On the morning the Russians attacked Kyiv, the dark horizon turned red as though the Kalibr cruise missiles had found home and the city was burning. But the glow was in fact coming from an endless line of brake lights as roughly 100,000 people fled for their lives, trapping themselves in the open. More than 1 million people fled Ukraine that first week alone. All told, Russia has since scattered 14 million Ukrainians, creating the largest refugee crisis since World War II and the fourth largest in history.
At 5 a.m. that morning on February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin addressed the Russian Federation in a televised speech. He announced a “special military operation” in eastern Ukraine and blamed Kyiv for any “possible bloodshed,” claiming his goal was the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine. Maksym and Viktoria Shkurupii were sitting in their Kyiv apartment when Putin’s “special operation” nearly shredded their home with them in it.
A deafening roar ripped through the sky. Books tumbled from shelves. Plaster chunks fell from the ceiling. And just like that, the Shkurupiis woke up in the middle of a war.
“It was loud, shaking the walls,” Viktoria told me, her voice steady but her eyes betraying the memory of terror.
For Maksym and Viktoria, Kyiv was far more than home. The city was the story of their lives. It was where they met as students and fell in love. The private Lutheran school Concordia University Wisconsin had a branch in Kyiv. Maksym wasn’t planning to go there, but the school had an Olympiad for English language ability and first prize was a free education. Maksym won, and in his very first class on his very first day, he sat beside Victoria—and they got married that same year.
“I didn’t do a lot of travel back then,” said Maksym, chuckling, “because, I mean, I had to study, and that was my main priority. And after getting my master's degree in 2008, I started working full-time while Victoria helped with the kids.”
The city was also where Viktoria’s parents founded a travel agency, and where they both later worked and saw their careers begin to flourish.
“We’ve been running the travel agency for more than 15 years, and it was one of the first in Ukraine. My parents founded it in 1996, and Ukraine became independent only in 1991. It was one of the 20 earliest travel agencies in the country.”
Their first major challenge came shortly before Euromaidan. The process of getting a travel visa was a major obstacle for Ukrainians at the time, so a large part of their work involved preparing the required documents and getting the visas. There were months when Maksym and Viktoria were doing 300 to 400 visa applications or more. Some people wanted to buy a car. Some wanted to go to Europe to work. Some had relatives in Europe.
But then the European government changed the requirements and that stream-of-income broke down because it became harder to get the visas. Maksym said, “More and more people were staying in Europe and not returning. Like, they were just doing their travel visas and not returning. So my mother went around Russia—yes, Russia was part of our life then—and she found the right Russian companies that could send Russians to Kyiv, because Kyiv was extremely popular among Russian tourists.”
He smiled and added, “Everybody likes Kyiv.”
There were times when Maksym and Viktoria were simultaneously working with 15 groups of 50 people, with each group staying at different hotels in different locations. And while the Russians were visiting Kyiv, the Ukrainians mostly wanted to see Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, and the Greek islands.
Then in 2014, the corrupt Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych squashed a deal with the European Union that would have required Ukraine to make judicial and financial reforms. The decision resulted in almost 1 million protesters flooding the street of Kyiv. During the uprising, which became known as Euromaidan, police forces ultimately killed 108 protesters.
“It was also a huge hit to our currency,” said Maksym. “A devaluation by more than three-and-a-half times, almost within a couple of days. And of course, the majority of incomes were in local currency, and all the travel outside the country was paid usually in euros or U.S. dollars, so suddenly people couldn’t afford to travel.”
Finally, Kyiv was also the place where their beloved children were born. “We have two kids. One is 12 today, by the way. He has a birthday today. And my daughter, our daughter, will become 16 in a month’s time.”
They endured years of economic hardship and made sacrifices along the way, but eventually built a life that revolved around showing people the wonders of the world. Then war brought home the horrors of the world. Suddenly, all that experience managing complex itineraries and guiding clients through logistical nightmares was about to be tested in ways they could never have imagined.
“We thought, Maybe it will be two weeks,” said Maksym. “Maybe two months.” But the war did not relent. They decided to move to the relative safety of his father’s home. They climbed into their Mazda CX-5 with nothing but their dog Bruno, some warm clothes for the children, a few cherished belongings, and four gasoline canisters. The drive, which should have taken an hour, stretched into eight. Every major artery out of Kyiv was clogged. Every car was packed full of families, their faces red in the haze of traffic lights, as if this was the manifestation of their anxiety or an emergency sign telling everyone to abandon their cars and disperse under the cover of the dark.
They were so relived to arrive at the house, but after 10 days of listening to the hiss of missiles overhead, Viktoria made the agonizing decision to flee Ukraine with their children. Maksym would haver to remain in Ukraine to secure the documents he needed to leave. Men of fighting age were barred from crossing the border, and he faced months of bureaucratic hurdles before he could join his wife and children.
“The kids had to sleep all dressed up,” said Viktoria, “in case we had to leave the house abruptly. And so, every night they were asking if they could put on their pajamas. And we would have to say no. They had their boots next to their beds so they could quickly dress. This kind of thing made me take the decision. It was hard. I can still remember it. I cried for many days. But I had to do it for the kids.”
Maksym stayed with them for the first leg of the trip. Gas stations were empty. Store shelves lay bare. People ran out of food on the way. Flights out were canceled. Buses were canceled. Maksym had anticipated the chaos before the invasion took place and waited for hours one morning in the slicing cold to fill the old Mazda, but even that had been barely enough to get them to his father’s house. To reach the Polish border weeks later, they relied on fuel scrounged together from friends and neighbors, or people they met on the way. Viktoria said, “We stayed in villages with people we’d never met before. Or friends of friends. Everyone was trying to help each other.”
When Viktoria and the children finally crossed into Poland, her heart ripped to leave Maksym behind. The kids were distraught. Bruno stayed with Maksym and Viktoria and the kids entered Poland through a pedestrian border crossing. “It took two hours in the freezing cold,” she said. “But when we reached Kraków, I finally let myself sleep. The kids were happy just to put on pajamas. Just pajamas.”
From Kraków, Viktoria and the kids made their way to Berlin, where her mother was staying. From there, they arranged travel to Portugal, where a friend had set them up to live in a small house on the Azores Islands. There, on an island with a population of just 3,000 people, they tried to make sense of their new reality.
“I was told that there was a place for me to stay near the ocean,” said Viktoria, “and this place was amazing, and for free. They were helping Ukrainians. And so this is how I ended up in Portugal. I spent three months there before Max came. And it was one of the best times and the best places where I could end up with my kids after such a huge stress. I didn't know what to do with my life. So I was just, like, trying to figure it out. It was beautiful. And safe. But we knew we couldn’t stay forever. The kids needed a future, a place where they could grow.”
Maksym’s odyssey ended three months later in Madrid. Viktoria and the children had traveled there to complete their Canadian visa applications. Maksym finally got approval to leave Ukraine. When his family finally saw him at the airport, even their taxi driver was moved to tears. Viktoria told me, “He actually, you know, I saw that his eyes were full, full of tears, because it was such an emotional moment, for him as well.”
The family stayed in Madrid for a week, then returned briefly to the Azores before boarding a plane to Canada. For Viktoria, the choice of Canada was simple. “English,” she said. “Our kids already knew some, and it felt like the best chance for them.”
They arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, with little more than their suitcases and the hope of rebuilding a sense of home in a strange land. But they were not alone in their struggle. Help Ukraine Vancouver Island helped them settle in. Kathy Scott, the owner of Departures Travel, a member of Ensemble Travel Group in Oak Bay, heard their story through mutual connections—and it touched her heart. She met the Shkurupii family and learned about their business back in Ukraine, and what they had just gone through. As Viktoria explained, “Kathy wasn’t looking to expand her team, but she was so moved by our story that she gave us a chance.”
“They know what they’re doing and they’re very skilled,” said Kathy. “Victoria will support them like it has supported me so well, and they will be successful here.”
Today, Maksym and Viktoria are thriving members of Kathy’s team, drawing on their years of experience in the travel industry to help Canadians explore the world. Sometimes, Maksym still talks about the early days of the invasion with a mix of disbelief and sorrow. “The kids know the sounds of missiles and helicopters now,” he said. “They shouldn’t. But they do.”
But life is good. Viktoria smiles when she talks about how well her children are adapting to Canada. “They’re speaking English better than we expected,” she said. “They’ve made friends. They’re happy.”
In the endless barrage of negative news, it can often be easy to overlook stories like that of the Shkurupiis—stories of bravery, the power of love, the kindness of strangers, and the meaning of home. But theirs is a true immigrant success story, and years from now, their children will proudly tell friends how Mom and Dad escaped from the jaws of hell and crossed the entire world just so that their children could be happy and have a place of their own to call home. Was the journey brashly optimistic? Yes, except this is not the naïve optimism of pretending everything is fine, but the hard-won joy of people who have lost much, but refuse to lose hope.
“We had only one try,” Maksym said. “And it had to work. For our kids. For us.”