Tuesday, February 24th, 2025 – 1930h (7:30pm) Eastern
From Poltava by Open Wagon, to a New Life on Unfamiliar Land by David Chernushenko
In 2021, my Aunt Raya completed her work on a family memoir and shared it with her children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. The family origins story she told blew me away: surviving the Holodomor, WW2, a wagon convoy escape across Ukraine, five years in a Displaced Persons camp and then starting a new life in Alberta under harsh conditions. My reaction was both to the extremes of the story and the fact I had been told very little of this as I grew up. Now, at age 60, I understood so much better my roots, the impact on my father of what he had lived and how so much gets passed on to future generations, even if unspoken. And in an instant, I understood better why the war on Ukraine feels personal, though I have never been there and don’t speak the language. And perhaps why my life has been one of supporting “underdog” groups and causes.
David Chernushenko is a writer and speaker living in Ottawa, Canada. He is the author of three environmental management books and the climate breakdown thriller Burning Souls (2019) . He has directed and produced several documentary films. He served on Ottawa’s City Council from 2010-18. David now guides bicycle tours of the city he has worked to make more healthy and livable. In 2025, he published Standing with Underdogs, a family and personal memoir.