They’re homesick and sick with fear, caught in a state of affairs the place the one recourse is to be a rock for his or her households, rock stars in their very own orbits. To dwell properly.
To attempt to be glad.
It’s an unattainable mission, however Anastasiia Slivina, a rower at USC, and Yuliia Zhytelna, a tennis participant at Cal State Northridge, they’re doing their greatest.
As a result of the house they’re pining for is Kyiv, Ukraine’s cosmopolitan capital, with all of the historical past and tradition and nature operating by it, the place their households are hunkered down, afraid however “staying sturdy,” as Slivina put it, “and believing in our win.”
Ukraine has been beneath siege since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022, beginning a bitter, bloody battle that’s grow to be the biggest land battle in Europe since World Warfare II.
Zhytelna’s dad and mom and three of her 4 siblings are there, in Kyiv. So is Slivina’s 19-year-old brother, who isn’t permitted to go away Ukraine, and mom – a physician who has earned an award from the federal government there for her work over the previous yr – who wouldn’t go with out him.
They insist that Anastasiia and Yuliia keep put, out of hurt’s manner in Southern California, the place they got here to compete. To review journalism or worldwide relations. To expertise America.
Now, for now, there’s no going again.
“I miss house so badly!” stated Zhytelna, the tennis participant who hopped on a Zoom name just lately carrying fashionable round-rimmed eyeglasses. Her power brightens a show; it’s simple to see why she’s gained over coaches and teammates, professors and a retired pediatrician with whom she stays.
“I wished to return again in December,” she stated. “However my dad and mom stated, ‘Keep. Do your factor. You'll come again when there’s not sirens and no missile hazard and stuff like that.’”
“Yeah, my household says the identical factor,” stated Slivina, 22, the rower with lengthy, expertly manicured fingernails. She’s somebody who thinks deeply, her coach stated, about each assertion she makes, cognizant at all times of who and what she represents – particularly, in all probability, on this Zoom with Zhytelna and a reporter.
“You by no means know,” Slivina continued, “the place the missile’s gonna fall, and if it’s gonna fall on you these days that you simply’re there. Or no matter else can occur. However it’s really very onerous being right here as a result of there’s a factor, one in every of our sports activities (psychologists) instructed me, if you find yourself protected however a few of your family members will not be …”
“Survivors syndrome?” Zhytelna provided.
That’s it. “Survivor guilt,” Slivina stated.
“I've the identical factor!” Zhytelna stated.
“Technically, I’m protected,” Slivina defined. “I'm fed, I’m heat, I’m a pupil, I get up, I do my day by day stuff. However there in my nation, persons are in full battle. And you're feeling responsible and you are feeling such as you would reasonably be there. And you're feeling such as you’re not imagined to be glad.
“However my mother was like, ‘I understand how you are feeling, however we're so, so glad that you're there and never right here. It's important to be sturdy and hold doing all your factor. And sometime sooner or later, you’ll do one thing for our nation.’
“And I positively will.”
AN ESCAPE, BUT NO ELIXIR
A part of what they’re doing now – regardless of their nervousness, or possibly, in some half, due to it? – is excelling at their sports activities.
A devoted, stalwart coach, Slivina is making good on these attributes that USC ladies’s rowing coach Josh Adam says acquired him to recruit her within the first place, together with contributing to the Trojans’ season-opening 7-0 victory over UCLA final month.
And Zhytelna, after failing to crack the Matadors’ lineup final season as a redshirt freshman, is 12-4 in singles play and 12-5 in doubles, her turbulent relationship with tennis having taken a U-turn for the higher.
Sports activities are many issues. Leisure. Distraction. One thing to bond over. And typically an out-and-out outlet, like final month, after the video circulated of Oleksandr Matsievskyi, a Ukrainian prisoner of battle, being executed by Russian troopers.
The world noticed the 42-year-old former electrician standing in a shallow ditch, calmly puffing on a cigarette, carrying fatigues however unarmed, a Ukrainian insignia on his sleeve and “Slava Ukraini” on his lips.
His closing unflinching phrases – “Glory to Ukraine” – unfold on Telegram and Twitter, ubiquitous and unavoidable for even Zhytelna, who’d weaned herself off graphic footage from house.
“Everybody noticed it uncensored,” she stated. “And it acquired me so offended. The subsequent day, I used to be enjoying towards Youngstown, and I used to be so offended. The poor woman, she simply met me not in a great spot. I used to be actually, actually offended.”
Eliska Masarikova, Youngstown State’s No. 3 singles participant, stood no probability: Zhytelna gained, 6-0, 6-2.
Sports activities provide escape typically, certain, however they’re not an elixir. So final weekend, towards Cal State Fullerton, Zhytelna discovered herself going through a Russian participant and faltered, dropping management of her feelings and the match, 0-6, 6-2, 6-3.
“She was only a hen along with her head reduce off, form of the outdated Yuliia, being pissed off – and you then realized, ‘Look who’s throughout the online,’” stated Gary Victor, who, in his 26 seasons main the CSUN ladies’s tennis program, has helped gamers navigate all varieties of tragedy, however who hadn’t earlier than had anybody with household residing by battle.
“It wasn’t a private factor, however for Yuliia, something related to that a part of the world proper now's an open sore.”
Normally, although – 99% of the time, Victor stated – Zhytelna doesn’t present indicators of the toll the battle is taking.
Equally, Slivina “has been a really skilled 90% of the time,” Adam stated, “by way of the herculean effort it takes to verify the crew doesn’t understand how a lot of what’s happening again house is definitely affecting her.”
‘LOVE AND CARE’
They’re conscious, in fact. They’ve proven “a whole lot of love and care,” stated Slivina – “Stassie” to these teammates.
USC’s rowers wore shirts in help of Ukraine in-house. And the employees there made certain Slivina will get the summer season courses she wants to take care of her scholarship earlier than she returns for her fifth season – the NCAA’s bonus COVID season coming in clutch.
And final yr at Northridge, teammate Magdalena Hedrzak helped the Zhytelna household discover a place to remain for some time in her native Poland. One other tennis contact helped get Zhytelna’s youthful sister safely right into a tennis academy in France. And Yuliia leaned so much on her doubles accomplice earlier than she graduated, Ekaterina Repina understanding the place she was coming from higher than simply about anybody, as a result of Repina is Russian.
“Once more,” Victor stated, “out of the worst of humanity comes one of the best.”
“That’s what shocked me, that folks cared, how a lot folks care about me, particularly,” stated Zhytelna, who discovered a house in Tarzana final summer season with Nan Zaitlen, a 74-year-old Jewish girl whose dad and mom survived the Holocaust.
“It's a very two-way road right here,” Zaitlen stated “By way of what is finished for one another. I actually, actually care about her as a result of she’s very simple to care about, and she or he could be very caring.
“And I hold telling her: I look ahead to visiting her in Kyiv.”
Athletics additionally affords a platform and a few recognition, together with the CalHOPE Braveness award, which acknowledges California faculty athletes who’ve overcome stress and nervousness related to adversity – an honor for which Slivina and Zhytelna had been celebrated at an L.A. Kings recreation in February. After all, Slivina makes it clear: “I by no means overcame something.”
However she is studying to dwell with this harrowing actuality, utilizing Ukrainian literature and music as a salve for that open sore.
And like Zhytelna, she does interviews, in print, and on podcasts or tv, talking up on their nation’s behalf, reminding these round them going about their day-to-day enterprise right here in regards to the day-to-day atrocities taking place there.
‘THAT SITUATION’
If it’s not the Golden Rule, it’s an adjoining ordinance: You by no means know what somebody’s going by, so be sort. However typically you can have an thought; typically you ought to know.
“It occurs I really feel like on a regular basis, I meet somebody and I inform them I’m from Ukraine, and so they’ll be like, ‘Oh, is that state of affairs nonetheless taking place?’” Slivina stated. “I really feel prefer it’s simply loopy that folks ask that.”
That state of affairs.
That state of affairs that, in October, delivered a missile to the road over from Zhytelna’s, shattering the home windows in her household house.
That state of affairs that had Slivina’s brother warming meals by candle this winter, the electrical energy out for lengthy stretches.
That state of affairs that’s made them miss birthdays. That’s altered their nation a lot that they know they gained’t actually acknowledge it after they return.
That state of affairs that’s killed greater than 42,000 folks, injured at the least 59,000 and displaced one other 14 million. That threatens their family members day by day.
A state of affairs they’re preventing, like Sviatoslav Vakartšuk – the frontman of Slivina’s favourite band Okean Elzy, who often performs on the frontline – by no matter means are at their disposal. “As my machine gun,” the rocker stated, “I’m utilizing my guitar.”
Guitar or gun, racket or oar, they contend and so they deal with a state of affairs that, sure, continues to be taking place.