Ukrainian resident Natalia Blazhko-Getman is staying at her daughter's cabin in the upper Chilkat Valley. She fled her country soon after Russia launched its invasion. She has no return ticket home to Ukraine.
Of the more than 4.8 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled their country since Russia's invasion started in late February, one, an 82-year-old woman from Odessa, is now living in the Upper Chilkat Valley with no return ticket home.
Alla Blazhko-Getman is living with her daughter and son-in-law, Natalia and Hans Baertle, at 26 Mile Haines Highway.
Natalia Baertle, a former high school teacher in Ukraine who moved to Alaska in 2010 after marrying, said she attempted to fly her mother out of Kiev to Frankfurt, Germany before the invasion, but Lufthansa, Germany's largest airline, had stopped flying in Ukrainian airspace. Then on Feb. 24, she started getting text messages from friends around the world asking if her relatives were OK.
"It was 5 or 6 a.m. in Ukraine," she said. "I called my sister and she told me, 'It's panic in our city right now. I cannot talk to you but we are under attack from the sea. I heard bombing.'"
Her sister lives on the outskirts of Odessa, a port city in Ukraine, where two residential homes were bombed by Russian troops. Her mother has an apartment in downtown Odessa, where residents were being warned by officials that Ukraine was under attack.
Because the airspace was closed, on Feb. 25, the day after the invasion, Blazhko-Getman stayed in Natalia's sister's cellar before they could arrange a ride out of Odessa to cross into Moldova, a 40-minute drive. They waited in a 30-hour-long line at the border. Moldovans prepared hot meals, tea, coffee and cookies, blankets and warm clothes for the refugees. From there they drove through Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany before boarding a plane to Seattle from Frankfurt.
Natalia's sister decided to return home and volunteer for what Natalia calls the "volunteers for territorial defense." Natalia scrolls through her phone and shows pictures sent from relatives and friends: a mullah donned in body armor, a group of civilians filling sandbags on the shore of the Black Sea, her cousin in full battle gear in a Kiev bunker. Natalia scoffed at Putin's claim that his forces were sent to "denazify Ukraine."
"Right now, my Ukrainian friends and relatives are part of the resistance. A lot of my Jewish friends and their rabbi didn't leave Odessa. ... People who want to be 'liberated' are making sandbags."
Blazhko-Getman doesn't speak English. Although she's visited her daughter in Alaska before, Natalia said she's lonely, bored and wants to return home. Her daily life in Odessa included walks to the Black Sea beach, shopping in markets and conversations with friends. Natalia describes her as a "social butterfly" who misses her friends and family.
"She's worrying about Ukraine," Natalia said. "Yesterday she was crying and said she needs to be there. I asked why. She said, 'I need to die there.' She thinks she will not be back before she will die."
Natalia translated for her mother, who said she was shocked that Russia would attack Ukraine, and although she supports an independent Ukraine, said she never saw a stark difference between Russians and Ukrainians.
"It's hard to tell the difference, but I was born in the Soviet Union when we were brothers and sisters," her mom said. "I don't know what happened."
As Natalia was being interviewed, her mother told her she "shouldn't talk so much. It's dangerous." That mentality comes from living for the bulk of her life in the Soviet Union, where dissent was met with imprisonment or worse, her daughter said. When Natalia's grandfather purchased a vehicle in 1963 that his neighbors considered bourgeois, they reported him to the police. He was imprisoned for six months.
Despite hesitancy to speak about politics, mom is decidedly against Russian political influence in Ukraine. She said she's heard rumors that Putin wants to restore former Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych, who was ousted in 2014 and is now exiled in Russia.
"No Putin, no Yanukovych in Ukraine," Blazhko-Getman said. "I don't like to talk about politics. But if Yanukovych decided to return to Ukraine, and he will be supported by Putin, we will eat him alive."
Natalia said her mother is conflicted because of upbringing, and because even some of her friends and family are divided on issues related to Russia's influence on their country. Like her mother, they were taught that Russians were superior to the rest of the world, and that they were hated and mistreated by the U.S. and the West.
Natalia said she's disheartened by some of her Russian friends back home, and even in Juneau, who are still supporting Putin's invasion. She said they, and some Americans she knows, blame NATO, the West or President Joe Biden for pressuring Russia and influencing Ukrainian politics.
"We're talking about influence, who's going to be influenced in Ukraine. I'm perfectly OK if it will be the U.S. Record this. I'm perfectly OK with this," Natalia said. "Europe? OK. I don't want to be back in Russia. I want to speak freely. If I don't like my president, nobody will send me to prison."
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