ROCKLAND, Maine — A Ukrainian refugee hosted a Ukraine Culture Day at the Penobscot Bay Language School in Rockland, giving midcoast Mainers a taste of what her home country is like.
Daria Veligura and her two young sons left their home near Kyiv just 10 days before Russia invaded Ukraine last year.
"[Russia] want[s] to destroy our culture," Veligura said.
However, after moving to Maine in April 2022, she focused on how to keep her culture alive in her heart, sharing it with something that can unite people from all walks of life: food.
"When people immigrate from other countries, people can forget about language, habits, but not food," Veligura said. "In the plate of my food, you can see the Ukrainian flag."
The Penobscot Bay Language School has helped Veligura and her sons resettle in Maine, and the school has also given her a new community, one that reminds her of Ukraine.
On Sunday afternoon, Veligura and other Ukrainian women served up dishes like Borsch and dumplings, attracting lots of midcoast Mainers to the school.
"However they got here, whenever they got here, we're really happy to have them at Penobscot Bay Language School," the school's executive director, Jared McCannell, said.
The school helped Veligura's family and other Ukrainian refugees relocate to Maine. McCannell said the school not only teaches different languages, but it also celebrates different cultures.
According to the United Nations, more than eight million Ukrainians, nearly 20 percent of the country's population, found refuge in the United States and Europe since the war in Ukraine began.
Veligura's husband is still in Ukraine. Her village, known as Moschyn, near Ukraine's capital Kyiv, was the first village destroyed in the invasion.
In a fight where Russia is trying to "destroy" her culture, Veligura is focused on the opposite.
"I want to save my culture and show people who I am," Veligura said.