After living through the Russian invasion and destruction of much of their homeland and making the difficult decision to emigrate to Canada, two Ukrainian newcomers who’ve chosen to live in Gimli are weighing their options for the future.
Diana Diakiv is a 17-year-old singing sensation who has appeared in televised talent shows in Ukraine and has sung for European royalty. Dmytro Veremenko is a geologist who was among a team of nuclear scientists monitoring radiation levels at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant when Russian troops crossed the border from Belarus and took control of the plant and its radiation exclusion zone.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine will be entering its third year in a few days, and organizations in Gimli that are helping support the Ukrainians are expecting even more people to leave the shattered country and come to Manitoba.
Diakiv left Ukraine in 2023 with her mother, who’s a doctor, and her brother. Veremenko went to Iceland in 2023 before coming to Canada. They’ve found jobs and housing at the municipality’s dormitory, where 55 newcomers – mostly Ukrainians – currently live.
While both Diakiv and Veremenko have found jobs in the community, those jobs are outside their respective specialized fields.
Diakiv, who is in Grade 12 at Gimli High School and works part-time after school, started training as a vocalist and a dancer when she was five years old and was an accomplished singer when the invasion eventually forced her and her family out of their hometown of Kolomyia in western Ukraine.
“At the age of five, I started to study vocals and ballroom dancing,” said Diakiv. “During my vocal training, I won numerous prizes. I also took part in two famous TV shows for children, Step to the Stars (dancing with a partner) when I was six years old, and Ukraine Has Talent (singing), where I became a semi-finalist.”
With outstanding vocal abilities and a dynamic and commanding stage presence, Diakiv was invited to sing for Princess Margareta of Romania at a charity show called the Book of Goodness to help raise funds for orphans.
“The princess really liked this performance. She was delighted and she gave me a bouquet of flowers,” said Diakiv, who learned English in Ukraine, studied in English through the Ukrainian Pedagogical College and is working on enhancing her knowledge of the language.
Diakiv went on to sing in other European countries including Italy and Bulgaria. Her natural charisma landed her repeated parts in Mystetsky Khram, a charity TV show, and stints as a TV presenter – something she wants to pursue in future through a journalism degree – for the Ukrainian national song award, Halytskyi Shlyager children.
“Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, I and other Ukrainian artists had many charity concerts in every corner of western Ukraine, but the shelling became more frequent and my family and I had to look for a safe place on Earth,” she said. “On many Ukrainian websites, there was information about assistance to Ukrainians from Canada’s immigration department. That’s why we decided to move to Canada. Canada has always been ready to help everyone.”
Inspired by singers Celine Dion and Christina Aguilera, Diakiv said she wants to become a folk artist, performing traditional and popular songs from Ukraine. She’s also open to singing different genres and in different languages. She already sings songs in English, Spanish and German. And with her training in classical and contemporary piano, as well as music theory, she has written musical scores for four of her own songs.
“When I go on stage, I go with the mission of performing the songs that are popular in Ukraine. I get excited about performing,” said Diakiv. “It’s a bad situation in Ukraine with people dying, and many Ukrainian immigrants have strong feelings for these songs. I hope people are happy when they hear these songs from Ukraine.”
Diakiv said she’s still adjusting to her new life in Canada, where she wants to remain in the future, and has supportive people around her.
“Talking with Melanie [Melanie Specula who oversees the management of Ukrainian newcomers to Gimli] really inspired me to find myself and not lose heart,” said Diakiv. “I am sincerely grateful to her and her team.”
Like Diakiv and her family, Veremenko made the difficult decision to leave Ukraine and settle in Canada in 2023.
He had been part of a scientific team studying radiation levels in the soil, water, groundwater and air in the exclusion zone of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which was the scene of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters after one of its reactors blew up and melted down in 1986 and dispersed radioactive material across Europe.
On the first day of the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Russian troops crossed from Belarus and captured the Chornobyl exclusion zone. They also seized the plant itself, where hundreds of workers and medical and security personnel became trapped. The Russians stole or destroyed computers, radiation dosimeters, firefighting equipment and vehicles.
“When Russian troops attacked the exclusion zone at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, they destroyed the radiation safety system. It’s a very dangerous situation. For one month that I was in my home in the northern part of Ukraine, it was occupied by Russian troops. After that we started to fix the safety system, which is a very big and difficult system,” said Veremenko, who co-authored a scientific paper titled “Evaluating changes in radionuclide concentrations and groundwater levels before and after the cooling pond drawdown in the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant vicinity” that was published in 2023 in the journal The Science of the Total Environment.
While the Russian invasion continued, Veremenko took part in conferences in Poland and Austria to discuss nuclear-related matters and finished working on the co-authored paper. He then took a break and went to Iceland where he made the decision to emigrate to Canada after hearing about New Iceland and Gimli.
“When I had a rest in Iceland, I decided not to go back to Ukraine,” said Veremenko. “It won’t get better. They have attacked all parts of Ukraine. It’s not possible to end [the invasion]. For the next several years, I see no future.”
While he would like to eventually work as a hydrogeologist in the future and continue publishing research papers, Veremenko said he would like to settle in for a while in Gimli. He was offered a job overseeing the day-to-day operation of the dormitory, helping other Ukrainian newcomers and driving people to and from work and school.
A few years ago, while she was co-chair of the Gimli Chamber of Commerce, Melanie Specula began helping Ukrainians settle in Gimli and finding them jobs. She is currently the vice-chair of the Gimli Community Development Corporation (CDC), which is now overseeing their settlement. With more Ukrainian newcomers on their way to Gimli, Specula said she’ll continue to do all she can to find housing, jobs and English lessons for them.
She’s grateful that Veremenko is overseeing a myriad of daily tasks at the dormitory and helping Ukrainians transition to a new life in the municipality, she said. She will continue to look for grant opportunities to help support all newcomers to Gimli and work with the municipality and local employers.
“I honestly don’t know what I would have done without Dmytro agreeing to take the job at the dormitory,” said Specula, who owns the Gimli Chicken Chef restaurant where she has hired a number of Ukrainians.
Specula said she’s also going to put out feelers to see whether she can find Diakiv singing gigs – preferably paid – so that she can re-launch her musical career and start earning more money to support herself and her family.
“Diana is so accomplished for someone so young,” said Specula. “We have this amazing talent right here in Gimli and we need to let people know about her.”
