Fulbright scholar from Woodstock helps Ukrainian refugees fleeing to Poland

Woodstock native Evan Lenzen was teaching English in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, as part of a Fulbright scholarship until just weeks before Russia invaded its neighboring country.

On Jan. 27, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine informed everyone in the program there that they were being pulled out of the country. Now, Lenzen is trying to help Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw as the war continues and Mykolaiv is one of the cities under siege by Russian forces.

“We arrived in Warsaw on the notion we’d return within one or two months,” Lenzen, 26, said during an internet phone call with the Northwest Herald. “I was optimistic. Russian troops have a history of lining up around the border, or building fences, so people in my community didn’t really think much about the situation until foreigners started leaving.”

“Nobody wanted to believe this would happen,” he said.

Lenzen’s circuitous route to Ukraine began in 2015, when he was studying Russian at the University of Kentucky. Although by his own admission, Lenzen’s Ukrainian language skills are “nonexistent,” Lenzen said he’s found Russian to be commonly used in everyday conversation, or mixed in as part of the local dialect, Surzhyk, which is sort of a combination between Russian and Ukrainian.

Three years ago, Lenzen said, he visited a friend studying in Ukraine on a Fulbright scholarship, and he fell in love with the country. Since then, Lenzen said, his goal was to do a project helping Ukrainian veterans who fought in the 2014 war, helping them find jobs in their communities. Lenzen said he is a veteran, and spent six years in the U.S. Army Reserves.

During his time in Ukraine, Lenzen was teaching English at Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University. Lenzen said he would often do work in his small apartment. Because of COVID-19, he was teaching online when he first arrived in October, he said.

Lenzen described Mykolaiv as “a really interesting city,” a vital seaport based around shipbuilding and having a strong sense of hospitality to visitors.

“The people are so friendly,” Lenzen said. “They will give you a shirt off their back and not ask for a single thing in return.”

Lenzen said he’s enjoyed a lot of homemade meals of Ukrainian staples such as vareniki, the Ukrainian iteration of dumplings, and the classic borscht soup.

He was within a week of launching his project with veterans when the war broke out, he said.

“It didn’t matter anymore,” Lenzen said. “Nothing mattered anymore. The focus was now on making sure everybody was okay and doing what we can to mobilize, get medicine, raise awareness.”

Lenzen, like many others, is impressed with Ukrainians’ resilience, including those he befriended in Mykolaiv.

“They are not afraid,” Lenzen said. “My students tell me, ‘Oh, we are going to war, don’t worry about it.’ They’re still making jokes. They love their home and they are going to keep it.”

Communication between Ukrainians in and out of the country has largely happened through apps such as Telegram; the latter is where Lenzen says he gets most of his information about the war, including pictures and videos. Citizens have been using AI bots to filter out Russian troop movements, Lenzen said.

Lenzen said he has been checking up on his students daily, asking for updates on their situation in Mykolaiv, finding out who has evacuated and who has stayed. Within the larger Mykolaiv region, Russian forces have moved in and out over the past month, Lenzen said, taking over villages at times for only an hour or two before they’re reclaimed by the Ukrainians.

Many have taken up arms as part of the Territorial Defense Forces in Ukraine to supplement the military, or go on patrol with the police, Lenzen said. Outside of combat, Lenzen said, he also knows some students who have been giving blood or volunteering to drive people or supplies around to where they’re needed.

Mykolaiv’s mayor, Oleksandr Senkevych, also was described as “funny” and “charismatic” in his video updates about the war, Lenzen said.

“He cracks jokes, keeps the mood high,” Lenzen said. “That helps people get through this, stay positive throughout the war.”

Despite the resilience, Lenzen said he is noticing the silent scars of people whose country is being attacked. Some of the refugees left family behind, as men ages 18 to 60 are not allowed to leave Ukraine. Of his students and friends in Ukraine, Lenzen said many have no choice but to stay in their apartments or dormitories, despite frequent shelling from Russian forces.

Mykolaiv does have bunkers throughout the city, and Lenzen said he doesn’t know anyone who has been injured yet. Earlier this week, however, a student told him they’d already been to two funerals for family members.

Among the refugees, Lenzen said they are most fearful when things go silent, or a plane passes by overhead.

“You see a lot of really heavy emotions,” Lenzen said. “They had to leave everything behind a lot of times. Families split up. I can’t even begin to imagine what that’s like.”

As for his own family and friends back home, Lenzen said he “has done a really bad job” of staying in touch with people, although he regularly communicates with his parents and older sister, Robyn, as well as his best friend back in Woodstock.

“The fact that he cares so much has made me care more,” Robyn said of her brother being abroad. “It’s easy for the average person to feel like you’re far removed from the conflict, and when you know someone who called this country, or a town or community, home and family, all of the sudden it feels extremely real and concerning.”

Robyn said she and her family were “infinitely proud” of her brother, and that his students had also reached out to her and “were super sweet.”

In some ways the war makes Lenzen’s Fulbright project of assisting veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder even more urgent, at least when the war is done. But Lenzen may have to return to the U.S. in April at least temporarily because he doesn’t have a visa. Lenzen said his goal is to return as soon as possible.

“It’s like a second home to me now,” Lenzen said of Ukraine. “It’s a beautiful, incredible place.”

Of the 2.8 million people who have fled Ukraine so far since the Russian invasion, more than half, 1.7 million, have gone to Poland, according to The Associated Press.

Lenzen said that there is even a limit of volunteering opportunities as so many Polish citizens and foreigners have stepped up to assist their displaced Ukrainian neighbors. Right now, Lenzen said, he is focused on gathering medical supplies and other items he knows are running low in cities like Mykolaiv.

Those looking to make donations for humanitarian assistance to Ukraine can click here.