Sofia Komarova is just like any 15-year-old you might meet.
She plays basketball with Club MOBI, a youth club, and wears number seven—just like her favorite player, Jaylen Brown.
“He’s cool,” Komarova said with a grin.
But unlike most 15-year-olds, Komarova had to flee the war in Ukraine. Since the Russian invasion began last year, she and her teammates, who fall between the ages of 13 and 16, have had their lives turned upside down. And the squad, which is normally based in Kyiv, has had to find a new home as basketball has taken a back seat to conflict.
Now, local advocates are working to find families for several of these young athletes to temporarily stay with during the upcoming school year, giving them a sense of normalcy again. And maybe a little bit of playing time, too.
Natalie Reid is the youth coordinator with the Boston chapter of the Ukrainian American Youth Association. She’s had a relationship with the team since 2019 and when the invasion started, she reached out to see how they could help. That’s when she heard that members of the team were displaced in Latvia.
“I think all UAYA Boston members kind of have their own thing that they do to try and support Ukraine,” she said. “And I’m a youth volleyball coach, so working with kids and coaching is what I know how to do. So, instead of helping militarily—'cause I don’t know how to do that—I decided to go to Latvia instead and help support this group.”
Reid says most of the team spent a year and a half in Latvia, but support there ran out in May.
For the past two weeks, the team has been in the Boston area, a trip Reid has been working on for months.
Plans are mostly ironed out for eight girls to stay here in the upcoming school year, Reid said, but she's still looking for spots for another four.
“They’re kind of out of options and their home isn’t safe right now, so just finding them a safe place to be for the year is the goal,” Reid said. “And luckily, they play basketball. So it’s a little bit easier to find opportunities just because they’re involved, and they bring something to the table, you know?”
The process is far from simple. In addition to getting families to host the girls, there’s the strenuous task of finding schools that are both willing to accept them and able to help process their visas, too.
Reid says the schools that are usually capable of doing so are private rather than public, which means language services may not be in place.
“So, schools want them to be proficient in English and, I mean, it’s not like they expected to be in this situation, you know?. Their plan was to play in Ukraine,” Reid said. “Because in Ukraine, they never expected they were gonna have to be fluent in English.”
Back on the court
At an event for prospective host families at Emmanuel College last Wednesday, the girls held an intra-squad scrimmage with a few volunteers mixed in. Players clad in light blue and pink uniforms, with shorts branded with the team logo of a menacing ice cream cone, streaked up and down the hardwood in between getting bites of a juicy pulled pork and chicken dinner.
About half the team had their jerseys flipped inside out to distinguish themselves from the other side. There was no official scorekeepers or referee, just basketball in its purest form. Russia and the invasion were, at least for a few moments, not top of mind.
Ivanna Pikush, 15, is injured and unable to play during the trip. But she’s hopeful she’ll be able to find a host family and school so she can stay at least a little while.
“Because it’s [a] really great possibility to stay here and play basketball,” she said. “[I’ll] rehab. [I’m] gonna come back in October or November, so it’s gonna be great if I could stay here.”
Experiencing Boston
The young Ukrainians have been busy in Boston so far. They've attended a New England Revolution game, played local teams and got to meet the newest member of the Celtics, Kristaps Porzingis.
Maryna Rubailo, the team’s assistant coach, said the game of basketball is the one thing that’s left from the girls' past lives.
“It’s the one thing where they can feel like normal teenagers, [and not] worry at least for a few hours about what is now [going on] with their families, friends, relatives,” she said. “It’s helped them for at least [a little bit] forget about this evil happening in their motherland.”
