It is closing in on one year since Russia began its assault on Ukraine.
As the death toll continues to mount, many Ukrainians have fled their homeland for the safety of other countries, including Canada.
Roughly 15 Ukrainian families have settled in North Bay since war broke out, and on Saturday, some of those families gathered at Orchards Fresh Food Market on Trout Lake Road to draw attention to the ongoing “nightmare” in their homeland.
Sporting jerseys and holding tightly to their national flag, young children and their parents sang a popular Christmas song in their native language in a “flash-mob” style performance stopping shoppers in their tracks.
“It is like a Christmas song, so it is probably the most popular of Christmas songs. A week ago it was Orthodox Christmas, like Ukrainian Christmas, and usually, people sing this song at Christmas time,” explained Dmytro Korotkykh who arrived in North Bay almost four years ago, well before fighting broke out in Ukraine.
Not a day goes by when he doesn’t think of his friends and family members left behind, and how their lives have changed.
“For example today lots of missiles hit the city where I was born and lots of people died. They hit a residential multi-level building almost in the centre of the city,” Korotkykh stated.
“People are mostly struggling from power outages. So sometimes it is 12 hours or even more a day of power outage and also heating because Russia hit mostly infrastructure targets the last couple of months. But people are staying strong.”
Korotkykh went on to say “This nightmare happened since February 24th, so almost one year. And we really appreciate the help the Canadian people do for Ukraine, but we just want people not to forget that something is happening. Yes, it is far from here, and it is really hard to understand and feel what people feel there, but it is really a disaster.”
Following the singing, people were asked to take part in a moment of silence, to reflect on the current situation.
Organizers say the goal of their small concert was to draw attention to the need to help Ukraine and to promote the cultural unification of Ukrainians in Ontario and Canada.
Andrii Bieliaiev has been living in North Bay for roughly four months since leaving Ukraine.
Saturday’s brief concert was his idea.
“I wanted this to help the people to remember what has happened in Ukraine. My goal is to have people think about what is now Ukraine, about brave Ukrainian people.”
Bieliaiev says it appears the newcomers are adjusting to life in Canada, and they are thankful for the donations of food and clothing.
Organizers say a video of the performance will be used to invite other Ukrainian groups to coordinate a future synchronized event to take place at the same time in other cities.
“My goal is that this will be in other cities like Calgary and Vancouver and Sudbury. This is my goal,” said Bieliaiev who says Canada has done much to support Ukraine.
“Even more. First, it was military support, and second, all Ukrainians who want to be safe can get residence in Canada because the Canadian government made a special immigration program for Ukrainians which is really good for us because we can be safe with our families in this place. “
Ukrainian families new to the area have also received additional support from the local community.
“Your community is really nice because so many people give us clothes, furniture, shelter all that we need and so many people have supported us and every time, everybody asks what kind of help we need, and it is not only for me, it is for all Ukrainians who visited your beautiful city,” said Bieliaiev.