talking to me.
YARYNA—Thank you. It was a great pleasure.
PAT-- I'm Pat Duggins and you've been listening to APR notebook. If you'd like to know more about Yaryna Zhurba, Co-founder of Ukrainian jigsaw puzzles. Go to her website, ukrainianpuzzles.com. Is there somebody you'd like to hear from on future programs that you'd like for me to track down, drop me a line at pduggins@apr.org. The producer of our program is Samantha Triana. Our student interns in the APR newsroom are Victoria Rodriguez, lyric, Franklin, Ethan Golson, Kat Townsend Torren, Daniel and Alex Schoenfeld, you can listen again to this episode and everything we do in the APR newsroom by going to apr.org The theme music for APR Notebook is sunny days. I'm Pat Duggins, see you Next time on APR Notebook.
