ESAPING UKRAINE: Denys Natrov's journey from Kharkiv to Canada

By Lianna Van Rhijn

Denys Natrov is 16 years old, living in Woodstock New Brunswick having the best time of his life. He can go out with his friends, go to school and sleep peacefully. Yet it wasn’t always like this. February 24, 2021 was a day Denys Natrov will remember for the rest of his life. The sounds of bombs, screams, and cries will be engraved in his head till the day he dies. The sleepless days of waiting and praying for the war to end and the relief when he fled with his family to Canada will be something unforgettable. Even so, the war between Ukraine and Russia still affects him and has always impacted his life.

Denys had a happy childhood; propaganda and Russian TV shows and movies helped him be ignorant of his country's problems. It was only until Denys was in the first grade that he got a taste of fear for an upcoming war. In 2014, Russia tried to occupy his city, Kharkiv by saying they would free the city from Ukrainian nazis. He said he doesn’t remember much except that going outside was unsafe and the subway was closed off for that reason. He also said that volunteers stopped the revolution.

Even before the revolution started, Ukraine was already in shambles. Ukraine had lost its entire army and started begging Russia for money because everyone in the government stole it. As Denys put it, “the economy was f*cked up.” Denys’ parents had a business that was extremely popular in Russia, but sales became low after Ukraine closed shipping with Russia in 2014.

Despite having an ongoing revolution at their doorsteps, the people were not living in fear for an upcoming war. Ukraine bounced back after a year with a new president, and everyone was filled with hope for a better future. Denys mentioned how businesses remained open, and everyone continued to work. Denys lived in in a huge city with a lot of old cinemas, stores, schools and shopping malls that didn’t close till the war started. He also spent most of his childhood writing to soldiers who were fighting in other places where Russia took territory. So, when bombs and shots started firing on February 24, 2022, no one could believe that the reason was that Russia was declaring war.

It was four a.m. when Denys heard a bomb explode close to his home. When he looked outside, he saw one of the neighbourhood’s houses on fire. “I felt confused because I never heard anything like that before, my street is very quiet so hearing something loud [is] very uncommon.” Denys recalled. He ran to his mom’s room, who was already packing documents in a suitcase, preparing for the worst outcome. When reality set in, the terror was so immense he could puke, and he cried day and night. He felt hopeless and confused. Throughout the first day of war, he and his family heard bombs every ten minutes, and probably would have heard more if they were closer to the city. When asked about what it was like living in fear Denys said, “I was mostly afraid for my life.... I didn’t eat much - it made me vomit, I took pills to not stress and sleep because I just couldn’t, I thought about rockets and tanks all the time, the city was the target and half of the region was occupied at that time, so it was scary that we are next.”

Six days. Six sleepless, excruciating, exhausting days. That’s almost a week, and that’s how long Denys and his family—his brother, sister, mom, dad, grandma, and grandfather—stayed in Kharkiv, where Russians were shooting and bombing at everyone and everything. Denys recalls how his mom didn’t sleep for those six days because she was terrified. Russians were shooting at cars with kids, and she had no idea what to do.

“Yeah, I heard a lot, of them, once when me and my mom were at the line for a bread they start bombing and the ground became shaking, I don't’ know what they were bombing but I saw airplanes that was flying, and tanks,” was how Denys described his six days living in a war country. He also commented how there was never any symbols on the tanks so he had no clue if the tanks were Ukraine or Russian. It was creepy and he talked about close the bomb was, and how terrifying it was too.

Denys said that escaping the war was the hardest thing he had to go through. It wasn’t as simple as buying a plane ticket and leaving; they had to leave under the Russians’ noses. Denys, his sister, his mom and 14 other people lived in each “room” in the train going to Lviv from Kharkiv, a train ride that took twenty-seven hours. He describes the conditions as horrible, but he knew he was extremely lucky, especially when his mom showed pictures of a bombed train station three hours into the ride. The train was filled to the brim, with people covering the floor so much that “you [couldn’t] use the bathroom without stamping on someone”. Throughout the ride, Denys commented how it was very difficult to sleep due to the lack of space, even if he was very lucky to get a top bed bunk with his sister. When the train stopped at Kyiv, the Russians began bombing it because Kyiv was the main target for explosives during the start of the war. Denys was petrified, he didn’t know if he was going to die or not. Instructions were given not to use any lights and to sit quietly for 40 minutes so they wouldn’t be found out.

When they finally arrived to Lviv, they took a bus to Poland. Denys said that the feeling of instability and not being safe didn’t go away till they hit the Poland borders. Denys also described that they had to sleep on “chairs like hobos” in a train station while waiting for the Canadian embassy’s doors to open.

Denys said that without his aunt inviting him and his family to Canada, he most likely would have still been stuck in Ukraine. They used the money his grandparents saved up, that was originally for his mom's new car, to get tickets to Canada. Denys could only bring his school bag in which he put his PS4 and some gloves. Denys “would love to go back and at least take [his] stuff that [he]left. (which is everything)” one day.

In late March, Denys arrived in Toronto Canada, with his grandparents, and met his aunt who would drive them to Woodstock New Brunswick. The car ride to Woodstock was long but to Denys it didn’t matter because he was finally safe, even if he had to wait a month to see his parents and siblings again.

Some of the biggest challenges for Denys when adjusting to Canada were he language and the people. People in Canada always say sorry and are more trusting of others than people in Ukraine. Denys expresses how weird it feels when your life is drastically changed and how he doesn’t feel like he has a home in Ukraine anymore.

To Denys, arriving somewhere new affected him more mentally. He said he felt like his classmates were scared to talk to him, but he held no grudge. He feels safe here and his new friends helped him adapt better. He and his family celebrate Ukrainian holidays, eat Ukrainian food, and buy some traditional Ukrainian clothes to feel closer to the place the war has destroyed.

In conclusion, wars in places like Palestine and Ukraine aren’t as far as we think they are. They affect some of our closest friends and neighbors. Denys was lucky to leave but not everyone is. Even though he left, the war will continue to impact his life until he dies. So, in this time of sadness, fear and bloodshed, be kind to people you meet and know that the war is a lot closer than we all believe it to be.

What is it like to be a RCMP Officer

By: Dordjije Turcinovic

Andrew Whiteway, a 15-year senior officer talks about his experience working for the RCMP

Andrew Whiteway was born in Woodstock, where he grew up and graduated from Woodstock High School. After High school, he went to university for a couple of years, but he wasn’t certain what he wanted to do, so he took a year off and worked in construction. Then, he decided to go back to university, where he got an economics degree at Saint Thomas University. He then decided to move to Asia to teach English and was there for almost nine years. He spent two years in South Korea and more than six in Taiwan, becoming fluent in Korean and Mandarin.

While in Asia he was thinking about opening a school there or coming back to Canada to be in the RCMP. After he decided to come back to Canada, he joined the RCMP at 28, proving that it's never too late to do anything. One of the reasons that he joined the RCMP was that he saw a lot of times where he wanted to make a difference and help or in other words bring justice to those who were victims of injustice.

He told me about his experience in depot, and said, “People that succeeded are the ones that prepared to go there.” He was actively jogging and lifting weights, so he prepared himself for the 6 months in Regina. “It’s long hours, long days. You wake up at 5 am and you don't go back until midnight”. Apart from fitness there is a lot of classroom work there, considering the criminal code and he said that is one thing that he didn't prepare well for. Surprisingly, he told me he hadn’t shot a gun before depot and that is something he had to work on over the years. As well as fitness and academic stuff, you must take weather into consideration, Regina is known to have freezing weather and Whiteway was no stranger to it, On the first day of training, it was –51° according to him. This can show you how tough these cadets really are and what they go through.

His language profile later served him well, after depot his first posting was in Richmond, British Columbia where his knowledge of those languages helped him resolve situations where there was a language barrier. The first day of training he was called out by one of the commanding officers who said, "where is Whiteway?" and after that he asked him "do you know where Richmond BC is, son?" to which he said “no” and he was told "you better look it up.” All of this happened because the commanding officer knew he was fluent in those languages and knew that will play a role on where he will get posted.

After some time in BC, he made a compassionate transfer so he could be closer to his parents who were sick at the time, and he got transferred to Nackawic but since he was working more in Woodstock, he got moved to the detachment in his hometown. He is also a father of two and is still able to manage his fatherhood with his job.

He is very satisfied with his career. In fact, he said, “so I'm in my 15th year and I'm still smiling still having fun every day, there's always tough days you see some crummy stuff, we deal with 3% of the population, but its 95% of the time for us and we see people at their worst. I've seen a lot of people drown in that but there is always the other side, we do community events and there is a lot of value of putting back in community". "In my 15 years I can count on one hand the number of days where I was like forget this, I'm out, I'm done”.

He is very satisfied with RCMP’s cooperation with town police and other first responders, they work together quite a bit he said. They even had charity hockey game RCMP against the town police, so they are remarkably close knit on and off the job. “It’s a good support, it's a good family” Whiteway added.

As we touched on the topic of mental health Corporal Whiteway said that 2024 is much different than 2009, the year he joined the RCMP, there was a lot of stigma about mental health at that time it was “oh you have to be tough that's the way we’ve always done it". In today's time there is a lot of good support for officers on the front line because they see a lot of hard stuff on their job and it's much better than it was before which is a really good thing.

I asked him what steps and techniques he uses to resolve situations where persons mental health is in question. The key to resolving and deescalate those situations is being good in “verbal judo,” Having that gift to be able to talk and resolve with words as opposed to force.” It's important to be tactical and sound but you do not have to be on high alert all the time, but risk assessment is something we always do to ensure our safety and safety of others. Try to be a good listener as well as a good speaker because you need to realise is that person looking for help or something else.”

He told me one of his personal stories that happened to him recently where he responded with two junior members. “There was an incident where a lady was assaulted on Woodstock First Nation. It was taken profoundly serious by that community. After the suspect got released and upon returning to that area a lot of people got angry that he was still around. The whole situation started to erupt. There was a big concern that they might start a riot and that they are going to attack his house.” Whiteway observed the situation and knew that it's going to get “bad.” They escorted the suspect out of the house for his safety to calm the situation down. He needed to quickly implement tactics to ensure everyone's safe and to resolve the issue.

I asked him about some issues that are facing law enforcement today. He told me that the recruitment is the bigger one. People just do not want to work in general, especially for law enforcement, In today's world. Also, there is people choosing policing for the wrong reasons. You have to really want to be a police officer to be a “good” one and some people don't do it for good reasons. Also managing and supporting mental health of officers even though it's a lot better than it was, it still has a long way to go.

People of our town should be really glad that they have someone like officer Whiteway protecting and serving our community.

Picture taken by me at the RCMP detachment in Woodstock, On the picture is officer Whiteway next to his patrol car.

Tapp-Tech: An Interview with Robert Tappin:

The Rise of Tapp-Tech

By Jayden O'Neil

Do you know where to go if your computer stops working? Well, look no more since on May 2nd, 2024, I interviewed a CEO of a local business named Tapp-Tech PC Repairs & Services. The owner and founder of the company is named Robert Tappin. In the Fall of 2019, he started his business because his employer at the time, Gary Sanders owned Media Smart.

Gary lost his wife quite suddenly due to cancer at the beginning of 2019. Robert noticed Gary’s demeanor change and said he could feel a change coming. Before she had died, Gary found zest in his business but after his wife died, he didn’t. Robert Tappin was the lead technician at Media Smart. He worked with another tech, but the lack of IT was getting too stressful for him.

During the middle of 2019, he could see the quality of service and repairs deteriorating. The computers would be in service and repair for a few weeks at a time and be brought back due to it not being fully fixed. At the beginning of September 2019 Robert was informed Gary would be closing the store portion of Media Smart; but would still be selling computers and equipment of his house compart to the store. This was because it was to emotionally difficult for Gary to be in the store without his wife.

He said he still remembered having a meeting with his wife and kids at Connell Park telling them about losing his job at Media Smart. This was a scary time for him since he didn’t know what he would do. This was before COVID reared its way into the world, hunting for an IT job was hard to do find.

Despite all the years he had been a cog machine of the cadet corps command hierarchy. Robert did not really like having a boss or manager telling him what to do or how to do things.

The IT standards didn’t fit his view or have good people to work with. He spoke with friends and family who had encountered him to strike out on his own.

He did so fully prepared to jump ship if it did not land a well enough income to live off of. He said, “This is why I started my company.” He doesn’t hire as of yet because “I just want to overhead and stay low” he told me. At the moment it is just him working. He operates his business out of his house in Newburg. He had gotten the ideas from being an IT technician for 12 years.

The hardest part to overcome in his company was “Dealing with the confusing and overly bureaucratic government hoops that you have to jump through” he had told me. He has no current investor’s investing into his business, but he has about 160 costumers listed in his system. They all have him as their in-house IT guy.

The hardest part financially, is making certain there is enough billable hours to be profitable. He had worked for people that thought high profit margins were more important than anything else. He then said, “I credit my mother for high sense of empathy, as much as I would love to be one of these guys that is so money focused. I can have lots of outdoor toys and vacations all over the world, [but] I have far too much of a conscience to try and squeeze every penny I can out of a client.” Throughout the COVID restrictions he had saw quite a few other businesses raise their prices, but he had stayed steady throughout the lockdown for my pricing.

However, the biggest hurdle has been the recent tone-deaf idiotic carbon tax increase. Regardless of how they say it won't affect prices he had seen everything get more expensive from computers and other equipment his clients need to the essentials his family needs.

He did have to raise his prices this month to compensate for the current cost of living and it was only a modest increase for his regular clients and his religious/non-profit. However, he did refuse to increase the special price he had for his clients over sixty years of age.

Robert is grappling with a couple of issues at the moment. He is finding there are out of area companies that are encroaching in this area, and they are better at the marketing side of things than he is. Because of this, he is trying to up his game with various kinds of support and services.

Another issue of his is trying to alleviate his dependence on billable hours. Robert is trying to figure out how to get a passive stream of income that is worthwhile to his clients.

When asked how he got his business where it is today, he responded with an open heart, “determination, empathy, and humility. Hard and technical work takes a measure of determination to get through the tough jobs and projects. Empathy is important. Computers can be confusing for people and when they have an issue causing them grief you need to understand their frustrations. Lastly you need to remember that you don’t always know everything, blindly plowing forward because you are too proud to admit it when you don’t know or don’t completely understand something can be very harmful for you or your client.”

After this I asked Mr. Tappin what made him different from the competition. He was quick to reply with an open heart “I believe what makes me different from my competition is that my focus is what is best for the client. I don’t up-sale clients just for the sake of making more, I don’t price gouge client to get further ahead. I listen to their needs and give them plain options for what we should do for their repair or upgrade.”

We then moved into asking if he had any competition in the area he replied “Locally I’m competing with Homezone and Technomical, but PC Girls out of Fredericton has been encroaching in this area. I’m aware there are a few part timers around and less advertised companies as well.” This is the best place to get your computer fixed if it isn’t working and needs repaired.

What is it Like to be a Police Officer?

An interview with officer Kimball, he talks about what its like to be an officer by Lucas Kearney

What Is it like to be a police officer? Is it difficult, easy, is it just like the movies? Well, I asked a police officer at the Woodstock police department officer kimball. He bc says, “It depends on how much effort you put into it, me I like to be involved in the community trying to help all the citizens rather its youth or seniors”. Which is probably the best reason to become a police officer because if you don’t want to help the citizens then what is the point?

Officer kimball has been a cop for almost 14 years starting in November 2009. To become a officer first you have to apply to the Atlantic police academy in summer-side pei. Then you have to go through an application process and do a few tests, then after you do an interview once you go to the academy its 9 months of training that teaches you shooting to law and

driving. For the last 2-3 months of training, you do on the job training at a police force. Officer kimball says its very mentally and physically challenging.

Being a police officer can be very stressful and very traumatic studies have shown that 1 in 5 officers reported having ptsd and around 12% have depression and around 36% suffer from mental illness. Although it is a very tough job Officer kimball says his favourite part of my job is when he can help troubled people get on the right track. When asked why he didn’t choose a safer job to help people he says “I knew id be able to keep myself safe and helping people overruled that”

Even though policing can be a very hard job there is still a lot of joys that come from policing which most police find more important.

Got an idea for someone we should write a profile on?

Email us at WHSthundertimes@gmail.com

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