Laryssa Moskvichova and her youngsters fled the conflict in Ukraine 3 months in the past and resettled in Prudentópolis, a Brazilian city based by Ukrainians. She’s been baking and promoting Ukrainian specialties in her new dwelling — just like the oreshki on the plate. It is a walnut-shaped cookie crammed with doce de leite. The markers belong to her 6-year-old daughter, who had simply been coloring.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
Laryssa Moskvichova and her youngsters fled the conflict in Ukraine 3 months in the past and resettled in Prudentópolis, a Brazilian city based by Ukrainians. She’s been baking and promoting Ukrainian specialties in her new dwelling — just like the oreshki on the plate. It is a walnut-shaped cookie crammed with doce de leite. The markers belong to her 6-year-old daughter, who had simply been coloring.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
Laryssa Moskvichova simply crammed her greatest order but. It took 4 days to make round 360 oreshki, a walnut-shaped cookie crammed with doce de leite, a caramelized condensed milk related to Latin America but in addition utilized in Ukraine.
The recipe she introduced together with her from Ukraine is a favourite of consumers in her new dwelling of Prudentópolis, a small city in southern Brazil the place she fled together with her three daughters — Anastasiia Ivanova, 22, Sofiia Moskvichova, 14, and Ruslana Moskvichova, 6 — when the conflict at dwelling turned an excessive amount of. ( Like different Ukrainian males between the ages of 18 and 60, Laryssa’s husband — the daddy of her two youngest daughters — needed to keep behind when his household fled.)
Orders have been rolling in at a tempo Laryssa by no means anticipated. At this time she’s engaged on buckwheat bread and prepping for an additional spherical of oreshki tomorrow. Within the days to come back, there will likely be apple pies, honey desserts, vareniki dumplings and extra oreshki.
Laryssa Moskvichova bakes oreshkis, a Ukrainian cookie. She’s getting lots of orders for Ukrainian baked items in her new dwelling in Brazil. When she lived in Ukraine, Laryssa earned a dwelling by promoting toys and parrots and parakeets from her dwelling.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
Laryssa Moskvichova bakes oreshkis, a Ukrainian cookie. She’s getting lots of orders for Ukrainian baked items in her new dwelling in Brazil. When she lived in Ukraine, Laryssa earned a dwelling by promoting toys and parrots and parakeets from her dwelling.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
As she kneads the dough for her final loaf of bread and locations it right into a pan lined with parchment paper, the afternoon solar streaming by the sliding glass doorways resulting in the balcony of her fourth-floor condo, she calls her new good friend Andreia Burko Bley, who grew up on this city and has sons the identical age as her two youngest daughters.
They discuss Andreia taking the ladies to highschool the following day and the menu she made to assist Laryssa’s baking enterprise, which she and her husband, Paulo Bley, have been circulating on WhatsApp.
It is a straightforward dialog, crammed with laughter and the sort of chatter that often solely comes with years of friendship.
However in actual fact, the 2 girls solely simply met in early June.
Andreia is one among many natives of the Brazilian city who realized Ukrainian earlier than she realized Portuguese. Her great-grandparents have been among the many first households some 116 years in the past to come back from Ukraine and settle Prudentópolis, named for a previous president of Brazil and now often known as “Little Ukraine,” with the hopes of constructing a dwelling by farming the out there land.
The Ukrainian-Brazilian Folks Dance Group Vesselka was based in 1958 and performs all year long — and even travels overseas. Above: a rehearsal of their dwelling base of Prudentópolis.
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
The Ukrainian-Brazilian Folks Dance Group Vesselka was based in 1958 and performs all year long — and even travels overseas. Above: a rehearsal of their dwelling base of Prudentópolis.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
This sudden hub of Ukrainian tradition has turn out to be a haven for eight households who escaped the conflict within the final six months with the assistance of a worldwide community of evangelical church buildings. Its ties to dwelling present not solely a way of consolation to these like Laryssa and her daughters but in addition deep connection to those that stay there and a bond that may’t be damaged, even when they’ll, sooner or later, go dwelling.
Ukrainian refugee Anastasiia Ivanova reads the Bible on the terrace of the condo in Prudentópolis, Brazil, the place she now lives together with her mom and siblings. The religious 22-year-old says her religion is what’s helped her get by all of her trials. She introduced her Bible together with her when the household fled Kharkiv.
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
Ukrainian refugee Anastasiia Ivanova reads the Bible on the terrace of the condo in Prudentópolis, Brazil, the place she now lives together with her mom and siblings. The religious 22-year-old says her religion is what’s helped her get by all of her trials. She introduced her Bible together with her when the household fled Kharkiv.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
From concern in Kharkiv to pizza (with a fork) in Prudentópolis
Three pizza bins are stacked within the heart of Andreia and Paulo’s eating desk. Bruno and Ruslana, classmates on the close by elementary college, giggle as they take turns swinging a plastic sword at one another within the adjoining lounge, the odor of melted cheese and tomato sauce wafting by the air.
Their moms chat as they get plates and cups from the kitchen cabinets, and Paulo does his greatest to speak to Sofiia. When the few Ukrainian phrases he has picked up within the final couple months and slowly spoken Portuguese do not work, he turns to Google Translate for assist. He did not develop up right here and isn’t of Ukrainian heritage like his spouse, so he is studying as he goes.
On the subject of pizza, Paulo Bley of Prudentópolis and his two sons have a distinction of opinion with their Ukrainian tablemates. The Brazilians use a fork. The Ukrainians most actually don’t!
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
On the subject of pizza, Paulo Bley of Prudentópolis and his two sons have a distinction of opinion with their Ukrainian tablemates. The Brazilians use a fork. The Ukrainians most actually don’t!
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
The chatter among the many eight — in Ukrainian, Russian, Portuguese and English — continues as all of them settle in across the desk. Andreia locations utensils subsequent to the spherical cardboard bins. Sofiia provides a smooth chuckle on the considered consuming pizza with a fork and knife. It is likely to be the norm in Brazil however not in Ukraine. She folds her slice in half earlier than taking a chew.
Fun over a sizzling meal was unimaginable for the 14-year-old and her household just some months in the past. When bombs began falling from the sky over Chilly Mountain, the Kharkiv neighborhood the place they lived, the household hid in Anastasiia’s room — on the heart of their duplex, it did not have any home windows — for every week. When the bombs received so shut they destroyed a college the ladies as soon as attended, they moved right down to the cellar, an area so small they could not lay down.
However the Ukrainian winter was too harsh and after two days of temperatures as little as -22° Fahrenheit, Laryssa knew they needed to go away.
“It was actually troublesome,” she says. “I needed to go away my dwelling behind. It was all we had. We had half an hour to seize all the pieces we may, pack our baggage and run. All I may consider have been my women. I received all of their issues and forgot about myself. I did not even take my garments.”
Anastasiia Ivanova reveals photos of her dwelling metropolis of Kharkiv on her telephone, depicting the destruction throughout the Russian invasion that started on Feb. 24.
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Anastasiia Ivanova reveals photos of her dwelling metropolis of Kharkiv on her telephone, depicting the destruction throughout the Russian invasion that started on Feb. 24.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
They piled into their automobile and headed towards Poltava, a vacation spot for a lot of since preventing hadn’t but reached town, giving them time to resolve the place to go subsequent. In the course of the 20-hour journey — it ought to have lasted not more than two, however the mass exodus meant site visitors was bumper-to-bumper — a good friend of Anastasiia’s referred to as and really useful they get in contact with a pastor in Poltava from the identical church they attended in Kharkiv, Phrase of Life. He was a part of the International Kingdom Partnership Community (GKPN), a bunch of evangelical pastors discovering secure locations all over the world for Ukrainian households to begin over.
Days later, when he despatched a message over WhatsApp asking who wished to go to Brazil, Laryssa’s response was instant.
“The very first thing I assumed was, no, I am not going to Brazil,” she says. “I do not know anybody in Brazil, I do not know something about it. What’s even there?”
However her religion that God would information her and a dream she had the place she was flying over the ocean made her change her thoughts. The household launched into a journey that may take them to Lviv, Warsaw and Frankfurt earlier than boarding a airplane to Brazil.
When she first arrived in São Paulo together with her women — a visit paid for by the church — Laryssa had no thought she would find yourself in Prudentópolis. The 4 spent every week at a church-owned farm exterior Curitiba, the capital metropolis of Paraná state, earlier than Pastor Vitalii Arshulik, from the First Baptist Church of Prudentópolis and a member of the GKPN, helped set them up in a totally furnished condo with a stocked fridge, made doable with donations from the neighborhood. The church can also be serving to the households who’ve come to Prudentópolis and neighboring cities with psychological well being help, language courses, job-hunting assist and cash to pay payments, together with hire, for his or her first 12 months in Brazil.
“We really feel joyful to have the ability to assist, to have the ability to do one thing for our Ukrainian brothers and sisters,” says the pastor, who got here to Brazil together with his spouse and youngsters 5 years in the past to go up the native Baptist church. “It was crucial for us to welcome them.”
Pastor Vitalii Arshulik got here to Prudentópolis from Ukraine 5 years in the past to steer the native Baptist church, bringing his spouse, Iryna, and their youngsters. The pastor has helped make the 8 newly arrived refugee households really feel at dwelling: “It was crucial for us to welcome them.”
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Pastor Vitalii Arshulik got here to Prudentópolis from Ukraine 5 years in the past to steer the native Baptist church, bringing his spouse, Iryna, and their youngsters. The pastor has helped make the 8 newly arrived refugee households really feel at dwelling: “It was crucial for us to welcome them.”
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
A brand new faraway dwelling seems lots like Ukraine
For Laryssa and her daughters, the connection between their new dwelling and their outdated one was a shock. They did not look forward to finding conventional brightly coloured picket Ukrainian homes and church buildings with cupolas, a robust delight in Ukrainian dance, music and artwork — like embroidery and the intricate designs of pysanka Easter eggs, two mediums that Andreia nonetheless practices at this time after studying them from her grandmother as a baby — and their language spoken within the streets of the Brazilian city of 52,000.
“I by no means thought that in Brazil, throughout the ocean, individuals would converse Ukrainian,” says Anastasiia. “It is a miracle.”
Gustavo Hull has danced within the Ukrainian-Brazilian Vesselka Folklore Group since he was 7. The dancers put on conventional Ukrainian clothes. At proper: the Ukrainian heritage of residents of Prudentópolis is showcased of their hand-painted Easter eggs. City resident Andreia Burko Bley likes to make the eggs for herself and to provide as items. Others promote them to vacationers.
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Gustavo Hull has danced within the Ukrainian-Brazilian Vesselka Folklore Group since he was 7. The dancers put on conventional Ukrainian clothes. At proper: the Ukrainian heritage of residents of Prudentópolis is showcased of their hand-painted Easter eggs. City resident Andreia Burko Bley likes to make the eggs for herself and to provide as items. Others promote them to vacationers.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
Sofiia and Ruslana have been rapidly enrolled at school, whereas Laryssa and Anastasiia set to work organizing their new dwelling. They discovered solace in church and the kindness they acquired from neighbors, each Ukrainian and Brazilian.
However it wasn’t till they have been befriended by Andreia and Paulo that they honestly felt that they had discovered their place.
Laryssa and Andreia met throughout college pickup after Andreia’s 6-year-old, Bruno, insisted she meet Ruslana’s mother. He was positive they might be quick mates, since his mother’s first language was Ukrainian too.
College students leaving college in Prudentópolis. Within the background are the Nossa Senhora do Patrocínio Church and the cemetery. The church, constructed within the mid-Twenties, showcases the Byzantine structure typical of church buildings in Ukraine.
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College students leaving college in Prudentópolis. Within the background are the Nossa Senhora do Patrocínio Church and the cemetery. The church, constructed within the mid-Twenties, showcases the Byzantine structure typical of church buildings in Ukraine.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
The Ukrainian spoken in Prudentópolis is barely completely different than what’s spoken in Ukraine at this time — an older model of the language that was delivered to the city over 100 years in the past and by no means modified — however that did not cease Bruno’s prediction from coming true.
The 2 girls rapidly turned shut, and their households adopted go well with. Andreia began driving Ruslana and Sofiia to highschool so they would not need to stroll, and he or she and Paulo helped promote Laryssa’s baking enterprise and set her up with the fundamental components she wanted to get began. Earlier than coming to Brazil the mother of three was already an entrepreneur, operating her personal on-line toy retailer and a enterprise promoting pet parrots and parakeets.
Andreia Burko Bley of Brazil (proper) is of Ukrainian descent, shares a meal together with her new good friend, Ukrainian refugee Laryssa Moskvichova. The 2 girls solely met in June and have turn out to be shut mates. Their households eat collectively usually. Laryssa brings recent baked Ukrainian items. Andreia and her husband, Paulo, make sure that the favourite meals of Laryssa’s youngsters are on the desk.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
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Gabriela Portilho for NPR
Andreia Burko Bley of Brazil (proper) is of Ukrainian descent, shares a meal together with her new good friend, Ukrainian refugee Laryssa Moskvichova. The 2 girls solely met in June and have turn out to be shut mates. Their households eat collectively usually. Laryssa brings recent baked Ukrainian items. Andreia and her husband, Paulo, make sure that the favourite meals of Laryssa’s youngsters are on the desk.
Gabriela Portilho for NPR
When Paulo seen that Sofiia, the quietest of the household and an avid painter, had a telephone case with Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Evening,” he gave her his sweatshirt with the portray replicated throughout the entrance.
“Their hearts are so large,” says Anastasiia. “In Ukraine we did not have mates like this. They’re very caring individuals.”
For Andreia and Paulo, what they’ve acquired is a lot greater than what they’ve given.
“I by no means imagined it might be like this,” says Andreia of her relationship with Laryssa’s household, “that it might maintain this cultural, emotional and non secular weight.”
As Laryssa stands on the black stone counter of her kitchen, dusting an order of oreshki with powdered sugar earlier than packaging it to be picked up, she sighs.
She by no means imagined she would even go to Brazil, however now, due to one thing so simple as kindness, it is beginning to really feel like dwelling.
Jill Langlois is an unbiased journalist primarily based in São Paulo, Brazil. She has been freelancing from the most important metropolis within the western hemisphere since 2010, writing and reporting for publications like Nationwide Geographic, The New York Occasions, The Guardian and Time. Her work focuses on human rights, the surroundings and the affect of socioeconomic points on individuals’s lives.
Gabriela Portilho is a documentary photographer and journalist whose work investigates the connection between human beings and their communities, specializing in environmental and gender points. A member of Girls {Photograph} and Native Company, she lives in Paraty, a small metropolis between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
