Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 6, 2022, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A3 A3SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 2022 NEWS I LOCAL / CANADA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM However, employee Alison McNabb said the shop has been selling out of a daily stock of 1,000 cookies within an hour of opening each day. “They’re flying off the shelves,” she said. “There’s usually a lineup outside for people asking for the cookies.” Ivanka Watkins said she’s been entreating “everyone I’ve talked to in the last year” to raise money for Lyana Mytskio, who was director of the Lviv Municipal Arts Centre. Mytskio, who Watkins met while liv- ing in Ukraine, has turned the centre, a converted palace into a shelter for displaced people without any external support. “She’s a superhero,” Watkins said. It’s been a shock getting videos of friends in bomb shelters making Mo- lotov cocktails or photos of buildings in which she once lived burned and destroyed, Watkins said. Watkins said she has raised almost $5,000 to this point. Writers and Rockers Coffee Co. is donating proceeds from a coffee blend they call “Dateline: Kyiv” to a Go- FundMe to help Ukrainian journalists continue to report on the violence; and Radiance Gifts, owned by the same couple, is donating 100 per cent of proceeds from handmade bracelets to the Red Cross’s Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Appeal. “I can’t imagine the heartbreak and the terror of having to flee your home,” said Lisa Tjaden, who crafted the bracelets. She and her husband have already donated the first $1,000 from the sales — though, a portion of that they advanced out of pocket until that target is reached. In a post for her fundraiser, Meagan Pitura quoted a Ukrainian legend, in which a horrible serpent is chained to a cliff. Each year the serpent sends out minions to count pysanky, or eggs drawn in with ornate designs, now associated with Easter, and the number must stay high to keep the serpent chained. Through her home business Prairie Pysanky, Pitura is selling blue and yellow eggs at $20 each to donate to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. “I posted it into a couple buy-sell pages and some handmade pages (on Facebook), and it exploded,” Pitura said. Within a few days, Pitura had a backlog of about 140 pysanky eggs to make. She expects that after covering her costs, she’ll be able to donate about $1,000. Orysia Ehrmantraut is the owner of Baba’s House, an ice cream shop and bakery on Bannerman Avenue. She has deep roots in Ukraine, and her shop is dressed in cultural knick- knacks and art from her family’s homeland. She’s donating proceeds from the sales of many items on her menu, some of which she’s renamed things like “Ukrainian Hero.” One customer crocheted pins of sun- flowers, which have become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, that Ehrman- traut now sells at her shop to raise funds for humanitarian aid. “The outpouring has been really, really great,” she said. “I kind of went from the approach that we’re not all in a position to make a sizable donation, but if we all put in a little bit, then we could make a big difference.” Other businesses and organiza- tions organizing fundraisers include Manitoba Ukrainian Dance Festival, Four Crowns Restaurant and Bar, RnR Family Restaurant, and home business- es Sweets by Arlene and Nicole’s Knots, among others. fpcity@freepress.mb.ca DANIEL CRUMP / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Goodies Bake Shop is selling heart-shaped sugar cookies decor- ated with gold and blue icing to raise money for Ukraine, with customers (left) lining up to buy them. HELP ● FROM A1 RUSLAN and Nadia Zeleniuk were nearly run off their feet Friday, as their cramped Selkirk Avenue shop filled up with customers looking to support Ukraine with their wallets. Last week, a would-be patron had to buzz the door to even get in Svitoch Ukrainian Export & Import. Now, a shopper has to find space among a doz- en others to browse the cultural wares lining the walls: pysanka Easter egg kits, traditional vyshyvanka shirts and glassware. A couple leaning on the jewelry counter were buying 20 of the ornately patterned headscarves stacked behind the till. The Zeleniuks have been so busy since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began just over a week ago, they’ve run out of the blue-and-yellow flags of their home country, selling hundreds. “It’s a sad occasion, but we are over- whelmed with support,” Ruslan said. Now, when they lock up at the end of the day, Nadia and about eight volun- teers spend their evenings sewing flags, big, medium, small, out of material the shop acquired. All of the proceeds go to support military and humanitarian ef- forts in Ukraine. “We’re sewing them right now, con- stantly. Our volunteers are working overnight and we’re selling them out in the morning,” said Ruslan, who moved to Canada in 1991 and opened the Win- nipeg shop in 1993. The sewers can do maybe 80 pocket- sized flags a night, but the full-sized ones, it’s harder to say. They double- stitch them, Nadia explained, as they don’t want to sell an inferior product. On Friday, only one full-sized flag was left: a man had paid for it days before, and the Zeleniuks kept it in the back of the shop. They don’t have a waiting list — if you want a flag, you must come before the door opens at 10 a.m., Nadia said. Every day, two or three people are waiting. It’s not just recent immigrants and longtime Ukrainian-Canadians packing the store each day, either. “It’s overwhelming. It’s Métis, it’s First Nations… All the different com- munities, they are Ukrainian for a day,” Ruslan said. “We are so, so glad.” The phone rang, as the Zeleniuks worked to help the customers, jumping between the till and back. Nadia told one customer holding a yellow ballcap emblazoned with Ukraine’s coat-of- arms it was a child’s size — they had run out of anything larger, but he could buy an army cap if he wanted or maybe come back next week. Later, as she held one of the Ukrain- ian flags she had stitched, Nadia began to tear up, when asked how she has been feeling. “My mom and family… my husband’s family… my friends are fighting,” she said. “It’s really hard for us.” The Zeleniuks are trying to keep in touch with family and loved ones back home. On Friday, Nadia spoke with her mother by phone at 7 a.m., just to ask if she was OK. erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @erik_pindera Shopping shows local support for Ukraine ERIK PINDERA T ANIA Cameron was watching the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from her home in Ken- ora, Ont., when she felt the need to ex- press her solidarity with Ukrainians on both sides of the world. “There are Ukrainian people in our towns and cities that are having a very hard time. They aren’t my people, but we are connected, so I’ll stand with you,” Cameron said in a phone interview. “If it’s something as simple as wear- ing a kokum scarf in solidarity, then that’s what I’ll do. If there’s any way I can support funds to help the humani- tarian aid, then that’s what I’ll do.” Indigenous people across Canada have been showing their support of Ukraine by posting photos and videos of themselves on social media wearing what is known in many communities as “kokum scarves.” Cameron, who is Anishinaabe, saw the social media campaign and decided to join. She sourced the scarves from Indigenous and Ukrainian shops and distributed them Canada-wide at cost. She also held a raffle with proceeds go- ing to the Red Cross. One Ukrainian senior in Kenora found out what Cameron was doing and asked if it was possible for Cameron to hand deliver some scarves. The two spent some time sharing their histories over coffee. “It was an emotional moment when I was welcomed into her home,” said Cameron. “She gifted me her grandmother’s scarf and gave me sunflower seeds as a way to thank me for my efforts.” The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine and has become a symbol of peace and solidarity. The square scarves are often em- broidered with bright, floral patterns and have been used historically by ko- kums, the Cree term for grandmother. Oral history has suggested the scarves were originally brought over to Canada by women from Ukraine and other Slavic countries in the early 1890s when the first Ukrainian settlers came to the country. The scarves are known by various names including khustkas, hustkas or babushkas. Stories of trading between First Na- tions, Métis and Ukrainian women were passed down through families on all three sides. Cameron recalls wearing a kokum as a child. “We would wear them when we went blueberry picking to try and keep the bugs out of our head and our ears … in the bush in the summertime.” Cameron was surprised to learn of the headwear’s origins. She said it makes sense Anishinaabe and Cree women would enjoy them as floral pat- terns are often present in their artwork. Today, the scarves are often used as a fashion accessory by Indigenous women and men. Powwow dancers in- corporate them into their regalia. Traditionally, Slavic women would wear them when they were married and afterwards, said Ukrainian auth- or Marion Mutala. Women would also wear them for protection while they worked outdoors and for different cele- brations. Mutala is the author of a children’s series called Baba’s Babushka, which is based on her relationship with her own grandmother who died when she was four. About seven years after writing her first book, Mutala met an Indigenous man at a book fair who told her about the significance of the scarf in Indigen- ous communities. She decided to research the relation- ship. Her book “Kohkum’s Babushka” was released in 2017. “I looked at the commonality of the relationship between Indigenous people and Ukrainians. The Métis people have the fiddle and so do Ukrainians. We have a lot of beadwork the same and spiritual life. There’s a lot of similar- ities,” she said by phone from her home in Saskatoon. Tamara Malcolm remembers using the scarves as a teen when she danced at powwows. The Anishinaabe woman recalls her great-grandmother wearing one but, like Cameron, Malcolm didn’t become aware of the history until re- cently. Malcolm owns a bead shop on the Serpent River First Nation in northern Ontario. “I have a kokum scarf hanging out- side my store to symbolize that I’m in solidarity with Ukraine,” she said. Malcolm started selling the scarves a year ago, but the COVID-19 pandemic stopped large gatherings like pow- wows, so the items sat on her shelves. Now she’s decided to donate half the proceeds from each scarf to humani- tarian efforts for Ukraine and said she has sold nearly 120 of them in the past week. Only a handful are left. — The Canadian Press Indigenous people display Ukrainian solidarity with scarves BRITTANY HOBSON TANIA CAMERON / THE CANADIAN PRESS Tania Cameron wears a ‘kokum scarf.’ RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Ruslan and Nadia Zeleniuk of Ukrainian Import and Export on Selkirk Avenue have been ‘overwhelmed with support.’ A_03_Mar-06-22_FP_01.indd 3 2022-03-05 11:38 PM ;