THE THINGS WE DO...

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

Chance encounters of the Ukrainian kind

Isn't serendipity wonderful? It happens when you least expect it. Most of my chance, truly surprising encounters in the most unexpected places have happened during my visits to Ukraine. From what I have heard over the years, these meetings of people from both sides of the ocean happen more often than we expect. I heard one professor say that he usually sees more of his North American colleagues on the streets of Kyiv and Lviv than he does back in Canada. During the 1988 Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine celebrations, a woman from New Jersey traveled to Rome, then on to Prague and Ukraine. In the pedestrian underpass in the center of Prague, she encountered a woman coming towards her, who was a classmate from the Lviv "gimnazia" (high school), where they had been seatmates back in the early 1940s and now lives in Europe.

July 1998, a weekday,
Lviv, by the Opera

I'm in crowded open air folk art and flea market. I'm interpreting into English for someone who wants to buy some "harasivky" [woven head and neck bands] straight from the weaver. Two women, a mother and daughter, are walking by, and the younger woman turns to me and asks, in Ukrainian, "Pardon me, would you be Pani Orysia from Winnipeg?" It turns out that her sister, now living in Winnipeg, had written to her and mentioned that I may be in Ukraine, and in Lviv, sometime that summer. Now what a chance that on this particular day I would be standing where I was, and they happened to be passing by and, hearing English, guessed that - of all the female English-speakers in Lviv - I was Pani Orysia?

Kyiv, back in the summer of 1993

I'm rushing up the steps of the pedestrian underpass on the Khreschatyk, quickly turn right, and with some force bump into Dr. Jaroslav Rudnyckyj. He had retired as head of the department of Slavic studies at the University of Manitoba (where I work in the library) a few years before, and was then living in Montreal. It did not faze him at all that after some years we have bumped into each other [or really, I into him] in Kyiv. True to character, his first words are whether I know where a particular event was happening in Kyiv right then, because he had come to attend. I have no idea about this event, and we part company.

Lviv Airport, August 1999

As we pile into the bus-type vehicle that carries us from the terminal to the airplane, I notice next to me an older woman and two younger ones, probably her daughters. Something about them seems familiar. Since I am standing beside them, I catch an English phrase among the Ukrainian. And the English definitely has a Lower East Side accent. It was the Kozak family from New York, my brother-in-law's close family friends, whom I had not seen for a good eight or nine years! We have a great conversation in the bus and later on the airplane. Maybe we'll see each other again in another 10 years.

Ternopil, 1998

Our group had crossed paths with a tour group from the United States in the museum in Kolomyia. The leader of the group was the youngest sister of a person for whom I had been a "sestrychka" (counselor) way back in the late 1950s at the SUM camp in Ellenville, N.Y. We meet up again with the same group at the Hotel Ternopil. I notice one of the older men in the group standing in the lobby. I do not recognize him at all, but sense that I should know him. I ask him who he is and where from. It turns out it is Mr. Gensior, my late father's good friend from Newark and Irvington, N.J. He even spoke at my father's funeral 21 years before. After that long a time, I truly did not recognize the face, but cannot explain why I was drawn to find out more about this particular person.

Shevchenkivskyi Hai,
Lviv, August 1999

On a glorious sunny afternoon, my group is about to leave this amazing outdoor architectural museum. Where three paths converge, we are headed towards the exit, as are two groups of young people coming from the other two lanes. Something about them tells me they also are tourists from North America. Indeed, they are "plastuny" from New Jersey. Many of them had been in Winnipeg for the International Ukrainian Scout Jamboree the year before. Among them are friends of my sister and her family, as well as the grandson of our family electrician.

Selo Zubiv, south of Terebovlia,
Ternopil region, August 1999

As often happens on my tours, people who have been in North America for generations want to see the village of their ancestors. In this case, a woman whose whole family left Zubiv over a century ago for Canada wanted to visit her ancestral home, and see if any distant relatives were still around. I went along to interpret. It is a rainy day, and the village roads are muddy. There is only one person walking on the road, and our driver stops the car to ask if he knows anyone in the village with this particular surname. The old man says he does, and we get out of the car to walk with him down the road. Looking back, as far as the road goes, I see kerchiefed heads popping out from each fenced gate on both sides of the street. News travels fast in the village. As we walk, we explain that we are from Canada. The man then asks me if I know Prof. Potichnyj. I answer that I do. It turns out that this man is not originally from Zubiv, but from Pavlokoma, in Poland. During the late 1940s, Pavlokoma was one of the Ukrainian villages destroyed by the Poles in the Akcja Wisla, during which Ukrainians were exterminated and their villages burned. In Pavlokoma the villagers took refuge in the church, which was set afire by the Poles. Some Ukrainians survived, among them a few villagers who were exiled and resettled in Ukraine. Others, like the surviving Potichnyj family members, came to Canada. This man remembered that a Potichnyj had gone to Canada, and he or his father had been this man's teacher. And this would be the only man I would meet on that rainy day on the road in Zubiv.

Kyiv, just inside the entrance
to Pecherska Lavra, August 1999

My group has already headed towards our tour bus, and I am hurrying to catch up. Just at the gate, I hear someone nearby speaking in Ukrainian. This should not be strange, because I do hear Ukrainian all around me - yes, even in Kyiv. But this is the language of my parents' generation, the type of Ukrainian I would hear in North America. I turn to the two women and ask them where they are from. The older of the two introduces herself and her daughter: Lydia Odezynsky from Philadelphia and her daughter Andrea from New York. I then introduce myself as Orysia from Winnipeg. Pani Lydia practically goes ballistic. To my astonishment, she gushes about how she's a fan of mine and enjoys my articles in The Weekly. She and her family will be in Lviv the next day, to have dinner at Ukrainskyi Krai, the restaurant I wrote about in The Weekly the year before. If I'm not mistaken, she even had the article with her. To her delight, I ask if she would be interested in meeting the Mykola of the article, who just happens to be one of the two leaders of our tour and is standing a few steps away, on the other side of the gate. At the bus, Lydia and Andrea meet Mykola Hunko and Ihor Miklosh, the other leader, and make arrangements for their big family dinner in Lviv at Mykola's place the next day. Later, Mykola was pleased to tell me that the party of eight had a good time at his restaurant.

New York, June 1997

Serendipity at its highest. I was in New Jersey for my mother's funeral. There was one day that I had time to take a break, so on the spur of the moment made plans to visit The Ukrainian Museum in downtown Manhattan. On a Tuesday morning I took the train from Morris Plains, N.J., transferred to the subway, and got off at 14th Street and Fourth Avenue, to walk to the museum a few blocks away. I notice a moving van standing in front of the third or fourth brownstone from Third Avenue. There are boxes on the sidewalk, and a young woman is directing the movers. As I pass her, I get a better look at her, stop and ask: "Danya?" In total surprise, we stare at each other, then hug.

We had met at a conference of The Washington Group in Washington a few years earlier. At the reception in the Ukrainian Embassy the evening before the sessions, I was introduced to Danya, a woman from New York, who had arrived at the Embassy straight from train station with her suitcase in tow. She mentioned that she decided at the last minute to come to the conference, and hadn't even made arrangements for a place to stay. Since I had an extra bed in my hotel room, I told her she needn't to look any further, she could stay in my room. She seemed surprised at the offer, and I was surprised at her surprised reaction. To me, it was the normal thing to do. Even though we were both Ukrainian, I guess the differences between a New Yorker and a [now] Winnipegger came out. She did stay, and we had a great time during the conference. Even though we exchanged addresses, after a while I had lost contact with her for a few years, and every so often wondered where she was. It turned out that after working in Manhattan, she was in Moscow and Moldova for a few years. The morning I ran into her in the East Village she was moving her belongings to her mother's home and was leaving for Kyiv for a new position. I was in the East for an unexpected sad occasion, one I had not planned on. In addition, my trip to Manhattan was not specifically planned. If I had turned down one street earlier, or had passed by a few minutes later, our paths would not have crossed, and I would still be wondering what ever happened to Danya. This was a real chance encounter!

There are many more such stories out there. I'm sure The Weekly readers can relate, and have many of their own stories. I'll be in Ukraine in August, and I am already wondering whom I'll run into - when, where and how.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 30, 2000, No. 31, Vol. LXVIII

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