- Mykhaylo Fridlyand was on vacation when he heard Russia invaded Ukraine, his home country, in 2022.
- He and his girlfriend decided not to return and spent some time in Greece before moving to the US.
- Now they own a small business in Colorado and have built a life for themselves. They plan to stay.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mykhaylo Fridlyand, 43, who left Ukraine to move to Colorado. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in March 2022, I was snowboarding in Andorra with my girlfriend, Kristina. We got wind of what was happening from the news and our friends back home. Zaporizhzhya , where we lived, had been invaded and occupied by Russia.
Everyone we knew told us not to return home. I had built a brand-new house before the war , and Kristina and I had only lived in it for four months, but we left it behind.
A friend offered us their house in Greece, so we stayed there for a few months. Things in Ukraine continued to get worse, and going back looked less and less likely.