Ukrainian exchange students find reminders of home during week-long trip to Cleveland

Karyna Lohvynenko, a 19-year-old Ukrainian student studying law at Cardiff Metropolitan University in Wales, has dreamed of going to the U.S. since childhood. A few years ago, she applied to study in the U.S. for a year through the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) program, and was accepted. 

Then there was a pandemic and a war. The exchange program canceled its trips due to COVID-19 in 2020. On Feb. 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Lohvynenko and the other Ukrainian students accepted into the exchange program couldn’t go on the year-long trip. 

When Lohvynenko got a message about a three-week trip to Warsaw, Poland; Washington, D.C., and another U.S. host community through the American Leadership Experience (ALEX) program, she said yes right away. But she wasn’t sure if it would really happen, she said.

“Even in Warsaw, when we were waiting for our flight to Washington, I was like, ‘No, I’m not coming. No, for sure, no.’ And then we’re here,” Lohvynenko said. “So, dream came true.”

Lohvynenko was one of 11 Ukrainian students who spent the last week of the trip in Cleveland. They stayed with host families, explored the city, and participated in leadership workshops and volunteer activities organized by Cleveland Council on World Affairs (CCWA) from Oct. 26–Nov. 2. Many of the Ukrainian students are currently living outside of their home country during the war. In Cleveland, they learned about the city’s Ukrainian heritage and connected with the Ukrainian community here. Before gathering with their host families for a closing ceremony at the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Tremont last Wednesday, they made connections with Cleveland residents at schools, restaurants, community organizations, and City Hall.

Funded by the U.S. Department of State, the ALEX program is for students who were accepted into the State Department’s FLEX or Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange & Study (YES) programs but didn’t get to come to the U.S. due to the pandemic. The program returned for a second year for Ukrainian students who couldn’t come to the U.S. in 2022 because of the war. 

Last fall, CCWA hosted students from Senegal through the ALEX program, partnering with the American Councils for International Education both this year and last year. Other U.S. cities that hosted Ukrainian students through the ALEX program this year include Colorado Springs, Seattle, and Detroit, said Andrew Kovach, senior program officer for the exchange programs at CCWA. 

Exploring Cleveland and connecting with its Ukrainian community

Lohvynenko found out that Cleveland would be her host community only a few days before arriving here. She said she thought Cleveland would be a “megapolis” based on the pictures she saw online, but it felt smaller when she got here. 

She enjoyed visiting Playhouse Square, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Case Western Reserve University’s campus. She hopes to come back to Cleveland and is considering applying to CWRU for her master’s degree.

“One of the points to come here was to see American life from my point of view … I need to see it by myself,” Lohvynenko said. “I had expectations, and I wanted to face the reality. My reality for now is pretty good, so I’m happy (with) what I’m seeing.” 

The students also went to Rid-All Green Partnership urban farm, EDWINS Restaurant, and Cleveland City Hall. They volunteered with Cleveland-based humanitarian aid organization MedWish International, packaging medical supplies to send to Ukraine, and participated in leadership workshops led by Warrensville Heights-based Effective Leadership Academy and retired Coast Guard Admiral June Ryan.  

Lohvynenko carved pumpkins for the first time with her host family, who also introduced her to sloppy joes. They played shuffleboard, went to Happy Dog, and cooked both American and Ukrainian food together. 

Artem Mozharov, another student in the exchange program who recently started studying computer science at Philipps University-Marburg in Germany, handed out candy during trick-or-treating with his host family. 

“I liked eating together and talking, because talking is the key,” Mozharov said. “I loved the culture exchange, the conversations. It was the most important part for me.” 

Mozharov tried corned beef sandwiches and other American food on the trip, but the food he liked most was from the restaurants in Ukrainian Village in Parma. There, he had Ukrainian dishes, like borscht, which he doesn’t cook for himself very often.

With local nonprofit Refugee Response, the exchange program students met Ukrainian high school students at Valley Forge High School in Parma Heights. Lohvynenko said she was surprised to learn that Cleveland, and specifically, the suburb of Parma, has a large Ukrainian community.

Of the approximately 40,500 people of Ukrainian heritage living in Ohio, about 3,300 live in Parma, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey five-year estimates. Parma’s Ukrainian Village is home to multiple Ukrainian churches and various Ukrainian businesses, including restaurants, grocery stores, and shops. 

“They told me that you have a Ukrainian Village here, but I thought it (would be) like they have two restaurants, maybe one cafe, maybe one church, maybe that’s all. But when I got there in Parma, I loved it here,” Mozharov said. “Also, this museum, I feel like it’s home here.” 

In the museum he saw the embroidered shirts called vyshyvanka for multiple regions of Ukraine, photos of Ukraine that remind him of home, books he had in school, and a computer game he played with his father. 

Building connections between Ukraine and Cleveland

Andy Fedynsky, the director of the Ukrainian Museum-Archives, welcomed the students to the space for the program’s closing ceremony on Wednesday, Nov. 1. The museum is located in Tremont, where Ukrainian immigrants first settled in Cleveland. It holds collections of Ukrainian artwork, historical records, and other artifacts showing life in Ukraine and in Cleveland’s Ukrainian community, along with a gift shop.

“America welcomed us and gave us a home, a standard of living that the whole world envies. And so, working at the Ukrainian Museum and contributing to America from our culture is a way of giving back,” said Fedynsky, whose parents were born in what is currently Western Ukraine and fled during World War II because his father, a journalist working for a newspaper in Lviv, Ukraine, was at high risk of being executed under dictator Joseph Stalin’s regime. 

Fedynsky was born two years after the war, in Innsbruck, Austria, and when he was eight months old, his family brought him to the U.S., where he said he “grew up immersed in the Ukrainian community,” including celebrating Ukrainian holidays and speaking Ukrainian at home and at gatherings. 

At the closing ceremony, each student walked up to the front of the room to receive a certificate and say a few words, thanking CCWA and their host families. Students said that they were sad that they didn’t get to spend a year in the U.S. but grateful for the connections they made during the short trip. 

“It’s amazing to meet our people on the other side of the world and to feel … a little bit like it’s home,” said Yehor Kozynets, one of the students. “Thank you, all of you, and Slava Ukraini!” Kozynets said, which means “Glory to Ukraine.” “Heroiam slava!” (“Glory to the heroes!”), the crowd of students, host families, and program partners responded, showing support for Ukraine in the ongoing war against Russia. 

“We are so excited to see where all of you go in your studies and in your careers. So please stay in touch and just know you always have a home here in Cleveland,” Kovach, the CCWA senior program officer, said to the students at the ceremony. 

The Ukrainian Museum-Archives is located at 1202 Kenilworth Ave., and it’s open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Visit the museum’s website for more information, or contact director Andy Fedynsky at afedynsky@gmail.com. Visit the Cleveland Council on World Affairs’s website for more information on volunteering to be a host family or host a dinner for international visitors. Contact Andrew Kovach, CCWA’s senior program officer for the exchange programs, at akovach@ccwa.org.