THE THINGS WE DO...: Remembering Kolya Yaremko (08/29/99)

THE THINGS WE DO...

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

Remembering Kolya Yaremko

It is fitting that the photograph Marci, Robert, "Kolya" Yaremko's daughter, posted on the Internet to accompany the announcement of her father's death is that of their family taken on August 24, 1997, in Lviv, Ukraine, on Ukrainian Independence Day. Kolya, his wife Carol, and Marci pose in their newly purchased Ukrainian embroidered shirts, ready for a day of church and celebrating. Since that Sunday happened to be the anniversary of Ukraine's independence, those in our group who had bought embroidered shirts during the tour, spontaneously decided to wear them to church that morning. We were a fine looking bunch. Though we did not think about the rest of Lviv, when we donned our shirts, we were only somewhat surprised to see that most of the people throughout the city were also in their "vyshyvanky" - their embroidered finery. As we waited for the liturgy to begin, and saw as practically everyone else walk in dressed in their colorful, embroidered shirts and dresses, Kolya leaned over to me and whispered jokingly, "Hey, they're all part of our group!"

I was honored that the Yaremkos had decided to join my folk art and culture tour to Ukraine. While they benefitted from what they experienced, I was also a beneficiary of getting to know them.

Kolya and I first "met" on the Internet, on the Infoukes group a few years ago, and continued with the Folkarts group. We then actually met when I visited San Diego in the spring of 1997, and continued corresponding by email until we saw each other at the airport on the way to Ukraine. He was interested in all things Ukrainian. He was a self-described "born-again Ukrainian," rediscovering his heritage later in life, and trying to absorb as much information as possible by reading, participating in, and enjoying all things Ukrainian.

Kolya was a gentle, kind, intelligent, good man. His close friends and colleagues will have spoken about him by now at his memorial service. I knew him for just a short while, and it was an honor and pleasure to know him, as well as Carol and Marci. He was as proud of them!

He was proud and respectful of Carol's Scottish heritage, participated in the House of Scotland, and traveled to her ancestral home. And he was so proud of his own heritage. That trip to Ukraine in 1997 changed him, as he wrote to me: "If you understand the meaning of the German word `Weltanschauung,' then you know that mine has changed as a result." ..... Another time he wrote: "... If I could select one enduring impression to share, it was to see, alive and in front of my nose, the survival of traditional simple country life as my grandparents described their Ukraine of 100 years ago. The horse-drawn carts full of hay, the children and elders walking their cows or walking to church on feast days [we were in the Karpaty for Spasa], the re-emergence of churches - old ones overflowing, new ones being built; the love and warm, warm hospitality many of our group received upon meeting family, were all still there. The notion of land and people being one was never more powerfully evident to me than during this visit. After all that our people have endured it was clear that Ukrainian folk culture was not dead or dying, but surviving just as grass grows through cracks in the pavement. In the end I was not ready to leave. Indeed, I rather felt as if I were home...." And he so hoped to go again.

When our tour bus arrived at the city limits of Rohatyn, from which county his grandparents left for America, Kolya, Carol, and Marci got off the bus. They posed for a family photo in front of the large statue of Roksolana, Rohatyn's most famous native. She was the priest's daughter who was captured and enslaved by the Tatars and then became a harem girl in the palace of Suleyman the Magnificent in Istanbul. He heard her singing, noticed her, and wound up marrying her - the first time a sultan ever officially married, according to historical sources of the time. Roksolana maneuvered the marriage, because she wanted it to be official. She was called Khurem, "the smiling one." After Suleyman's death, she ruled the Ottoman Empire for a while as regent since their two sons were not of age.

Kolya was collecting material about Roksolana. At Roksolana's statue, he bent down and picked up a handful of soil to take back to San Diego. He laughed as he put it away, because soil from the side of a highway was not exactly the chornozem, the rich black soil of the legendary Ukrainian fields. Maybe some of that soil will be sprinkled on his grave today.

Every so often (but not that often) one gets to know people who fit a particular phrase exactly. Thinking of Kolya reminded me of a line from Taras Shevchenko's poem "Testament": "Do not forget to remember me with a kind, gentle word." Good, kind, generous, gentle, intelligent individuals are not forgotten, but are remembered.

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