OUR DIASPORA: A visit with the Ukrainian community in Tbilisi

by Theodora Turula

TBILISI, Georgia - The Ukrainian Community Center here in the capital of Georgia has much in common with our own Ukrainian diaspora centers in the United States. Every weekend it resonates with the chatter and laughter of children and teenagers learning about their heritage and socializing. They dance Ukrainian dances, sing Ukrainian songs and learn about their culture.

As with our own younger generation, when talking among themselves they tend to speak the language of the country in which they are living. But the differences between their surroundings, their living conditions, and ours, are profound.

None of these youngsters travel by car from home to the center: most families cannot afford to maintain a car or purchase gasoline. Very few of them live in a home with central heating: there has been neither central heat nor hot water in the city for several years. As in their own homes, the electrical lights in the center come on occasionally, but more often than not there is no electricity.

Georgia is a country whose infrastructure is in shambles. Factories are shut down, jobs are scarce, salaries are minimal ($50 per month is considered a living wage), and most people can barely make ends meet. The average pension, seldom paid, equals $7 per month.

The Ukrainian Community Center is located in an outlying area of the city, on the second floor of a dilapidated building. It was made available to the Ukrainian community by the city's mayor, at the request of Mykhailo Borys, the center's director and a former high-ranking military officer in Georgia. The last stop of a metro line is just a few blocks away. This is a residential neighborhood of typical nine-story Stalin-era apartment blocks. There is no guarantee that the local politician won't decide to take back the premises for some other purpose, so the community leaders are reluctant to make any major capital improvements in the property.

The center's school of dance is an example of what can be achieved with minimal resources and maximum dedication. There are two groups of students: grammar school pupils and high school students. The instructor conducts the class with a firm hand, providing basics in ballet, and then proceeding to folk dance. The studio has a combination of bannisters, metal bars and windowsills (big, drafty windows, of course) for a barre and a barely even presswood floor (before each session the dancers check for protruding nailheads). There are no mirrors. The dancers' footwear ranges from ballet slippers (not many) to sneakers, to regular shoes; music is provided by an old tape player. Putting together costumes for the dancers' performances is a difficult task, given the scarcity of money to purchase materials. But the young dancers' smiles are bright, their precision and enthusiasm a pleasure to watch.

In addition to dance classes, the students, along with many of their parents, attend one of several English language classes, since a working knowledge of American English is considered indispensable if one wishes to get ahead in the working world. There is even one poor old computer, usable when - and if - there is power to turn it on, or fuel with which to stoke the generator (with a couple of car batteries used for storage.)

The classroom and dance "studio" are equipped with smoke-belching wood stoves. These are the only two rooms in the center that have any heat, and even that is rationed, since wood, too, is not cheap. When the dancers are done for the day, the floor is sprinkled with water to keep down the dust, and the room becomes the venue for choir practice. The center has a small generator which is fired up when electricity is needed for small tasks at times when the power is off.

Other activities at the center include a youth band (another thing for which the generators come in handy). They, as well as the Chervona Kalyna dance ensemble and the Sonechko children's choir are often invited by the Ukrainian Consulate to perform at various functions and to represent the Ukrainian diaspora's cultural heritage among their Georgian neighbors.

Last year the Ukrainian Community Center was able to scrounge up enough funds to organize two weeklong excursions for its youth, with one group traveling to the mountains and another to the seashore. They are hoping it will be possible to repeat the experience this year, allowing the teenagers an opportunity to escape from their drab city environment for at least a short time.

Most of the Ukrainians in Georgia are people who were resettled during Soviet times, sent here to work in factories or to serve in the armed forces. Ukrainians released from Siberian camps were often not allowed to return to Ukraine, and quite a few came to Georgia. Mr. Borys, the leader of the Ukrainian diaspora community in Georgia, is from Western Ukraine. He arrived here as a military officer and married a Georgian. His monthly pension of almost $45 far surpasses that of most pensioners. According to Mr. Borys, most of the elderly live in apartments that are bare of any non-essential items as they have sold off everything of value to buy food.

There are not many in the Ukrainian diaspora that are fluent in their native language, although they all read and understand, knowing enough to sing Ukrainian songs, recite poetry and the like. The center has started classes in the Ukrainian language as the number of requests for them keeps growing.

No Ukrainian churches or parishes exist in Georgia, as there are not enough people for a congregation, either Orthodox or Catholic, that could afford the cost of supporting a clergyman and his family. The faithful attend services in the Russian or Georgian churches. Yet there is hope: the Ukrainian Churches are re-examining the possibility of providing clergymen for the congregations in Georgia.

It was the Consulate of Ukraine in Tbilisi that put me in touch with Mr. Borys, and I visited the community center several times in February of this year. Perhaps some day it will be possible for me to visit again - perhaps even find a way to assist the community to expand its activities. It is the children and youth who need help most of all, so they will have a chance for a better future, as well as the elderly, whose future is now.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 28, 2002, No. 30, Vol. LXX

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