GRAND HAVEN, Mich. — A young Ukrainian artist who fled war at 13 years old has found a new home in West Michigan — and is now preparing to attend one of the most prestigious art schools in the country.
WATCH: Ukrainian teen who fled war and resettled in Grand Haven is headed to Rhode Island School of Design
Yevheniia Shmyrko, 17, will enroll at the Rhode Island School of Design in September after graduating from Grand Haven High School in just three years. She earned a yearly scholarship to attend.
"I was living in Ukraine in a little village. There was like 2,000 people ... and then February 24 happened," Shmyrko said. "I was living there during the war for six months."
Shmyrko was 12 when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. She lived in the village of Ustia, where daily life quickly became defined by air raid sirens and bomb shelters.
"I walked to school, and we would cancel classes too, because of the air sirens. But we would have to go to the bomb shelter that was across the street, and we would sit there for two hours a day, and then we'd just go home because it wouldn't stop," Shmyrko said.
In October 2022, she left Ustia.
"It was stressful because the trip was three days long from Ukraine to here, because we don't fly planes right now," Shmyrko said. "We had to take a bus from my village to a border city that bordered with Poland, and then I had to take a bus from that border city to Warsaw, and then we flew out to Chicago."
She moved in with her sister, Liana Hamacher Shmyrko, and brother-in-law in Grand Haven. Leaving her parents behind was one of the hardest moments of the journey.
"I said goodbye to my mom and my dad, and I feel like then I realized that I'm probably not gonna see them for a long time," Shmyrko said.
Her mother now lives with her grandmother, but Shmyrko has not seen her father, Yevheniy, in person in four years.
"He's still fighting. He got drafted the day I left Ukraine with my sister, and we didn't expect it because he is in his 50s, and he has all his life built, and just him leaving home and doing something like that is crazy," Shmyrko said.
Despite the distance, she credits her family — along with her sister and the Grand Haven community — for making her path possible.
"I'm grateful for my sister, my brother-in-law, and for all the teachers in this community because they helped me and they were my motivation," Shmyrko said.
At Lakeshore Middle School, she found her first friend — a girl from Nepal named Bimla.
"She's a really nice person, so that was one of my main friends in middle school, and she helped me with a lot of things," Shmyrko said.
A turning point came in eighth grade, when a Holocaust survivor visited her school.
"That was the first time when I felt connected to somebody," Shmyrko said. "I started crying when she was telling her story because I felt kind of, you know, related, like to her."
That experience gave her the confidence to begin sharing her own story — and to channel it through her art.
"I want to show my culture and my art because there's not a lot of Ukrainian artists that people know about. And Ukrainian culture, especially because I feel like my culture is right now under attack a little bit, but I want to preserve it," Shmyrko said.
She hopes to use her platform at RISD to give back to the community that welcomed her.
"I know that I will bring something good for the school and for this community, to thank them for this opportunity," Shmyrko said. "I want to give back because I feel like I was extremely lucky to end up here."
Her goals extend beyond artistic recognition.
"Grow my skill, be recognized, and I don't know, just make people proud who were believing in me, and were with me this whole way," Shmyrko said.
Most of all, she hopes for the chance to reunite with her parents.
"I wish that I could just get my parents out of there in the future, you know. And I know that they have their own lives ... because we have a garden and everything. And I just wish I could just take them away, and have their own little garden here," Shmyrko said.
To learn more about Shmyrko's art, click here. Shmyrko is currently raising funds to support her transition into college. You can donate by visiting her GoFundMe.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
