Ukrainian refugee asks Montrealers to help get her paintings back

When the war broke out, artist and poet Anna Glebova left her hometown of Kharkiv, Ukraine and packed what she could carry on foot — including paintings she made of her family.

She painted more in a Polish refugee camp before she could make her way to safety in Montreal.

But now, she has lost them in her new city, forgetting them on a bus. It is the latest in a string of blows for Glebova, who had tried to hunker down as the Russian invasion began.

"They were being bombed a lot," Glebova's interpreter, Eugenie Roudaia, told CBC.

"They woke up and at first they thought it was fireworks. They were in a basement with many other people and it was very hard."

The paintings, Glebova explains, are a little piece of the home and family she left behind.

Lost in transit

On Nov. 16, Glebova took the 129 bus in order to bring some of her works to a gallery. After she got off, she realized she had left some of them onboard. They were inside a cloth bag, wrapped in a checkered blanket.

She called the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) to see if someone had brought the bundle to the lost and found — but no luck. She keeps checking in with the STM to see if her paintings have been found. So far, they haven't been brought in.

Each painting is handmade and usually improvised, said Roudaia, so they cannot be recreated. And because her children used to touch her paintings, it felt like part of them were still with her.

"Both her children used to play with the paintings and often made them fall off the easel when she was painting them so the fact that they held them, that object, it's really important," said Roudaia.

"She was scared for her son who did not want to evacuate before all the women and children were gone, so she left on foot to show him it was possible to leave."

A piece of home

Some paintings depicted her life back in Ukraine with her two sons — one died before the war and the other is still living in Lviv.

"The paintings represent a time when her sons were alive [and all together]. It was a piece of her life. One of the paintings shows the view of what the fish see outside of the fish tank [at home]," said Roudaia.

"It is part of her subjective life experience, what she lost, what many people have lost. We might not even realize everything we have lost due to this aggression that has happened."

Glebova says she's still holding onto hope she can get her paintings back so she can settle in her new home with all the priceless memories of her old one.

"It's been difficult to adapt and learn new languages, being here. But coming from the hot zones, it's difficult to adapt and do everything they need to do to fit in," said Roudaia.

"They took away her home and her loved ones and having those paintings back will give her the energy of her home."