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LORAIN COUNTY

AMHERST NEWS-TIMES • OBERLIN NEWS-TRIBUNE • WELLINGTON ENTERPRISE Thursday, March 2, 2023

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Volume 10, Issue 9

‘Uncertainty is the biggest issue’ One year after Ukrainian refugees arrive they face protections expiring CARISSA WOYTACH THE CHRONICLE-TELEGRAM

LORAIN — Oleg Tiurkin and his wife, Valentyna Tiurkina, left their home in Mariupol just over one year ago. The young couple woke at 4 a.m., took suitcases and packed their car with friends, joining hundreds of thousands of other Ukrainians who headed west as Russian forces invaded their homeland. The pair left behind a life in Mariupol: Tiurkin’s career as a well-known videographer and Tiurkina’s as a regional manager for a chain of stores, and close friends and family who chose to stay in the besieged city. They, like so many others, had no set destination but knew they couldn’t stay once Russian bombs started destroying their city. Sitting in the basement of St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Tiurkin held up his phone and swiped through photos — a before and after of the city they’d left, showing bombed maternity wards and the remnants of his childhood apartment building. “Our city’s very close to the Russian border,” Tiurkina said. “The war started in one day, all over the country in big cities, but we still knew the western part was safer. … We just knew we had to go west, we had no plan at all.” It took days to make the drive, across blocked roadways, destroyed highways

life? We weren’t ready for something new.” It’s a sentiment many of the families who came to Lorain County share. While grateful to be safe, they’d never planned to have their lives uprooted. Nataliia Kobiakova had made a life with her husband and three children in Dnipro. They left it behind after their city was attacked. “My family, the circumstances worked in such a way, they actually all came to the United States separated in different ways,” she said. St. Mary’s the Rev. Dmitri Belenki translated for her at times. “When you’re running for your life, you don’t care how you’re going to enter this country,” he said of her family’s different statuses. “You have a choice to get out, you’re just going to go … safety is your priority.” First, Nataliia’s husband came on a travel visa in JEFF BARNES | The Chronicle-Telegram March. Then, her 18-yearNatalia Glotova (left) and Nataliia Kobiakova speak about their journey to the United States as they old son made a similar trip escaped Ukraine as Russian forces invaded. to Oleg and Valentyna’s horrible feeling when you the couple heard from their a gate there to be granted and winding local roads. — Germany to Spain to can’t help the people you friends again. humanitarian parole into By the time they reached Portugal to Mexico City to love and they’re just stuck “One after another they the United States. They the western border with Tijuana where he gained in the city and you don’t left the city and started came to Ohio because Tiur- humanitarian parole and Romania, it was cold, know whether they’re alive to contact me and it was kin had a childhood friend snowing and they piled crossed the border. very emotional when they in Sheffield who helped into a two-room apartment or not.” Last were Kobiakova and It was a week before one left the city and they were find them a temporary with five children and eight her two youngest children, of her friends was able to shocked and then they apartment in Lorain. adults. who had planned to stay started to talk and cry,” she From there, they moved “It was a horrible feeling get enough of a cellphone in Germany because her signal to call for a few said. “They just recognized into Wesleyan Village in because in the first days middle son is a star soccer minutes, but when the what happened with them Elyria. of war, Russians made a player and German coaches phone cut off there was no when they left the city In “But then you just look circle around our city and wanted to work with him. way of knowing if it was a the city they were closed back and realized that there it was totally closed,” she But that plan ended when lost connection or somefrom their emotions, surwas no way back — you said. “… So it takes a few she woke up one mornviving.” have no home, no job, no days and then there was no thing worse. ing and their car, with “I had a really bad panic The couple moved to friends around you in your electricity, no gas, no water Ukrainian plates, had been attack; Oleg helped me Germany, then came to city like we used to live in the city and no commuplastered with swastikas by Ohio by way of a flight to a comfortable, beautiful nication with them because to calm down a little bit,” pro-Russian vandals. Tiurkina said. It took Spain, then Mexico City, life we built,” Tiurkina there’s no electricity.” She said her husband another three weeks before then Tijuana and waited at said. “New life? What new She said later, “It was a UKRAINE PAGE A3 Classifieds, legals, display advertising, and subscriptions Deadline: 1 p.m. each Monday Phone: 440-329-7000 Hours: 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday

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Commissioners OK grant for Amherst water, sewer project DAVE O’BRIEN THE CHRONICLE-TELEGRAM

The Lorain County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Feb. 24 to grant the city of Amherst $400,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds to aid in repairs to aging sewer, water and road infrastructure in a residential neighborhood. The funds will help the city repair or replace sewer pipes, water mains and roadway in the Sharondale Allotment between Cooper Foster Park Road and state Route 2 in Amherst. Amherst Mayor Mark Costilow told commissioners that the total project cost is more than $1.7 million, with

at least $1.3 million of that going into improving water and sewer infrastructure. The city will spend more than $633,000 of its own ARPA money, in addition to the county’s $400,000 share and additional funding from Amherst’s existing street improvement levy, he said. Amherst will cover all the engineering costs, Costilow said, and the project will benefit more than 100 homes in the area. “This will help a lot of people, it will help our sanitary system and puts the ARPA dollars really to good use,” he said. More than 1 mile of sewer pipe will be replaced, rehabilitated or

realigned. Another 2,000 linear feet of water mains will be replaced along with 35 water taps containing potentially dangerous lead, Costilow said. Amherst also will resurface more than 4,400 feet of roadway, he said. Columbia Gas recently started repairing some of its lines in the same area, and Costilow said the city and the utility are working together and aligning their work schedules to make sure that Columbia Gas doesn’t have to remove or redo any of the city’s planned work. The city previously found a number of sewer and water lines in the area were 70 years old or older, REPAIRS PAGE A2

INSIDE THIS WEEK Amherst

Oberlin

Sports

Metro Park Rangers help stuck bucks ● A4

Pastor speaks on Racial Equity panel ● A5

Midview girls advance to district finals ● A6

OBITUARIES A2 • CLASSIFIEDS A5 • CROSSWORD A7 • SUDOKU A7 • KID SCOOP A8