A memoir of exile and rebellion—
from the Soviet underground to Portland’s streets
UKRAINIAN MONSTER
AN AMERICAN STORY
Viktoriya Volkov
. . .
The Ice Cream Truck
Ukraine
“We want to sing with you!”
America
Too Real to Touch
Freedom
I am not afraid of a blade.
I am afraid of silence when my people are dying.
—Lina Kostenko
You have to make your own legends now.
It isn’t easy.
—Mary Crow Dog
Ukrainian Monster
The Ice Cream Truck
When I was three, at the park with my sister and my
Babushka Nadya, I heard the unmistakable,
rollicking music of the ice cream truck, I bolted
across a busy two-way street to catch it—
I didn’t have any money,
(I didn’t even know money existed!)
I caught the truck—
but didn’t get any ice cream.
My grandmother told the story for many years—
almost laughing with terror and total disbelief that
she had anything to do with producing me.
She’d cry out,
“And just like that, you’re gone—gone! I look across
the street—cars swish past—and there you are—
on the other side!
And when did you, fast one, even have time?”
Her humor would quickly turn to grief,
“The cars could have hit you. Anyone could have
snatched you up.
Oy, oy, oy...
somehow I got to the other side...
and led you back...
Oy...”
And soon, she’d be both delighted and horrified all
over again, asking me again—
“How did you get to the other side?”
When I was six, she sat me down on the couch and
told me stories of her home in Ukraine.
Yellow sunlight streamed through the window,
catching the gold threads in her flowered headscarf,
and the steel buried in her mournful blue eyes.
She never said why she told me these stories.
But I always suspected it had something to do with
my run after the ice-cream truck.
Ukraine
When she was a little girl,
Communist officers stormed her selo[1] —
pointed rifles at people’s heads—
and seized the entire winter supply
of food and livestock.
Her father, Vladimir Vashchenko, took what he
could—just one barrel of grain—and buried it in the
ground beneath the cow manure.
The officers raided homes, barns, and stores—
jabbing bayonets into the walls and ceilings
to find anything hidden.
They didn’t think to look under the cow manure.
That barrel of grain and the apples from a single
surviving tree were all that my babushka’s[2] family
had to live on through the entire winter.
❧
Joseph Stalin laid claim to Ukraine in 1932.
He began with the small farms and selos—knowing
most Ukrainians were bound to the land.
The people answered—Long live Ukraine!
The orders to the officers—Prikaz!
Anyone refusing to give up property, weapons, or
arms—Shoot on sight
Refusing to denounce faith?—Shoot on sight
Any Ukrainian... intellectual, artist, or teacher...
anyone who so much as identifies as Ukrainian—
arrest and transport!
Anyone running from their village—anyone at the
borders—drag them back—let them rot.
Millions were held at gunpoint in their own homes
and villages and left to starve in the Holodomor[3].
Millions more were imprisoned, tortured, or shot
dead.
No one knows how many.
The Communists demanded everyone give the Oath
of Allegiance to this regime.[4]
No one in my family gave it.
❧
Then, in 1941, the Nazis invaded Ukraine—seizing
land and hunting Jewish people for execution.
And even as World War II tore through the land—the
Soviets kept slaughtering anyone who dissented from
their rule.
Great-Grandfather Vashchenko hid people in his own
home from both Communists and Nazis.
As German soldiers stormed past his windows in the
mornings,
and the Soviets pushed back by evening,
my great-grandfather fed the fugitives from the
family’s own rations, and trained my grandmother to
walk
tiho, tiho—
to move so quietly she wouldn’t scare them
and to not let a single muscle betray them
when officers came to search.
A short time later, the Soviets came to conscript him
to fight the Nazis.
Great-Grandfather Vashchenko stitched his
now-forbidden Bible into the inner lining of his coat,
over his heart, and went to the frontlines.
Millions of Slavic soldiers perished as they defeated
the Nazis.
My great-grandfather came home with his Bible still
covering his heart.
❧
At home, the carnage did not stop.
Young girls were taken to be used by Soviet officers.
Anyone who spoke against the regime was diagnosed
as insane and locked in psychiatric hospitals.
The physically disabled and mentally ill were taken
out to sea and drowned.
And those who spoke of it were killed.
And people were still being arrested, charged with
offense against brotherhood and justice, and sent off
to labor camps for Communist industrialization
projects.
Spirits died, and soon, bodies too.
Babushka Nadya looked far away.
She got up from the couch and brought a loaf of bread
from the kitchen.
She traced a line across it and pointed to the larger
side, “This is two-thirds.”
Her face went still.
“Стільки погибло.”
(This much perished.)
[1] Selo means village. Selos in pre-revolutionary Ukraine were
self-sustaining, independent communities built on shared labor and
mutual reliance.
[2] Babushka means grandmother. In the West, it's often
mispronounced. The stress falls not on the “u,” but on the first “a.”
It’s a crisp, dignified sound (not found in the English language)—
ba-bush-ka.
[3] Holodomor—from the Ukrainian, “to kill by starvation.” A
man-made famine in 1932–33.
[4] The Soviet “Oath of Allegiance” was required of all citizens,
pledging unquestioned loyalty to the regime, its ideology, and its
future.
In Soviet Slavic phrasing, one gives the oath—not takes it. Because
under Communism, allegiance was not yours to choose. It was
extracted and surrendered.
“We want to sing with you!”
It wasn’t until I was much older that my father,
Dmitri, told me about Soviet Ukraine.
Speaking his native Russian, his blue eyes went far
away, glimpsing a home he never even had a chance
to lose, a home that, for him, never even existed.
He was born in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk,
under the rule of a slowly weakening empire. By the
1960s, the slogans had softened and civility took
hold—But the rules remained the same—
“Everyone just got better at working around them.”
And now, joining the Party was a choice—though the
result of either choice was still decided for you.
Any belief, opinion, or action outside the party line
was still a punishable crime.
Homes of suspected dissenters, including my father's,
were wired for surveillance.
Reports came from anywhere: neighbors, coworkers—
sometimes even relatives would turn you in—
And one wrong word, action, or even a shadow
of suspicion brought the agents.
My father said it like procedure.
“They slammed your fingers in the door, dragged you
into a van, and took you to the police station where
they beat you until you broke.”
His gaze steadied. “If you were a believer, you never
broke. No matter the cost.”
Three instances of dissent meant children were
taken as wards of the state.
Everyone else was shipped to the gulag[5] to dig
tunnels under rivers and build apartment complexes in
the freezing temperatures of Siberia with nothing to
eat and nothing but rags for coats.
My father lit up as he sang the last song of the
condemned—
“We have twelve months of winter—
and the rest is summer!”
❧
At school, neither of my parents joined the
Komsomol.[6]
As a result, they were ostracized and bullied for their
faith by students and teachers alike.
Every day they were mocked, humiliated, harassed,
and their grades were marked down.
My father looked far away again—his spirit still
enduring,
“None of it mattered to us. We knew there was no
knowledge at school—
only training of the future citizen.”
Because my parents did not take the presyaga
(the Oath), they were denied admission to university
and segregated into secretarial and trade positions.
It didn't matter how hard they worked—
they were barred from all leadership roles.
But professional advancement didn’t matter to them
either. Not if it came with indoctrination into the
Party.
Still, my father—the only open Christian in his city—
would tear into his songs of faith on his guitar on the
subway.
My dad beamed, laughing as though sunlight broke
after a storm—He himself couldn't believe it.
“Sometimes even Party members would come up,
crying out,
We want to sing with you!”
[5] Gulag is a Russian acronym for “Main Directorate of
Corrective Labor Camps.” In reality, it meant exploitation,
starvation, and death for millions. Being sent to the gulag
effectively meant being sent to a slow death.
[6] Komsomol was the youth division of the Communist Party,
designed to prepare students for eventual Party membership.
America
When the Soviet Union collapsed, society and the
economy crumbled with it.
All of my father's siblings came to America in search
of a better life.
“I would have stayed in Ukraine,” my father said.
“But all my rodniye—my family—left.
If they didn’t go, we would not have gone.”
My parents applied for immigration. Because they
had never joined the Party, we were granted entry to
America as religious refugees.
Those with any Communist affiliation were not given
that chance.
My parents, my older sister Anastasiya, and I stepped
off the plane in Portland, Oregon, in 1993.
I was only eleven months old, but I can still
remember it in my bones—
falling in love with America
as she beckoned me to run headlong into freedom,
whispering,
“You can be anyone and do anything.”
❧
Once here, America became more than a new
country—she vindicated the beliefs my parents had
defended in Ukraine. And she promised that their
hard work would finally pay off and they could
provide for our family.
We started with nothing.
My parents worked at any job they could find,
even as they didn’t speak any English.
My father painted houses and installed gutters. Within
a few years, he started his own gutter company.
My mother sewed clothes and cleaned houses to help
provide for our family.
At home, my mother preserved the traditional
Ukrainian way of life and saved money wherever she
could—like survival depended on it, because it did.
She washed our clothes by hand instead of going to
the laundromat. We went to food pantries for help
with groceries. We picked blackberries along the
city's public bike trails.
Soon we began renting a small, quiet house in the
then-middle-class Lents neighborhood.
My mother had five more children and became a
full-time hazaika[7]—or, as she defines it, with that
sharp light in her eyes—the one you don't argue with:
“a nurse, teacher, chauffeur, home-remodel specialist,
cook, gardener, and cleaner.”
She also took on the accounting for my father’s
business. And when all her children got older, she
began working as a professional caregiver to help
make ends meet.
I remember my parents' belief in America and their
devotion to the promise she made them.
We visited sites in the Pacific Northwest together with
all of our relatives,
my dad spoke of owning his business with a proud
gleam in his eye,
my mom took us to Russian school and piano lessons.
(Learning to read and write in Russian was practical,
not political; more people spoke it.)
But they found nothing higher to identify with.
So they began to hold tighter to the only thing familiar
to them—the traditional Pentecostal church
community that had defied and survived the Soviet
regime in Ukraine with hymns older than borders and
rules older than choice.
Girls were to be obedient and marry within
the church at seventeen or eighteen—sometimes as
early as sixteen.
Then they had children—as many as God planned.
Everything outside of church—riches, politics,
even too much power itself—was merzkoie
(worldly)—spoken of as though the smallest slip
would curse you and your entire bloodline.
Our church in particular was “not of this world.”
[7] Hazaika means homeowner. In the Slavic tradition, the hazaika
keeps the household alive—its order, its provision, its survival—
therefore, she is the homeowner.
Too Real to Touch
I could never obey.
As I got older, I was more at home at school than at
my own house.
There I learned about America’s emancipation and
civil rights—how African Americans risked
everything, not just for freedom, but for belonging—
the right to call this country home.
I didn’t see Slavic people in the history books.
But that didn’t matter because I learned that when
America fights anything or anyone standing in the
way of freedom, including the Russians—
she will win.
I wanted to belong to that.
And after school every day, I came home to a
Russian-speaking Ukrainian family of Soviet
dissidents who taught us to outwit empires, obey
God—and survive.
Little by little, the worlds clashed—and over time,
they came to treat each other as unwitting enemies.
How could I make sense of this?
I couldn’t. I had to forge my own way.
By ten, I was skipping church and playing with the
radio dial.
That’s when I found hip hop—
stories of creating something out of nothing—
the struggle—the triumph—the pulse of America
I decided to become a gangster rapper.
At fifteen, I began to write bars—do drugs—skate—
party—run away from home—pray to Eminem—
“You don't feel it? Then it must be too real to touch.”
Only problem—Portland didn't have a rap scene.
I kept searching for myself, but I knew where I'd end
up—my questions would get me excluded from the
church until I was ready to obey.
I would not come back.
So I would be banished from heaven.
And upon my death, I would burn in hell.
But I could not—and would not—be saved.
Not in church, at least.
So I banished myself and followed America's
whisper—You will only find yourself through freedom.
Freedom
In the summer of 2001, my parents fulfilled their
American dream—they bought a home.
We moved to the outer edge of Portland, near 82nd
Avenue—a commercial thoroughfare lined with trailer
parks, dive bars, strip clubs, peep show houses,
and cheap motels.
At the time, my parents didn’t know this was Felony
Flats—where felons were brought after serving time.
We found out over the years as our streets filled with
the homeless, addicted, passed out, dead, and
trafficked.
My family didn't understand how anyone who
knows English ends up on the street.
They protected us with more rules, more church, and
more work.
Then, my brother Mark ended up on the street.
I first noticed something was wrong when I’d talk to
my brother, but I could not reach him.
He became more and more jumbled, closed off—
only to be overtaken by awe,
self-conviction, and an openness to the world that
looked more like terror.
He started to sit on the porch all day, catatonic,
watching cars and people going past.
Then, a switch flipped
He began leaving home for days at a time—
challenging himself to see how long he could survive
on the streets.
I asked my brother, "Why are you running away?"
Mark turned away and answered—
“Freedom.”
I begged my mom to take my brother to the doctor
for a psychological evaluation.
My mother responded, “Only God can heal him.
We need to fast and pray so God can forgive our
sins.”
Mark left home for good in his red T-shirt and blue
basketball shorts in the middle of winter in 2022.
During the day, he kept warm at the public library,
watching videos on the computers.
At night, he slept on sidewalks or next to the highway
on a piece of cardboard.
Sometimes, he won the lottery at the Portland Rescue
Mission and slept on a plastic mat on the floor.
I kept looking for my brother everywhere.
When I'd find him he'd look at me
with wide wild blue eyes, explaining,
“I talk to everyone, because I need information.
I need to understand how everything works,”
and he’d pivot,
and walk away, back onto the streets.
I could do nothing to stop him.
I kept searching for him.
When I finally found him at Central Library,
I convinced him to let me take him to the hospital.
They diagnosed him with schizoaffective disorder,
bipolar type, with acute exacerbation[8] and
committed him to the psychiatric ward.
When I visited him, my brother didn't understand why
he was at the hospital.
After a week, the hospital released him back onto the
streets—alone, with nothing but the clothes on his
back and a bus ticket.
The professionals didn’t call our family—
my brother asked them not to.
I asked for help for my brother everywhere I possibly
could—the shelters, affordable housing, work
programs for the disabled, the police.
No one would help him unless he chose to be helped.
Mark chose to keep searching for himself on the
streets.
He got a job at Fred Meyer[9] pushing carts and
studied how to get rich by stock trading at the library.
He planned to make at least enough money to rent
a jet ski and ride down the Willamette River—
passing downtown Portland—
with his hair rippling in the wind
“like a god.”
His reality was hunger, loneliness, bed-bug infections,
stolen belongings, getting check-scammed, and
working just to pay off the scam debt.
Still, Mark said, “I got rich anyway, because I figured
out how everything works.”
My father was asked once if he was happy he'd
immigrated to America.
He exhaled and leaned against his truck, taking the
weight off after a long day of installing gutters.
Twenty-five years in America reflected in his eyes
as he flicked his head side to side as though weighing
the scales.
Then, firming his shoulders, he replied with a
glimmering smile,
“Fifty/fifty.”
[8] Schizoaffective disorder combines psychotic symptoms—
hallucinations, delusions—with a mood disorder such as bipolar or
depressive disorder.
Bipolar type refers to the presence of manic episodes (periods of
extreme energy, impulsivity, or euphoria), often alternating with
episodes of depression.
Acute exacerbation refers to a sudden and significant worsening of
symptoms—when psychotic and/or mood symptoms become more
intense or frequent than usual.
[9] Fred Meyer is a Pacific Northwest-based chain of
“one–stop shopping” stores.