Original version

BBC World Service News Internet

Heart and Soul

Documentaries

Religion & Ethics

Personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service East Asia

Heart and Soul: No country for Azov Greeks

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

No country for Azov Greeks

08/07/2022 GMT

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, No country for Azov Greeks

Fleeing war-torn Mariupol, Afina Khadzhynova tries to connect to her Greek roots in Cyprus

Fleeing war-torn Mariupol, Afina Khadzhynova tries to connect to her Greek roots in Cyprus but fears for her brother and nieces left behind.

Fleeing from the war-torn Mariupol in eastern Ukraine, Afina Khadzynova is trying to reconnect to her Greek roots in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
 
The ethnic Greek community has been in Mariupol since the 18th Century. Up until February of this year the city's Greeks had a vibrant cultural life, celebrating their language, traditions and religious rites, brutally cut short by the Russian invasion. Within weeks traditional Greek settlements were levelled and the city itself was besieged, leaving civilians to shelter in their basements without food, water, heat or mobile connection.
 
Afina and her mother Olympiada managed to escape after two weeks under siege, yet her brother and nieces still remain in the occupied city. She began communicating with reporter Natalia Golysheva Deis, sending voice notes that reflect her life in the city, and her transformation into a refugee. A self-proclaimed non-believer, when the war came she started to pray to an old Greek icon to shield her from shelling. Now in Cyprus, she meets Natalia Deis around orthodox Easter as she settles into her new life away from her beloved home.
 
Producer/presnter: Natalia Golysheva Deis
A Whistledown production for BBC World Service
 
Title song "Iнша Весна"/Another Spring, courtesy of Vitaly Kozlovsky and team
  
(Photo: Azov Greeks' cultural festival Megha Yurty in Mariupol, 2021. Credit: Mariupol Rada)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Heart and Soul

No country for Azov Greeks

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service News Internet

About BBC World Service