Ukrainians fleeing war swell Modesto’s sister city to twice its normal size
Modesto’s sister city in Ukraine so far has been spared by the invading Russian military, although an airport near Khmelnytskyi was obliterated late last week in an air assault, according to news updates and people here with contacts there.
The population of Khmelnytskyi (say mel-NIT-ski), around 268,000, normally is a little bigger than Modesto but has doubled with internally displaced refugees since the invasion last week. Stores and restaurants closed to regular business now are crammed with cots for those fleeing the violence, said Svitlana Krasynska, who once studied at Modesto Junior College and now works in Southern California.
Wailing sirens periodically send people scurrying to bomb shelters although Khmelnytskyi has not been shelled yet, says the Facebook page of Oleksandr Symchyshyn, mayor of Khmelnytskyi. Civilians are forming militia units and have barricaded four main entrances to slow the enemy’s progress, should Russian soldiers advance on the city, said Richard Navarro of Modesto Sister Cities International.
“I’m mortified,” said Krasynska, who has daily contact with family in Khmelnytskyi. Her brother and his wife and teenage son are housing several refugees from elsewhere in Ukraine, and keep busy cooking and delivering hot meals to bomb shelters.
“They’re scared, they’re stunned and shocked, but they are really determined to fight and to do whatever is needed to stop this invasion,” she said.
Khmelnytskyi and Modesto have exchanged delegations since becoming sister cities in 1987, before the 1991 fall of the Iron Curtain. Each group brings gifts now displayed in corridors at Modesto City Hall — a Ukrainian vase, figurines of happy people, a porcelain plate.
Modesto Mayor Sue Zwahlen said she was touched at the slogan “War is not healthy for children and other living things” embroidered in framed artwork titled “Modesto-Khmelnytskyi Friendship Quilt” crafted by someone in Ukraine. Other quilt squares harvested from Modesto on a Ukrainian delegation’s visit feature a local 4-H club, a girl scouts troop, MoBand and the Modesto Symphony.
“It is painful to see what is happening,” said former Modesto Mayor Garrad Marsh on his Facebook page. He and his wife visited Ukraine during his term in office, 2013-16, and hosted Ukrainian delegates and students in their home.
Navarro said a contingent at Tuesday’s 5:30 p.m. Modesto City Council meeting will ask for an official declaration supporting our sister city in Ukraine. Modesto also has sister cities in Canada, Japan, India, Mexico, France and China.
“I’m sick, literally sick” with heartache for friends in Ukraine, said Navarro, who has traveled three times with Modesto delegations to Khmelnytskyi that included tours of other Ukraine cities, including some under attack. Visits “sensitized me that these are humans, these are lovely people,” he said. “I feel like I want to protect them and support them in their cause, in a peaceful way.”
Solange Altman, who practiced immigration law in Modesto more than 25 years, welcomed Ukrainian delegates in her home twice in recent years, including an attorney upset that Russia had annexed nearby Crimea in 2014. “I remember her saying, `If they come into Ukraine, we will fight.’ I thought, what incredible chutzpah,” Altman said — affirmed by universal recent praise at the Ukrainian resistance. “They are fighters who will not just roll over and let the Russians do whatever they want.”
Krasynska’s MJC studies in 1997-98 led to a business and nonprofit career before a return to academia, including a Harvard University fellowship.
Her homeland is grateful for the outpouring of international concern, including sanctions driven by the White House, Krasynska said. But “it’s just not enough to ward off the threat we’re facing,” she said. “We need more sanctions, more military aid, more political pressure.”
Meanwhile, “We will persevere,” she said. “Ukraine will fight to the last Ukrainian. We won’t give in and we won’t surrender.”
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
