Valentin Dunduchenko returned to his church in Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine, to find that most of his fellow musicians had fled.
Other than a piano player, the church where Mr. Dunduchenko once taught children to sing and play guitar was now filled entirely by refugees fleeing the Russian invasion.
Music and faith are central to Mr. Dunduchenko, who works in Ukraine on behalf of Music in World Cultures, a Pittsburgh-based organization.
In recent weeks, the group led by Duquesne University professor Steve Benham has seen its employees in the country transform.
Once music-makers and summer camp counselors, Mr. Dunduchenko and other MIWC associates are now delivering food and sheltering refugees, having made the tough decision to remain in the country while rallying behind their fellow citizens.
Mr. Dunduchenko is a native Ukrainian who speaks Russian and talked with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette through a translator, MIWC affiliate Oxana Mudrenok.
Raised as an orphan near Kyiv, Mr. Dunduchenko has loved music since he was young.
For the past four years, Mr. Dunduchenko has taught children to play instruments at summer camps organized by MIWC and at the Dnipro church.
When Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Mr. Dunduchenko was on a train, headed to Germany for a music event. Though he was speeding away from active combat, Mr. Dunduchenko chose to return to Dnipro, where he was responsible for taking care of a family’s 80-year old relative.
After assisting the older gentleman to safety in Poland, Mr. Dunduchenko made the journey to Dnipro — again.
At his church, he found that about 60 of the 70 children he once taught had fled. Meanwhile, influxes of refugees from the eastern side of the country — including the devastated coastal city of Mariupol — were taking shelter inside, in what he called a “humanitarian hub.”
Mr. Dunduchenko told the Post-Gazette that at camp, he teaches children chords on guitar. Eventually, the kids build fragments of songs, “so they feel part of something bigger than just playing the chords and strumming.”
Now, with some 200 refugees staying in the Dnipro church on a given night, Mr. Dunduchenko’s daily schedule looks much different than at camp.
Mr. Dunduchenko soon volunteered to lead worship groups with refugees, meeting each morning from 6 to 7.
At night, after dinner, he listens to their stories.
“When he looks at their scared faces, he realizes how much they have seen,” Mr. Dunduchenko’s translator, Ms. Mudrenok, explained. “These people share how awful war is, how much they have suffered, how it was hard for them to escape places.”
On the other side of Ukraine, Vitalli Bolgar, MIWC’s 43-year-old camps director, found other ways to help.
Previously based in Kyiv, Mr. Bolgar recently returned the capital city after seeking refuge in Mukachevo for a month. Mr. Bolgar left when the bombing and shooting began, and he said he was shocked at what he saw.
“Kyiv was always a city of progress, where nice things happened — the best in the country,” Mr. Bolgar told the Post-Gazette through translation.
Mr. Bolgar is also the conductor of the Kyiv United Youth Choir.
While in Kyiv, he distributed 20 boxes worth of bread to army members and civilians, mentioning that he had never seen so much gratitude for something as simple as bread.
“No one thought that someone in west Ukraine would be baking bread and delivering it to people in the capital of Ukraine,” Ms. Mudrenok translated for Mr. Bolgar. “This is just striking how things are changing now.”
Back in Mukachevo, Mr. Bolgar said he’s helping Ukrainians get to Romania, Germany and Poland, and he plans to package meat in cans to send to soldiers on the frontlines.
The war has affected all Ukrainians, including Ms. Mudrenok, who MIWC employs as a translator.
On the first day of the invasion, Ms. Mudrenok woke up at 4 a.m. to explosions. After fleeing to western Ukraine with family, Ms. Mudrenok now takes refuge in a house with 14 others. That rises to 20 when lunchtime rolls around.
“We call it a gypsy camp, because it’s really loud, and sometimes joyful, sometimes sad,” Ms. Mudrenok said in English. “But we are thankful for the place to stay, for the food, and we just learn to live in this new reality and hope for the best.”
First Published: March 28, 2022, 10:46 a.m.
Updated: March 28, 2022, 11:58 a.m.