LEWISTON — Tetiana Cherednichenko came from war-torn Ukraine to the United States in 2022 for safety and to find work to help support family back home.

Tetiana, Tanya for short, said the difficult decision to leave most of her family behind was made easier by following her brother and his family to Auburn, but not being able to go back and visit has been hard.

Tanya works for Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services as an English program coordinator. She also works part time at Bates College as a Russian language teaching assistant.

What is your name, where are you from and how did you come to Lewiston, Maine?

My name is Tetiana, I am from Kyiv, Ukraine, and I’m 25 years old. I came to Maine two years ago through the United for Ukraine program. I didn’t plan to go abroad until the war started. I didn’t think about going somewhere else except for travel, maybe.

When the war started, I was living in Kyiv and my family lives in another city, Cherkasy. I lost my job — I worked at a school which closed because of the war, and I of course didn’t know when we would open again. I went to my parents’, then to my brother’s, and then we lived in a village for 10 days hoping the war would finish every day.

My sister-in-law, my nephew and I went to Italy. It was an uncertain time, and my sister-in-law has a disability and could not go abroad with my nephew alone, so I decided to go. I didn’t know if anyone in my family would be able to work, so I had to find a job. I just knew that I had to do everything that I can do in the moment, to be maximally focused on learning the language and finding a job. So, I was going to school and learning Italian language, and my school teacher recommended me to another teacher who gave me a job at a restaurant as a waitress. And then my neighbor offered me a job in a kindergarten for Ukrainian refugees for one month.

Then my brother was allowed to leave because there is a law that men who have wives with disabilities can go with them. It was end of April and the U.S. was thinking about letting Ukrainians come, so they decided to go to the U.S. because it was very difficult to find a job in Italy. After three months, I decided to come.

Are there opportunities for you to visit family and come back?

Well, my parents are still in Ukraine and my other brother who has two kids (is still there). They don’t plan or want to leave and that was probably the main reason why I stayed in Italy longer. I didn’t want to go to the U.S. because Italy allows refugees to go back and come back. Before going to the U.S., I went to Ukraine for a month and then came back to leave for the U.S. Our immigration situation in the United States doesn’t allow this, so we cannot go back and forth. So, I cannot visit my family, unfortunately.

When you first came to the U.S. did you already know English? What do you do for work, now, and what did you do before?

I had some intermediate English because I didn’t practice English. When I was in Italy, I tried to learn Italian, so when I came it was a mixture of Italian and English. I went to adult education in Lewiston, adult education in Auburn and education through the Root Cellar and it helped me to improve my English. Actually, I was doing English classes until a month ago.

I have two jobs, one full time job at Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services and part time at Bates College (as) a teaching assistant for Russian language. When I was in Ukraine, I finished my bachelor’s degree in psychology and then a master’s in religious studies.

When I studied for psychology, I worked in the department as an assistant part time. I also worked at a kindergarten as a part time counselor for children and their parents and teachers. When I studied for my master’s in religious studies before the pandemic, I worked in a private school for learning and teaching English as an administrator. After that, I worked as a preschool teacher. It was seven years in Kyiv (changing) work about every year, but it was good time to try different fields.

I liked all of these jobs, but probably my favorite was still administrating English school. I do similar things here now because I understood early on that I like to learn languages, and I like to help other people learn languages.

Going back to your youth, what did you think you would be doing at your age? 

Oh, 10 years ago I was 15, and now I’m almost 26, so it depends on how early in my youth. But when I was studying for psychology, I thought, at this age, I will be a counselor or psychologist and I will have maybe my own private practice and I will have clients. But plans changed, and I don’t plan to be psychologist, at least not a counselor.

How do you balance work and life?

Currently, it’s just a lot of work in my life. I just try to find time to call parents and spend some time with friends and to volunteer. It’s a difficult balance, but I also have a third part of my life organizing events for Ukraine community, for uniting Ukrainians to support each other in becoming successful here. It’s through another organization, Azerbaijan Society of Maine (which) shares a grant with us for organizing these events.

Last week, I came back from Washington, D.C. I went for a Ukraine action summit to advocate with other Ukrainians for those who are not with us. We had 500 people from 45 states.

What are some of your favorite things to do?

Sleep! No, actually, before I got full time (at) my regular job, and before I found my other job, I found that I like to paint. So, my favorite things are painting and reading and learning Italian.