Anastasiia Biliaeva and Illya Zhukovskyy find safety in Canada to escape war that ended their professional basketball careers
The apartment he owned in Mykolaiv was demolished by a Russian missile.
The peace and quiet they’ve found in Prince George living in Wendy and Mel McMillan’s guest house overlooking the Nechako River is as alien to them as the metre-high snow drifts they see in all directions. In Mykolaiv, a Black Sea port city of nearly a half-million in southern Ukraine, snow might fall once a year and it usually melts the same day.
Anastasiia, a 20-year-old university student majoring in psychology, played two years of pro basketball for the Mykolaiv women’s team in the Ukrainian Higher League. She was also worked as a referee in the pro leagues and in minor basketball. She first met Illya at a practice when they were much younger and they became a couple in 2021 after she officiated one of his games.
Illya avoided conscription into the army due to a spinal cord infection diagnosed eight years ago and because of his father’s background as a member of the Ukrainian secret service. His dad died of an apparent heart attack six months ago. Unable to find work in Mykolaiv, Illya moved to Germany in August and Anastasiia joined him in Hamburg two months later, where they applied for and received their Canadian visas.
“My university is destroyed – every popular university in our city has been destroyed,” said Anastasiia. “Sirens are crazy in our city, for one week they didn’t stop. It was a terrible feeling. I can’t imagine what people felt when the rockets were falling on their building. Every morning we need to check the news just to know that our house is OK today.”
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