Calgary families begin to welcome relatives from Ukraine

Tamila Kovalchuk left her home in Zhytomyr, a village 130 kilometres west of Kyiv, with a pair of slippers and her purse. 

After a grueling seven-day journey, she arrived in Calgary on Friday. 

When asked how she was doing, she responded with an understated, "dobre," meaning "good," in Ukrainian.

Families like Tamila's have begun welcoming relatives and friends fleeing Ukraine as Russia's invasion continues. 

Hundreds of Ukrainians have been killed in the conflict and millions more have been displaced from their homes, especially in the eastern part of the country. 

While many are bound for Poland and other neighboring countries, Canada — which is home to the world's third-largest population of Ukrainians — could begin to see more refugees in the coming weeks. 

Tamila's son, Oleg Kovalchuk, said it took him and his brother over a month to persuade their mother to come to Canada. 

"We started talking [about it] when Russian troops started building up around Ukraine," he said. 

"[My mother] said, categorically, no. 'I will never go anywhere, I was born here, I've lived here for 74 years, I'm sitting in my apartment on the third floor and that's it.'"

Oleg said that two bombings in Zhytomyr — one of a school and the other of a hospital — changed her mind. 

"We told her, 'We cannot protect you, it's only a matter of time until your flat might disappear,'" Oleg said. 

Tamila left Zhytomyr on March 4, on a train bound for Lviv full of the elderly, women and children. On the way, the train was stopped in a field for 20 minutes while air sirens sounded in the distance. 

Once in Lviv, Tamila waited in a line for 14 hours to board a train to Poland. She changed trains twice in Poland, first in the border town of Hrubieszow, and then in Olkusz, before making it to Krakow and eventually Warsaw. 

From there, she flew to Amsterdam and finally to Calgary.