In the wake of war, Ukrainian swimmer Marat Usov has found a haven in Kansas City
When he woke up on February 24 at his home in Kyiv, Marat Usov anticipated what he called another “basic day.”
The aspiring Olympic swimmer currently ranked 22nd by the Ukrainian Swimming Federation arose around 5:20 a.m. He ate breakfast and was preparing to leave for his first of two scheduled swim practices before and after school.
To that point, he lived a routine so rigid that the 17-year-old will tell you, “I wasn’t, like, really a teenager” because free time was so rare.
Until a shattering chapter in his life, among millions of others, began with pre-dawn phone calls from relatives.
“War started,” the word was, with unprovoked Russian forces invading the country and launching missile attacks near Kyiv and numerous other sites.
At first, the news was so surreal and disorienting that his only immediate concern was whether he should still go to practice. Then they heard the first menacing booms in the distance. The first of countless ones to come.
“No words,” he said, “can explain the sound.”
And no words can explain how it felt as anything that ever was routine in their lives was under siege.
So he lay awake most of the first night and many others in those first weeks, and he still flinches at thunder or the sound of planes flying over and often has “war in my dreams.”
In the days to come, tens of thousands took shelter in the subways of Kyiv. Above ground, Marat remembers the eerily empty streets and concrete barriers and checkpoints everywhere and never knowing if he was hearing the Russians bombing or the Ukrainians defending.
All while a half hour away Russian forces committed sickening atrocities that constitute war crimes, according to Human Rights Watch.
“Maybe you’ve heard,” Marat said, “about Bucha?”
No wonder his parents, Yevhen and Renata, wanted to ensure the safety of their only child as millions were fleeing the country. And with that notion began the journey of how he came to find an improbable haven in the Kansas City region, an area he’d never heard of seven months ago.
‘My flag’
Here, Marat has found solace in the loving host home of Jamie and Jeff Berg of Prairie Village, where he lives with newfound siblings Zach and Eliza. He has found comfort at the Pembroke Hill School, where he’s felt welcomed by faculty, administration and students.
And he’s felt buoyed since his arrival by such support as Ukrainian flags displayed all over an area half a world away.
“My flag,” he said, smiling, as he sat in the Pembroke Hill college counseling office earlier this week. “My flag.”
As ever, he also has found sanctuary in the pool.
“It’s like his church,” Pembroke swimming and diving coach Chad Holmes said, adding, “It just clears his head.”
Drawn to water before he could even swim, the element itself remains a crucial constant in the upheaval of his life. But it’s not just where he finds refuge. It’s also where he has been achieving in ways no Pembroke Hill swimmer ever has before.
In mere weeks, he has set four school individual records, become part of three school relay records and ascended into the top five in the state in four events.
Best of all, Holmes said, his insatiable work ethic and team-dedicated sense of being part of something bigger than himself is infectious. As if he were a coach himself, he often can be found offering counsel to other swimmers.
“It just makes the whole team change,” said Holmes, who said he’s never seen anyone as dedicated in his 25 years of coaching. “He has just motivated everybody on the team.”
Teammates have embraced him in such a way as to bring out his personality, said Holmes, adding that Marat constantly is smiling and laughing. For that matter, the Bergs are amazed by his upbeat attitude even as he still agonizes over his family and ravaged country.
A place, Holmes says, where Marat could have become one of the thousands of civilians killed or missing.
Instead, he has become a face of the war for anyone who has encountered him since he arrived in Kansas City through a quirk of fate, an iron will and open hearts.
‘They are changing Marat’s whole future’
The quirk of fate: Zach Berg is a diver who, like Marat, has qualified for the state meet to be held in St. Peter’s from Nov. 10-12. Through diving, Zach became friends with Irene Gettya, a diver and the daughter of Ukrainian-born Lidiya Gettya.
With local diving facilities closed here during the height of the pandemic, Lidiya took her daughters (Irene and Natalie) from Olathe back to Kyiv to temporarily live and keep up with their training.
In the process, she coincidentally got to know Marat’s coach. As it happens, Natalie even trained in the same pool as Marat and they later remembered seeing each other.
Weeks after the war erupted, Marat’s mother and the coach took him to Hungary to live and train. After three months, Marat said, they faced a decision about where he should go next as funds ran out to continue the training there.
So his coach called Lidiya, who has been working for months to help refugees, raise relief funds and send supplies to Ukraine.
(Anyone interested in contacting her to offer help can reach her via https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1562102742; she particularly is seeking families who can host Ukrainian families for a few months until they get work permits, provide various supplies, help with shipping costs and volunteers to drive or teach English.)
Which brings us to the iron will:
“Lidiya is a force to be reckoned with,” Jamie Berg said.
When she called the Bergs to ask if they could help find a host family for Marat, Gettya recalled in an email, Jamie asked if she could call back.
Now, about those open hearts: Jamie called back promptly. And offered to host Marat themselves.
“Jamie and Jeff (and Zach and Eliza) are (an) absolutely amazing, loving and caring family,” Gettya wrote. “They are changing Marat’s whole future.”
So much so, she added, that Marat has “won a life lottery in comparison to what this year would have been back home.”
‘WELCOME HOME MARAT’
Despite the circumstances, or perhaps in some way because of them, as Marat flew into New York with a three-year visa and nothing but mystery in front of him, he could only happily think, “It’s not real.” After all, he had long dreamed of attending college in the United States.
Reality started to come into focus when Jeff greeted him off the plane on Aug. 10. And all the more when they landed at Kansas City International and were welcomed by Jamie, Zach and Eliza; the kids held up a “WELCOME HOME MARAT” sign adorned with both a Ukrainian and U.S. flag.
In fact, he soon felt at home.
The acclimation, Jamie said, “just seemed to happen really naturally.” Zach and Eliza promptly developed a “sibling-type relationship” with him, the parents said, and Marat quickly became more comfortable with English — which he’d taken for years but never had to apply like this.
After navigating red tape with MSHSAA because of the non-traditional nature of his arrival, it also helped that he shared another language with Holmes: swim terminology that allowed them to bond quickly.
“I’ve never seen an athlete that was this gifted and this talented. Who hadn’t been on anybody’s radar,” Holmes said, adding that his desire to work was “something I’ve never coached before.”
Meanwhile, a young man who never felt like a teenager back home has become one here.
As a case in point, the Bergs loved seeing a video of him leading a cheer at a Pembroke football game.
“It’s as Americana high school as you can get,” Jamie said.
Among other new experiences since arriving, Marat has played miniature golf and become a Chiefs fan. And while he misses his mother’s cooking and native cuisine, he has come to love barbecue and Chick-fil-A.
Still, the echoes of home loom always. From thunder or from a plane flying over, or even at Kauffman Stadium.
One summer night at a Royals game, he was rattled by fireworks.
“He didn’t like it,” Jamie said, “so we left.”
He lives always with the uncertainty about what’s to come next in a homeland that may be unrecognizable whenever he can return.
‘This is his life’
Under martial law, Marat’s father can’t leave Ukraine. His mother is in Italy as a refugee. Perhaps she can come here for his graduation, but so much remains unclear amid this strife.
A longtime family friend was killed in military service a few months ago. That still feels shocking to him.
“It’s one (thing) when you hear on TV and one (thing) when … (it’s) people who you knew,” he said.
Still, he’s heartened by some of what’s happened.
He’s never been more appreciative of the meaning of Ukrainian Independence Day (Aug. 24) or felt more honored to be Ukrainian. He points to the resolve of the fight and the bold statement made by president Vlodimir Zelenskyy in staying to lead.
“I can not explain these feelings,” he said, “but I am really proud of that.”
He’s also endlessly grateful for what Gettya called winning the life lottery. In the weeks to come, perhaps he’ll attract the attention of U.S. college recruiters who haven’t caught on to his swim times or his tale yet.
Along the way, he has to come to stand as a symbol of something important for us, too.
Because of his remarkable spirit. And as an example of what an irrepressible force such as Gettya can help create.
And as a living illustration of what the compassion of people such as the Bergs and so much of what they call the “amazing” Pembroke community can mean to the desperate and displaced across the world.
“You think you know the situation from what you read or hear,” Jeff Berg said. “But then you talk to somebody whose family is actually going through it, you hear a different perspective.”
He added, “When you look at it from a different angle or through somebody else’s eyes, it really is a lot more meaningful.”
Now, Jamie said, “It seems so much more real … This is his life.”
A life asunder in so many ways since his last “basic day.”
But a life saved in so many ways, too.