Ukrainians in Chicago are featured in Oscar-winning documentary '20 Days in Mariupol'

For Maiia, Maksym and Ivan, moving to Mariupol was a dream — a new life in a large, modern, European city, with good jobs, plenty of parks and the Sea of Azov, where even on clear days, Russia can’t be seen.

“It was a kind of symbol for me,” said Maiia Sylenko, “a new place to live, a new job, new plans and dreams.”

The family moved to the Ukrainian port city near the Russian border in August 2021 – six months before the Feb. 24 invasion – and they quickly made a life there. Maiia got an office job at a factory, Maksym at a firehouse as an EMS worker and Ivan enrolled in a local high school.

For their downtime, mom had found a yoga studio, dad organized Ukrainian literature readings and, always the athlete, Ivan found a gym where he practiced martial arts. Together, and when their daughter, Anastasia, visited from university, they went to parks, movies and the symphony.

These places are now just memories — and not just because Maiia and Ivan are thousands of miles away in Chicago. Many of those places were destroyed during the invasion — “hell,” as Maiia describes it — they survived, one depicted in the Oscar-award winning film “20 Days in Mariupol.”

Made by a team of Ukrainian journalists, the award winning film was widely regarded as the favorite in the Documentary Feature Film category for its raw depiction of the invasion, chronicling how any sense of normalcy is robbed as CrossFit gyms become bomb shelters and eventually how the bombs and artillery fire wreak havoc on civilians.

The family almost lost their lives there too — something shown in the film — when on March 10, 2023, the firehouse where Maksym worked was bombed while the family was inside.

The strike destroyed the building, the last firehouse in Mariupol, and set Maiia and Ivan on their long journey to Chicago.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Maiia describes the scene in cinematic detail.

“We heard the roar of the plane and at that moment a Russian missile hit the building,” she said. “I had a feeling of weightlessness when I fell; I saw fragments of plasterboard, furniture, building materials falling with me.”

On the speed of the attack, Ivan notes, if you hear the plane, it’s too late to run.

They all ended up beneath the rubble. Her husband was pulled out first and Ivan was partially visible, but Maiia was completely hidden.

She found herself pinned on all sides, and though she could see the air through a crack above, dust and debris were gathering around her, threatening to bury her alive.

“Did I live so that everything would end like this?” she thought. “Is this all?”

No one heard her screams, though she heard the others’. She began panicking when she heard Ivan yell in excruciating pain. The falling building had crushed his legs and left arm.

Maksym demanded everyone hush and turn off any machinery, and they were able to locate Maiia. It would be hours before a crane arrived to remove the rubble pinning down Ivan.

That’s around the time the documentary team arrived. In the footage, Ivan appears listless beneath the rubble as his father holds his hand. Maiia watches from the ground, wrapped in a blanket. She pulls it tight around her face as the camera focuses on her.

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

She was glad someone was documenting the bombing, she said at the recovery center outside Chicago where she and Ivan went for his treatment. But she was nervous the footage could be used against them.

“I don’t know if he survived,” says Mstyslav Chernov, the director and narrator of the film.

Ivan made it but with great difficulty. Ivan and Maiia were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, and Ivan went into surgery for hours.

They remained there until March 19, when the hospital ran out of medicine. Doctors recommended they flee for Ukrainian-controlled territory.

In their heavily damaged Jeep, they drove 200 miles past 20 Russian checkpoints to Dnipro.

Maksym and Anastasia are still in that city, but Maiia and Ivan pressed on to Poland for treatment. From there, they were flown to Atlanta, and in August 2022, Chicago. They’ve lived at a recovery home in Schiller Park ever since.

Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP

Ivan, whose life is organized around the surgeries he continues to need, dreams of becoming a physical therapist for athletes.

“It pisses me off,” he says with a chuckle about having to use a walker and being unable to lift more than 15 pounds with his injured arm.

But still he aims to recover and return to Ukraine. In the meantime, his other arm gets a workout with the 60-pound dumbbell he has.

Both are so set on returning, they haven’t applied for any permanent status in the U.S. Through Maksym’s chain of Ukrainian literature aficionados back home, however, they’ve found fellow emigres in Chicago who have taken them to the lake and to Ukrainian Village for borscht.

In Chicago, Maiia feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude for everyone who helped them along the way, from the doctor in Dnipro that set up the trip to the U.S. to the nonprofit supporting them here.

But despite the time that’s passed, the pain from what happened still appears raw in Maiia’s eyes, which well up at points. “We were lucky to get away from that hell,” she said.

With the war no closer to ending and the U.S. no closer to offering further aid, she worries how many more will have to go through the same thing.

They haven’t watched the documentary, only hearing they were in it from friends. “My nerve system,” she explained, “I’m not going to be able to take it.”

Michael Loria is a staff reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times