Beyond Bor­ders: A Ukrain­ian Voice Find­ing Calm in Fin­land

When Ivan Meloben­skyi arrived in Oulu in 2023, he stepped into a world that was qui­eter, safer, and more dis­tant than any­thing he had known before. Orig­i­nal­ly from Ode­sa, Ukraine, Ivan holds a bachelor’s degree in soft­ware engi­neer­ing and a master’s in polit­i­cal sci­ence. His move to Fin­land was prompt­ed by a friend’s invi­ta­tion dur­ing the ear­ly days of the war.

– I was invit­ed to Oulu to work here by my friend when the war start­ed. They need­ed a per­son of tech­ni­cal, legal and human­i­ties back­ground for the project and I exact­ly fit in this because I hold those degrees. 

The jour­ney wasn’t easy. With Ukraine’s bor­ders closed to men, Ivan had to wait over a year before he could leave. 

– We start­ed talk­ing like in Feb­ru­ary 2022 right when the war start­ed in Ukraine. But I could arrive only a year and half lat­er. 

From War to Peace

Ivan’s first impres­sions of Oulu were shaped by the unex­pect­ed chill of Finnish sum­mer. After trav­el­ing through Poland and Helsin­ki, he land­ed in Oulu to find the tem­per­a­ture far cold­er than he antic­i­pat­ed. 

– It was very cold when I came out from the plane… when I land­ed in Oulu it was +13 and it felt like it was not the sum­mer at all. 

He hadn’t packed much, just a back­pack, and had to rely on his moth­er to send more belong­ings lat­er. The light nights also took him by sur­prise, since being in such a north­ern coun­try meant much longer days than he was used to. He found it made sleep­ing a lit­tle more dif­fi­cult. 

– It was so light at night. I couldn’t fall asleep at all. I had to sleep in the bath­room, and I had to wait for when the nights got dark­er. 

Despite these ini­tial dis­com­forts, Ivan quick­ly began to appre­ci­ate the safe­ty and calm of his new envi­ron­ment. He talked about there being no drones or mis­siles fly­ing over head, mak­ing him feel com­plete­ly safe com­pared to the coun­try he has left behind. He set­tled in a qui­et area where he found him­self sur­round­ed by silence. He describes Oulu as a calm city, where peo­ple tend to stay indoors unless there’s a spe­cial event. 

– I almost see no peo­ple. I almost hear noth­ing. Until it’s Pride for exam­ple or some foot­ball match or music events.

No drones, no mis­siles fly­ing above your head, so you feel com­plete­ly safe… at least I do. 

Work, Iden­ti­ty, and Belong­ing

Before mov­ing to Fin­land, Ivan worked as a teacher in Ukraine how­ev­er now he works as a project researcher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu. This posi­tion has brought him finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty and per­son­al growth. 

– I earn a good salary. I can help my mom and I can save, pay rent and buy things that I like. 

Ivan also opened up about his iden­ti­ty, shar­ing that he is part of the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty and iden­ti­fies as asex­u­al. While he has attend­ed local LGBT events, he admits that these gath­er­ings haven’t helped him form the deep­er con­nec­tions he is look­ing for. It’s a part of his expe­ri­ence he feels strong­ly about, espe­cial­ly the chal­lenges of nav­i­gat­ing rela­tion­ships and belong­ing in a new envi­ron­ment.

Nature, Lan­guage, and Every­day Life

Liv­ing near the for­est, Ivan feels deeply con­nect­ed to nature. He says he lives so close to nature he enjoys look­ing at the trees out of his win­dow. The prox­im­i­ty to nature doesn’t mean a lack of tech­nol­o­gy how­ev­er, as Ivan jokes ‘even 5G works here’. 

That con­nec­tiv­i­ty isn’t just for tech­nol­o­gy, as Ivan has tak­en Finnish lan­guage cours­es and reached lev­el A1.2. He does admit that some­times he strug­gles with moti­va­tion. 

– I for­get all the words, and I don’t have any prac­tice… I have prob­lems with moti­va­tion. Yes. And maybe some prob­lems with dis­ci­pline. 

Still, he believes learn­ing Finnish is impor­tant. 

– If you’re plan­ning to stay here to live here you are sup­posed to speak it. So yes, peo­ple should study it.

Chal­lenges and Reflec­tions

The biggest chal­lenge Ivan faces in Oulu is lone­li­ness. Despite the safe­ty and com­fort, the iso­la­tion can be dif­fi­cult. He’s also had to rebuild his social net­works after los­ing access to plat­forms like Insta­gram and Face­book due to polit­i­cal rea­sons. Despite these chal­lenges, Ivan remains deeply grate­ful for the sup­port Fin­land has pro­vid­ed to Ukraini­ans. 

– I’m very thank­ful for the help for the Ukraini­ans… I don’t know what we would do with­out this gen­er­ous Euro­pean help. 

Advice for Oth­ers

Ivan encour­ages oth­ers to come to Oulu… but to come pre­pared. 

– Bring warm clothes, nice moods and you’re wel­come to come… Finnish peo­ple will accept you… you can be who­ev­er you are. I love Fin­land and the peo­ple here. 

Ivan is keen to make friends and meet new peo­ple, so if you want to talk to him more about his sto­ry, you can find him on Telegram: @vanyamlb

Text by: Sophie Platt