④Turmoil in the Koryo-saram community

Outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, last October. Several people gathered in a tucked-away storage room of a coffee shop. The ripping sound of packing tape was loud. On one side, people kept filling boxes with food and daily necessities. They are Koryo-saram living in Ukraine.

Since the outbreak of the Russia·Ukraine war in February 2022, the Koryo-saram community has been badly shaken. Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts), Crimea, and Odesa were areas where many Koryo-saram lived. Many had to flee the bombardment. They moved to Kyiv or western regions, but soon ran into economic problems. Housing and jobsmaking a living became daunting.

Sergei Hegai, a Koryo-saram refugee from Donetsk, has been roaming away from home for years with his young children. He said, “We abandoned the hometown where our family had lived since the time of my grandfather and came to a strange place, but we suffer terribly from the reality that we do not know when the war will end.” Liudmyla Kim said, “I am from a city in the Zaporizhzhia region that is under occupation,” adding, “I have been living here for years with my husband and grandson, and we cannot return.” Koryo-saram did not expect war, and even less did they know how to evacuate. The war struck without warning, and in an instant their lives changed.

What gave hope to those in despair was the food arriving from Korea. It gave them the expectation that they could hold out. The Koryo-saram civic group ‘Asadal’ distributes food from Korea to Koryo-saram households. Petro Park of Asadal said, “With donations sent by a Korean NGO, we send food to Koryo-saram households about once every two months,” adding, “There are 1,950 such Koryo-saram households across Ukraine.”

Koryo-saram families living nearby come in person to pick up the food package boxes. For families in other regions, delivery is needed, Petro explained. Stickers in Ukrainian and Korean stating that the war effort in Ukraine is being supported were affixed densely to the boxes. As the boxes piled up like a mountain, Koryo-saram began to arrive one after another. Though careworn, they broke into smiles at the sight of the stacked boxes. Inside were food items such as spaghetti, sugar, rice, and flour. Liudmyla Park said, “We Koryo people cannot do without rice,” lifting a bag of rice from the box.

Showing a box, Petro said, “Each set contains 14 itemscanned food, sugar, pasta, oil, sausage, rice, tea, and toothpaste, among others.” Over the two months of last September and October, he delivered 858 sets to households. He said, “Since the war, countless Koryo-saram households have had no more than about $50 a month in pension income,” adding, “For them, this food is nothing less than a lifeline.”

The official term for ethnic Koreans in Ukraine is ‘Koryo-saram (Корё-сарам)’. Oleksii Kim (62) said, “During the Soviet era, our passports said ‘Korean,’ and we thought of ourselves as an ethnic minority. But now the Korean nation has a very large and developed country, and I am proud that I am ‘Koryo-saram,’ the same people as them.”

Vladimir Kim said, “I still feel Korean.” He has lived the typical life of a third-generation Koryo-saram who lived in the Soviet Union. His grandparents were forcibly relocated in 1937 from the Far East to Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, etc.), where his mother was born. He, too, was born in Central Asia. Most Koryo-saram in Ukraine share a similar history.

About twenty Koryo-saram who each received a box took verification photos and signed paperwork, as proof that the donations were received from Korea. But the joy was brief; they quickly left carrying their boxes. In the capital Kyiv, air-raid alerts sound several times a day, and ballistic missiles and Shahed drones fall.

Petro loaded other boxes onto the truck. This is because Koryo-saram outside the capital Kyiv are also waiting for food boxes. He has to drive long hours, and the roads are very dangerous. Drones attack and missiles fly in. Petro has been making these perilous deliveries for nearly four years.

After a six-hour drive, he reached the city of Kharkiv. Kharkiv is the fiercest battleground of the war in Ukraine. Many outlying areas of Kharkiv have already been seized by Russian forces. The city center remains under Ukrainian government control, but the situation could change at any time. As soon as he entered Kharkiv, buildings shatteredby bombardment came into view. Petro said, “Kharkiv was one of the most beautiful cities in Ukraine, with many universities, very interesting parks, and much to see. Every time I enter this city now, I recall how it looked before the war and feel very sad.”

When Petro parked the truck in front of a restaurant, a group of Koryo-saram gathered with joyful faces. Working together, they unloaded the boxes. Svetlana, who serves as a leader in the Kharkiv Koryo-saram community, brought out a ledger, handed out boxes, and took verification photos. She said, “There are many Koryo-saram in Kharkiv. Today, to receive these boxes, people have braved danger to come from here and there.”

In addition to food boxes, Petro’s truck carried down jackets, cold medicine and other Korean pharmaceuticals, gloves, sketchbooks, and a variety of aid sent from Korea. Alexandra said, “Not only food but also the toothpaste, soap, and shower gel they provide are a great help.” Natalia, a Koryo-saram, said, “My mother, born in 1938, says, ‘I began life in a war, and now as I finish life, it is war again,’” choking up as she added, “War in childhood, war now in old age.” For Koryo-saram who have lived through a tragic modern history, a war in old age must feel all the more sorrowful.

The hearty smiles were brief; a sharp air-raid warning soon sounded. Laughter vanished from faces. A grandmother stroked her grandson’s chest, soothing him, “It is okay, it is okay.” Those who had received boxes quickly headed out, saying it was dangerous to remain in the city center. Petro said, “People do not want to stay long in the city. I must hand out the boxes quickly and also get out of the city.” As the war has entered its fourth year, even this kind of daily routine now seems familiar to them.

Among those hurrying away was Tetiana. She is a single mother raising two daughters. She does not even know her husband’s whereabouts. Two years have passed without knowing whether he was conscripted somewhere after the war began or died. She speaks Korean well and majored in Korean at university. “My grandparents lived in Sakhalin in the Far East before being forcibly relocated to Uzbekistan, and they continued living there,” she said. Tetiana’s father moved again to Ukraine, and Sevastopol in Crimea became his hometown.

After the Russia·Ukraine war began, fleeing bombardment led her to Kharkiv, where her in-laws had lived. With her husband missing and no income at all, she moved into an apartment that a friend had left vacant when fleeing abroad, carrying only a few clothes and the children’s toys. It was a very small space with one room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. She gets by by teaching Korean to Ukrainian students online or selling small handmade crafts made with ribbons. Her income is around 2,000 hryvnias a month, about $52 (70,000 KRW). It is far too little to raise two daughters, ages 11 and 7.

“At least I can be with my children,” she said. “In a situation where we do not know when or where a bomb will fall, if something happens and I am not by their side, I could never forgive myself.” When she first heard the explosions, her older daughter thought it was thunder. “To avoid frightening the children, I decided not to say, ‘It is war and we might die,’” she said. “I chose to shoulder this alone and make sure the children feel that everything is okay.”

In Kharkiv, air-raid alerts sound a dozen or more times a day. Each time, Tetiana holds and pats her children in the narrow corridor between the room and the entrance. The girls, now used to it, snuggle into their mother’s arms and sing or draw. This is how the mother and daughters, with no one to rely on, overcome the fear of war. “I understand that North Korean troops are near Kursk,” she said. “We thought of them as the same people as us, but I cannot understand why they are doing this.” The dispatch of North Korean troops has caused great confusion in the Koryo-saram community. They knew South Korea as a wealthy democracy and North Korea as an impoverished dictatorship, but the troop deployment made the two Koreas feel starkly different.

Vladimir Kim, serving as a sergeant in the Territorial Defense Forces in Dnipro, said, “They (North Korean troops) are our enemy. I live here, and they came to our country. I will defend this country.” He said, “I originally had a negative view of North Korea, but the fact that North Korean troops are now fighting on Russia’s side makes me angry. Ukrainians clearly distinguish that I am a Ukrainian Korean and they are Koreans from North Korea, yet it still pains me because we are the same Koreans.”

Petro said, “As we enter the fourth year of war, people’s faces look very tired, and at times they seem a bit despondent. But thanks to the help and remembrance from Koreans, we feel more keenly that we are one blood and a people who share the Korean language.”

As the reporting team was about to depart, Tetiana said she had a message she wanted to convey to Korea. “Only those who have truly lost ‘a peaceful sky’ know why the words ‘peaceful sky’ are necessary,” she said, adding, “It is when nothing is flying over your head when you go outside.” When will the war for Koryo-saram in Ukrainewho are living the tragedy of war with their whole bodiescome to an end?