Irina Rozovsky was not much older than her own 4-year-old daughter when her family fled the Soviet Union. And she never fully understood why they left, she said, until Russian President Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine last week.
“Nothing’s changed since Stalin,” Rozovsky said after a rally in solidarity with Ukraine on Monday, referring to the brutal Soviet dictator of the 1940s and ’50s.
The U.S. may be divided politically, but “we don’t even know how lucky we are to live in such a calm, peaceful place,” she said.
Rozovsky, born in Moscow, has made many Ukrainian friends in the U.S., she said. In a bit of good fortune, one’s mother arrived on a prearranged visit from Ukraine just two days before the invasion began, she said.
While it has its own long and often independent history, prior to the breakup of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine was a Soviet territory, and Rozovsky said her Ukrainian friends all speak Russian. But now, she said, “it’s its own country, its own culture.”
With the help of some veterans of Athens’ George Floyd protests in 2020, like Mo Costello, Rozovsky quickly organized a rally at the Arch. Word of mouth spread, and about 50 people showed up on short notice, including Mayor Kelly Girtz and Commissioner Mariah Parker.
“It was not an organization,” Costello said. “More so neighbors, friends and family wanting to be together in public and show solidarity.”
Participants also engaged UGA students who hadn’t been closely following the invasion, Costello said.
Rozovsky and her husband, Mark Steinmetz, are accomplished photographers who moved to Athens from Boston in 2017. She said this was her first foray into politics, but she felt that she had to do something.
“We’re so far away and so angry and so sad and so disconnected,” she said. “It seemed like the only thing we could do, except send money.”
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