By To most students, the war in Ukraine is a news story about a distant country, 5000 miles from Helena.
But to Anzhela Stoliar, the war is personal.
She worries about the safety of her friends and family, calling them often to hear their voices and make sure they are OK.
“At the beginning of the semester, I tried to call every 1-2 days,” Stoliar said. “But now, as I got busier, it can be once in 4-5 days.”
Anzhela is currently a senior at Carroll College. She will be walking this spring and graduating officially in December.
Carroll is not her first college. She studied at Petro Mohyla Black Sea Nation University in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, for three years before traveling to Montana.
Anzhela Stoliar was born in Chornobaivka, a village in Ukraine with nearly 10,000 people.
“I lived really close to an area with a little river and there were little hills,” she said. “When I was younger, we’d always go there to play and explore the area.”
In the evenings, her friends and her would get together to watch a TV show and enjoy each other’s company.
“It was kind of a stupid TV show about four different moms trying to prove that they are the best mom. And it would just be on in the background while we talked or played games.”
Anzhela’s fond memories of her hometown include the ones she had with family.
“Having dinner together. My dad would work in different cities and I also started studying in other cities so whenever we got to sit down, my mother, brother and father together, it was one of my favorite things,” Stoliar said.
Stoliar moved to Petro Mohyla Black Sea Nation University in Mykolaiv to study. She was attending the university as a third year major when the war began in February 2022.
The frontline in the war was so close, that her university paused for a month. Education resumed in April 2022.
“There were no zoom classes,” Stoliar said. “We just had assignments that we turned in.”
Online classes began in Fall 2022.
Back in Chornobaivka, circumstances were no less tumultuous. Because Russian troops were beginning to occupy her hometown, Anzhela’s family had to move several times.
Her mother, Vita, who made a living selling chicken meat, closed down her shop because it was no longer profitable.
Her father, Arkadii, who works as a fire systems installer in malls and similar establishments, has changed jobs and cities, seeking a safe place to work and live.
Vita and Anzhela’s brothers, Artem and Nazarii, also relocated constantly.
Home was becoming a distant concept to Anzhela’s family.
She went from living with her grandmother in a city called Slobidka-Okhrimovetska for some time to eventually living with her parents once they had moved to Korosten.
Even though Anzhela was together with her family, she worried about what the future had in store for her.
At that moment, when stress was high and the war was intensifying, Stoliar heard of the opportunity to study at Carroll College. The university sent out a notice for its students about a refugee scholarship program that Carroll was offering to students whose lives and studies have been destabilized by war.
Anzhela says she applied without expecting that she could actually come here because the U.S. seemed so far away.
“But I just decided to try and it worked out pretty well,” she said. “I’ve been studying here for a little over a year now.”
That was also the time that she met Mariia Savchenko, soon-to-be close friend of Anzhela.
Mariia was a fellow student attending Petro Mohyla Black Sea Nation University, and she had heard about the same opportunity Carroll was offering to the students of the university.
They helped each other complete their applications to Carroll – and waited, not expecting to be accepted or to move to America.
But they were accepted and so their journey to Montana began. The entire process required them to first take a bus ride to a neighboring country, Moldova – followed by 30 hours of flights from Moldova to Montana.
“We became good friends during our journey to America,” said Savchenko, now a political science senior at Carroll.
Having started their education at Carroll at the same time, and set to walk together this spring, they’ve developed a strong bond.
“Anzhela is a very intelligent, cute, friendly person,” said Mariia. “She is honest, clear and very kind! We are almost neighbors. We always go to school together and she knows all my secrets.”
Anzhela’s honest and open disposition has helped her to form many other meaningful relationships, not only with other international students but also with American students.
Aiden Clinton Scott, a financial planning, computer information systems and computer science major, met Anzhela at the beginning of the spring 2023 semester during a Carroll event held for foreign exchange students.
Scott’s first impression of Anzhela was that she was “quiet, pretty reserved and it was hard to know what was on her mind.”
Scott wasn’t surprised, since he knew she had entered a totally new environment after leaving a war-torn country.
“Anzhela is certainly thoughtful, a goofball for sure, and very smart,” Scott said.
The two often enjoy watching anime, playing board games, reading, cooking or going on trips together. Currently, they’re reading “Dune.”
“Once she catches onto the rules, she immediately becomes as good as I am at it even though I played it for years.”
They discuss Eastern European politics, and he’s learned to cook Ukrainian dishes such as raveniki, parishki and borscht.
“After meeting Anzhela, I’ve made Ukrainian food and I’ve learned a couple of Ukrainian words as well.”
They’ve even visited the Ukrainian shop in Spokane, Washington.
Anzhela has found many things to enjoy about living in Helena.
“I like the view, especially the mountains,” she said. “In my hometown, we didn’t have mountains.”
She also likes how people in general are nice and willing to help.
But Stoliar misses her homeland, her family, her friends.
“I miss the spring time because there’s a lot of trees and flowers that people plant in their homes. And they all bloom in the spring and it’s so nice and pretty. I miss going somewhere and seeing something in Ukrainian, like going to the store or just being on the street. I think it has a lot to do with language.”
In light of that, she says it’s really nice whenever she gets together with the other Ukrainian students learning at Carroll College and she can just speak in Ukrainian.
“Being the only person in a class whose first language isn’t English and having an accent can be scary.”
In response to this challenge, Anzhela has had to develop more confidence in herself. She joined the Talking Saints debate team here at Carroll.
“Having an accent doesn’t mean that I don’t know enough.”
The team welcomed her, and even took her skiing.
“Whenever the topic involves international events, the team turns to Anzhela for wisdom,” said Brent Northup, coach of the Talking Saints. “She’s loved and valued on the team. I hate to think how frighteningly good she’d be if she were speaking her home language. She’s good enough already!”
Anzhela’s time in Helena has presented lots of challenges.
“Even if there are people that help you, you have to do a lot of things on your own, she said.
“I have to learn how to be in this environment.”
Now nearing the end of her time in Carroll, Stoliar is looking ahead. As she thinks about returning, she hopes attitudes might change in her homeland.
“People say they want changes but they don’t want to take responsibility for the changes. What are they doing themselves to bring the change?”
She says she wants to help in whatever way she can, whether it’s in Helena or in her hometown, Chornobaivka.
Stoliar admits the war has changed her view of life, and altered her dreams.
“Before the war, I would be like I need to find the great purpose of my life that will change the lives of all eight billion people on this planet,” she said. “But then the war started and I realized I just want to live and it doesn’t have to be something great. I just want to live this life.”
