Kateryna Krutii has traveled a lot in the past year- further than some people travel in their entire lives.
“I think of it as an adventure,” she said.
Kateryna is from Ukraine, from the Khmelnytskyi region, Polissia. She graduated from Lviv National Academy of Arts and holds a master’s degree in monumental painting. And in 2020, she applied for a visa through the United States Diversity Visa Program.
“You must know that it is a lottery. If you play a lottery, you know there is a very small chance of winning,” Kateryna said.
The Diversity Visa Program, better known as the Green Card Lottery, was instituted in the late 1980s thanks to the 1986 Immigration and Control Act. Each year, a certain number of applicants to the program are selected. The number fluctuates year-to-year, but the number typically hovers around 50,000 people accepted from countries around the world.
In 2020, Kateryna applied to the program. She was accepted.
“It was more of a dream than a decision,” Kateryna said. “The decision came when I knew that I was in.”
In normal times, leaving your home for a country that is five thousand miles and an ocean away is difficult. Recent turmoil in Ukraine has made it that much harder.
“Because of Russian aggression against Ukraine, [the] American Embassy was closed and difficulties started. I had to go to Hungary, to make a medical commission and had to go to Germany to get a visa,” Kateryna said.
Getting to those places was not as simple as hopping in a car. It took her 22 hours to get to Budapest, Hungary. She spent 45 hours on a bus to Germany.
It was in Budapest that she made her first connection with Americans, where they worked as volunteers, helping Ukrainian refugees. She met Cheryl Andrews, from Carmichaels. She didn’t know it at the time, but that connection would change her life.
When it was time for Kateryna to finally journey to the United States, she reached out to the small number of Americans that she knew in hopes of getting tips on where to go and where to stay. Cheryl Andrews was one of those people.
Cheryl didn’t just offer advice: she offered her home as a place for Kateryna to stay.
Kateryna’s travels culminated in a week-long journey to the United States that included a 20-hour layover at John F. Kennedy airport.
Although the conditions were less than ideal, Kateryna said that the people in the airport were of immense help to her. In fact, she said the time spent in the airport was the beginning of her positive opinion of Americans.
“It’s a big process and people try to explain things and you don’t worry about saying something wrong, they have so much patience,” she said. “People are really open and helpful; they will even take your hand and go with you.”
From John F. Kennedy Airport, she flew to Pittsburgh, where she met up with Cheryl Andrews. They then traveled to Cheryl’s home in Carmichaels. It was September 3, 2022—and she has been in Greene County ever since.
As Kateryna adjusts to life in America, she has a new job. In Ukraine, she worked as a packaging designer at a cardboard and paper factory.
Now that she is in the United States, she has been hired by Pamela Marisa and the Direct Results team as a graphic designer, doing work that differs from her day-to-day life at the factory but still using the same skills.
“I was a packaging designer and I know that I did that work well. I worked in a factory that was one of the most powerful ones in Ukraine,” she said. “Every day at Direct Results there’s something new. I’m glad that I have the opportunity to continue improve my skills.”
According to Kateryna, the people of Greene County have been incredibly accepting of her.
“I was lucky to meet Cheryl Andrews, she helped me a lot and offered a place to stay in America. I’m so thankful to her and her family for helping me! I’m thankful to Pamela Marisa and Direct Results Team for helping me in my working adaptation,” she said. “I made sure once again that [the] country doesn’t make people. People make [the] country. That’s why the USA are an example for the whole world!”
