Earlier this week we attended the “sister-city” announcement at Town Hall. This is when Greenwich formally announced its newest sister-city, Izyum in eastern Ukraine. It was a moving experience.
The selection of Izyum as our sister-city is the result of a lot of hard work by Greenwich residents Olga Litvinenko and Inna Lazar and their organization, USA for Ukraine. Both are Ukrainian, with Lazar having relatives who have remained behind to actively defend their country. They founded USA for Ukraine to bring humanitarian aid and awareness to what is happening during the war in Ukraine.
Izyum is a city not unlike Greenwich. It has a population of almost 50,000 people. Greenwich has 62,000. It was established in 1681, we were founded in 1640. But that is where the similarities end. Izyum was occupied by Russian troops. What was left behind once liberated is mostly unrecognizable.
One hundred percent of all commercial buildings in Izyum have been destroyed – 80 percent of residences have been destroyed. It is almost inconceivable to try and comprehend. Try to imagine if every commercial building in Greenwich was destroyed. No more grocery stores, no more Greenwich Avenue, no postal service, no electricity, no running water, or sewer. Most of the homes in Greenwich destroyed. What would you do?
When Izyum was liberated, a mass grave was found, almost all of the bodies were women and some children. Many showed signs of torture.
USA for Ukraine is working tirelessly to bring attention to what has happened in Izyum, but also to help it rebuild. Having a sister-city brings greater attention and the opportunity to raise resources, repair the damage, and help life get back to some semblance of normalcy.
During the event this week at Town Hall, Olga and Inna showed a video they made about Izyum both before and after the occupation. It was powerful and we encourage you to watch it.
About two-thirds through the video it shows Olga visiting a school. She does not narrate as she walks through the school. She does not need to. You can tell from the images it is completely unusable. You wonder where the children have gone.
Another school she shows is less damaged. She shows the murals the children have painted on the walls of American cartoon characters. She talks about working with others to fix the school. The easy and hard things that can be done to have the school be fully functional. And then it hit us.
As we sat in Town Hall watching this video, we were struck by how the residents of Izyum are working together to repair their city and especially their schools, while we, Greenwich, seem to be doing all we can to fight one another on improving our community and fixing our schools.
In Izyum, they are rolling up their sleeves to work together as a community. Here in Greenwich, we are finger pointing (waging really), and blaming each other for each vote the Board of Education or Board of Estimate and Taxation makes. In Izyum there are no politics that we can see – there is community. In Greenwich there is community but there is also politics, too much politics.
We are an amazing community with vast resources. As a result, it may be easy for us to squabble over classroom sizes. In Izyum they line up patiently for basic needs, like water and food, to survive. And then they go to work together, side by side, to repair their city. The images of destroyed buildings and lives stands in stark contrast to the issues Greenwich faces.
For now, we will watch two profiles in courage, Olga and Inna, as they work in the face of overwhelming challenges to bring resources to a worn-torn city that is desperately trying to get on its feet. Join us. Join the cause of USA for Ukraine.
