Assimilating to American life has been easy in some ways for Mariana Kosarieva, but she does remember her kids’ nightmares and some of the darker moments of life in Ukraine. (Photo provided — Todd R. McAdam/Cortland Standard)

So much has changed for Mariana Kosarieva since February 2022. She lost her home in Kharkiv, Ukraine, when Russia invaded. She lost her nation when she fled for safer shores after the house next to hers in Lviv was bombed.

She lost her husband – to divorce, a victim of distance both physical and emotional.

Kosarieva is in a whole new world, now. If she alternates a bright smile describing her love for Cortland and the volunteers who brought her here with tears over what her daughters have had to endure – she shrugs off her own struggles – she still talks with her hands, but no longer refers to her translator app.

She’s been in Cortland for 17 months now, arriving in February 2023 with daughters Daryna and Liliia, and her mother, Olha Bila. They came because a committee of volunteers sponsored and funded the trek.

Kosarieva wasn’t sure then what her future would be. But she is, now.

She wants to stay.

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“You don’t know what can happen”

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Kosarieva recently divorced her now ex-husband who is still fighting the war, due to struggles with distance and struggles before leaving Ukraine. She said her brother is still in Ukraine but is far away from the war front and remains safe, for now.

“Mentality is different, here people are more free. I feel there is freedom in each person and they don’t think what people will think about me because I am doing what I need, what I want and it is different from Ukraine,” Kosarieva said.

“In Ukraine, people live and work harder but it is different because we do not praise ourselves; nobody says ‘Wow you are doing good,’ “ she said.

America, like Ukraine, has many cultures in one place, she said. “Everyone is in one place or one country but everyone can have different backgrounds or come from different places, like Ukraine when a lot of people come from Europe or around us.”

Kosarieva’s home of Kharkiv was one of the Russian army’s first targets in the spring of 2022. That’s why she left with Daryna, now 10, Liliia, now 5 ½ and her mother, now 59.

Today, Kharkiv is still on the front line of the fighting. Ukraine used U.S.-supplied HIMARS missiles in May to beat back the latest Russian offensive, but news outlets report that a number of villages and settlements remain under Russian control.

However, Russia is advancing on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the war has become more advanced as air strikes by both sides target military equipment and reserves.

“You don’t know what can happen tomorrow,” Kosarieva said. “We couldn’t believe it, you just woke up and your window was shaking and you heard this and you didn’t understand if it’s true … Maybe I am dreaming.”

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Fun numbers

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Cortlandville Town Judge Mary Beth Mathey founded a committee after hearing about the invasion of Ukraine. The committee created Uniting for Ukraine to help bring refugee Ukrainian families to America.

“To see the unbelievable amount of support and generosity from Cortland and Homer communities was like nothing I could have imagined,” Mathey said. “This was made possible because the communities rose to the occasion.”

Donations funded a furnished apartment for Kosarieva and her family, and enough to help them create a new life.

“It is beautiful, the way Mariana has been able to get acclimated to her life in Cortland, and seeing that she is almost fully self-supporting her family,” Mathey said.

“Of course we are different, but this little community that Mary Beth made around her, around me and my family, it is amazing people,” Kosareiva said.

She keeps a book of “fun numbers” to call when she needs help, or even just a sympathetic ear. Someone is always there for her.

“It was cool, great start for me here, I had everything and more,” Kosarieva said. “I have house stuff, they help me with the car, people who know I am here said I will have a job and everybody helps me with something.”

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Singing for the choir

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Kosarieva works for McNeil & Co. Inc., an insurance company on Main Street. She came to America with a bachelor’s degree in management and experience in sales.

“Even when I started to work, they said, ‘Don’t worry, you can use phone, computer and translator and you can ask help from anybody,'” Kosarieva said.

The Kosarieva family lives in the same apartment today across the street from St. Anthony’s Church. “We love this church, it is like our little family here”, Kosarieva said. “It is a good community, a lot of good people, and me and one of my daughters sing in the choir.”

When they first came to Cortland, parishioners sang for them. By the first anniversary of the family’s arrival in America, Kosarieva’s family was able to sing for the church.

They like to celebrate the parish’s Italian culture. “We love St. Anthony’s festival, Mass in church, then the parade around town is our favorite part because the kids get to ride around on the tractors,” she said.

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Making friends

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Daryna was 8 when the family first arrived; Liliia was 4. They knew little English.

“Daryna was entering third grade, which was not easy to start because she did not know English,” Kosarieva said. “There was a boy in her class whose family is from Ukraine and speaks in Ukrainian and helped her, but some kids didn’t understand that she didn’t know English so well.”

But the girls have made friends; they’ve become part of the community.

They study ballet and acro, a form of dance, at the Cortland Performing Arts Institute on Main Street. Their fellow students and their parents have become just that many more family members.

She hopes Daryna becomes a ballerina, “Ballet is in her blood,” she said, even though Daryna is learning and falling in love with many forms of dance.

Liliia joined Daryna earlier this year for acro classes because she liked her previous gymnastics experience. Having the girls involved in the same company is convenient.

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Pizza and French fries

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Still, life in America has its challenges.

Pizza. That’s a challenge. The girls are all pizza and French fries, now.

Pizza in the Kosarieva household is a unique experience: Ketchup and mayonnaise, tomatoes, olives, Polish sausage and lots of cheese.

“We make pizza at home and it is still our pizza, different from American or Italian pizza,” Kosarieva said.

But that’s just part of becoming American.

“If most of the time you feel inside comfortable, some little things, it doesn’t matter for you,” she said. “If you can live with that and try to learn or avoid things and do what’s best for you. Yes, life is hard but you are moving how it is good for you.”

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Many cultures

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Kosarieva wants to continue living in America, exploring its many cultures and enjoying the many relationships she’s created.

Life in America has even changed her view on love. “Marriages inspired me here, people live together, have family together, and do so much together,” she said. “In Ukraine, you do not see couples that live and do so much, love is pure.”

Cortland, she said, is similar to the town in her favorite TV show, “Gilmore Girls.” The movies under the stars, the parades like life is always a celebration, the trips to Little York Park in Preble to cook hot dogs. Life is never dull. “My kids are safe, my mother is safe and I am proud of myself that I did it,” said Kosarieva.

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Lingering scars

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If life is good now, it’s fragile. The memories linger, the scars.

In Ukraine, Kosarieva lived with fear. One daughter might be at school; the other might not be at home. War might come to her home before her children.

And she watches the scars that’s left on the girls.

“In our new home when they were playing with their doll house, they would play pretend like there is a war alarm and have to go downstairs to hide their dolls from danger,” Kosarieva said. The girls sometimes wake up screaming.

Her voice cracked and she wiped away a tear. “You do not know why but it can happen, it is painful because it is your kids,” she said.

Today, her daughters live near-normal lives with less fear and less violence. Kosarieva has grown, too.

“I did not see any problem here that I cannot change for me, maybe this experience made me stronger and more self-confident,” Kosarieva said. “I understand that I can do everything if I need to, I will continue to learn and do and try.”

“It is a nice beautiful little town, wherever you go, even if you do not know those people they say hi and ask how you are doing, it is cool,” she said.

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“We are family”

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Kosarieva hopes other families can come to America. Mathey and the other volunteers are trying to arrange that, and to provide the support and resources to start a new life.

Should they arrive, Kosarieva hopes they find the same thing she did: family.

“People are open, people are like good friends for you, always, people here are like family,” she said. “I came to the dance company; they said we are family here. I came to work; they said we are not team, we are family.”

“In church, I have family. With Mary Beth and her friends, I have family, Kosarieva said. “Everywhere I have family and I am proud.”