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Langley geologist working to get relatives out of Ukraine ahead of invasion

Walter Stunder worked in Ukraine for years searching for diamonds
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Walter Stunder indicates on a map of Ukraine where his father lived before emigrating to Canada in the 1920s. Stunder has been trying to help his Ukrainian cousins get to safety. (Matthew Claxton/Langley Advance Times)

A retired Langley mining geologist is sending aid to get his extended family out of the Ukraine to safe countries ahead of the Russian invasion.

Walter Stunder said that four relatives have already headed to Poland, another has gone to Romania, and he’s willing to help some others, but they haven’t made up their minds to leave yet, or are determined to stay.

“To see what’s happening there right now, I find it very disgusting, to put it mildly,” Stunder said of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A diamond geologist, Stunder’s parents were of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and German descent. He speaks both Russian and Ukrainian, and has family in both countries, mostly second and third cousins. His father had a Polish passport, but emigrated to Canada in the 1920s from Crimea.

After doing some geology work in the Soviet Union, in 1992 Stunder headed to the newly independent Ukraine, where he knew there were kimberlite deposits, which can contain diamonds.

He ran North Star Diamonds, with an office in Donetsk, in a building that had once been the headquarters of the local Communist Party.

“Some of my office furniture is still there,” he said, “and I’m not going to pick it up.”

While he travelled the Ukraine as a geologist, he visited with family, who called him “Uncle,” Stunder said, although most of them are cousins to one degree or another. For the most part, he was known by a Ukrainian version of his name, going by Volodimir Hehorovitch, with the second part being a patronymic, based on his father’s name.

Stunder has helped his relatives out financially over the years, including painting the house his father built in 1923, which he said didn’t get a second coat of paint until 1994.

When the Russian invasion came, he helped relatives out with finances to get to the border.

“She had a car, but she didn’t have enough for the tires,” he said of one cousin. He sent her cash for tires and gas, and she’s made it to Romania, where she and her two children, both under 10 years old, are now in a refugee camp, said Stunder.

Her husband couldn’t leave – the Ukrainian government has ordered all men 18 to 60 years old to stay in the country to help defend it from the invasion.

Another group of four relatives made it to the Polish border.

Some, he said, are staying, including a pair of sisters in their 70s.

Their parents lived through the Holodomor, the genocide by famine under Stalin in the 1930s, they lived through the Soviet Union, and they don’t want to leave, he said. They say that they’re “ready to die.”

They have about five to six days worth of food, and the only resupply in their area is coming from a German faith-based charity.

“I’m quite concerned,” said Stunder.

Another cousin, a school teacher in Vinnitsya, isn’t sure yet if she wants to leave.

Stunder said that on Monday, she went to her job at the school, where students were making face masks for soldiers. Guns and ammunition were being handed out in the neighbourhood.

He speaks with affection of Ukraine and his time there, the beauty of Donetsk, a city he said was known for three things – coal, roses, and beautiful women.

“The roses there, they grow 10 feet high,” he said.

READ ALSO: Langley university prays for swift end to war in Ukraine

Ukraine has suffered under repeated invasions over the centuries, starting with the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, and more recently by corrupt government, which led to the Maidan Revolution in 2014, and the ousting of a pro-Russian president.

But Stunder said he had been heartened recently by the election of President Volodymyr Zelensky and a parliament Stunder thought was good for the country. He said despite his start as a comedian, Zelensky is the most serious president Ukraine has had.

Now it’s being invaded and bombed.

“It tears me apart to see any country get torn apart that way,” he said.

Stunder has a tremendous affection for Ukraine, and his Langley City apartment has keepsakes and photos from his many years in the country, including a Ukrainian flag, and a bandura.

His playing of the Ukrainian stringed instrument is a bit rusty, but he can still sing in Ukrainian. He isn’t sure if he’ll be able to visit the country again, but he would like to.

Stunder said, however, he isn’t likely to visit Russia again.


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Walter Stunder with is bandura, a traditional Ukrainian instrument. Stunder has been trying to help his Ukrainian relatives get to safety. (Matthew Claxton/Langley Advance Times)


Matthew Claxton

About the Author: Matthew Claxton

Raised in Langley, as a journalist today I focus on local politics, crime and homelessness.
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