Merion Mercy junior fled Ukraine, then became a PIAA tennis champion

There was panic, pushing, and plenty of desperation as Sofiia Berestetska and her mother Halyna waited at a crowded train station near Kyiv, hoping to flee their native Ukraine just days after the Russian invasion in late February.

Inside a brightly lit glass-walled conference room within Merion Mercy Academy’s campus on the Main Line, Berestetska, now a state tennis champion, paused while she thumbed through her brain’s four-language Rolodex.

Fittingly, “safety” was the word eluding her as she described how her family hid in the basement of their home near Kyiv as explosions shook the earth beneath them and rattled windows above them.

“It was very scary,” the 16-year-old junior said, stopping to clear her throat, “because you’re just trying to sleep but you didn’t know if you would be safe or not.”

After a terrifying train ride and two arduous bus journeys helped them escape, Berestetska and her mother stayed in Poland for three months with a family friend and applied for American visas.

By June they arrived in Philadelphia, where Berestetska’s older sister, Ksenia Power, a former Division I tennis player, has lived with her husband for years. By August, she found a new school. Then, earlier this month, Berestetska won a PIAA Class 2A tennis championship in doubles.

“She’s definitely a courageous young woman,” Power said. “She’s very resilient. The amount of horror that these children have seen back in Ukraine, it’s hard to comprehend.”

Power, 29, was seven months pregnant when Russia invaded her native Ukraine Feb. 24. For days she had warned her parents, imploring them to leave in anticipation of the war. Conflicting reports in Ukraine, Power said, convinced her parents war would not occur.

Her husband, Michael, 33, woke Power around 2 a.m. when he first saw reports that Russian missiles were fired into Kyiv. She contacted her parents via online applications on her phone and was relieved to learn they had gotten food and supplies before the invasion. Yet, she still was concerned for their safety.

“I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t because there was no time to cry,” Power said. “You had to act. I had to think about the plan. We kept begging them to leave.”

Michael Power, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, grew up with a nanny from Poland. When she retired, Khrystyna Dudziec, now 80, returned to Poland but kept in touch with Power’s family. He considers her a grandmother. She offered the Berestetska family refuge in Poland.

Meanwhile, Berestetska and her parents stayed indoors for approximately the first four days of fighting. At night, they hunkered in the basement.

“Sometimes, explosions were very hard,” Berestetska said. “One time, an explosion was very close to us, and the windows — it was a very stressful time … because the windows could break.”

When gunshots were heard in their neighborhood and Russian tank tracks were spotted near their home, Power said, their mother decided to flee.

A train station near Kyiv could take them to Lviv in western Ukraine, where they could catch international buses to Poland, a plan they’d learn was shared by many. By law, her father, Alex, 51, was not allowed to leave, Power said.

“When my dad dropped them off at the train station,” Power said, “[Berestetska] told me, ‘I just remember looking at him in the eyes and he was bawling like a little kid.’ He thought he’d never see them again.”

Soon after, mother and daughter nearly lost track of each other. The station was packed with desperate people.

As trains arrived, Berestetska squeezed her mother’s hand tightly as crowds approached. The only chance to board, she said, was to push.

“A lot of people; a lot of panic,” she said. “Everyone pushes you and everyone wants to try to save [themselves], and it was really horrible to see this. Everyone screamed, and you just didn’t know — would you get on the train or not? Would you be safe or not?”

Careful calculations were made each time a new train arrived. Several came and went. They weren’t always confident they could push themselves aboard.

Finally, an opening. A train approached. They steadied themselves. But the unthinkable occurred. Their hands came apart as people pushed.

“We had one moment. It was really bad moment,” Berestetska said, her face reddening as she recalled the tale. “Because one moment, my mom lost my hand … then she was in the train and I was on the platform, and my mom, she started screaming.”

Berestetska’s voice quickened and her eyes dewed as she recalled the moment, yet her voice never wavered. She spilled not a tear, nor did one seem imminent.

Inside the train, a barricade of bodies separated mother from daughter. Ferocity flashed across her mother’s face.

“I saw my mom’s eyes,” Berestetska continued. “It was very horrible eyes … I understood she wanted to push everyone … it was like a wolf saw a sheep. She pushed everyone and said, ‘What are you doing? This is my daughter?!’”

Her mother shoved, pushed, and pleaded. Berestetska did the same. Eventually they reached each other, both safely aboard the train. They had discussed a plan had they been separated. The plan, Berestetska said, was that separation wasn’t an option.

“She just was angry and she pushed everyone, and, probably, she helped me to push myself on the train,” Berestetska said.

Darkness was near. The sun was about to set, she recalled. A minute or two later, the train departed.

The train ride took about eight hours. The quarters were close. Berestetska said about eight people were packed in a small room. There was nowhere to sleep. There was no food to eat. Outside the cramped room, she said, the corridors also were packed with people.

Back in West Mount Airy, Power kept in contact. Her mother knew very little about Lviv.

“I was even using Google Maps to guide them where they were in Ukraine,” Power said.

The late February cold was brutal. When they finally arrived in Lviv, it still would be hours until their bus came. The station was crowded, and Berestetska’s mother feared separation, so they waited outside, away from the herd.

Eventually, they boarded an international bus to Lublin, Poland, about 100 miles from the capital in Warsaw.

That trip took more than 10 hours, including time stalled at the border, Power said, which meant they missed a connecting bus to Warsaw. Fortunately, Power reserved a hotel in Lublin.

When they finally arrived in Warsaw, Berestetska said the first two months went quickly. They filled out paperwork to stay in Poland and to secure American visas.

“We got very lucky,” Power said. “Many Ukrainians who didn’t have relatives just stayed in warehouses. It was really sad. My mom saw it for like five minutes, and she said it looked really horrible … no privacy, no shower, people screaming, shouting.”

Two months into the journey, Berestetska pursued schooling. She didn’t want to fall behind, so she contacted local Polish schools on her own. Eventually one accepted her.

She had already learned to speak Polish, Russian, and English during school in Ukraine.

After a month, however, she and her mother secured interviews at the American embassy in Warsaw and were granted visas.

“We were very happy,” Berestetska said. “Of course we cried. We called my sister, and she was very happy.”

Power said: “I always wanted to have my younger sister here because she’s like my best friend.”

When they arrived at Philadelphia International Airport, Power greeted them draped in a Ukrainian flag. By then she had given birth to her daughter, Theresa.

“I remember that moment because I could feel a lot of people looking at us,” Power said. “We hugged. We broke down. They spent so much time in Poland and we didn’t know if they would get their visas. So, I saw a lot of people were looking at us and smiling, like, ‘Oh, they must’ve come here from Ukraine.’”

Power left Ukraine at 17 to play tennis at the University of Akron. She started playing at 6 years old. She also played piano and swam competitively around the same age.

Her parents, as they also did for her older sister Kristina, now 35 and a tae kwon do instructor still living in Ukraine, wanted her to have experiences they did not.

“It was difficult leaving home, but I knew that we didn’t really have any opportunities at home,” said Power, who earned a master’s degree in physical education and coaching and then a doctorate in exercise and sports psychology at Temple, where she now is a professor.

Berestetska laughs now because she didn’t like the piano as a child because her mother forced her to play.

“I cannot imagine my life without music now,” she said. “Now, I would just say thank you to my mother.”

She attended a music school for nine years in Ukraine. Her favorite composers are Johann Sebastian Bach and Frédéric Chopin.

Tennis, however, she enjoyed almost immediately. Today, she loves the challenge, the strategy, and the need to block out distractions. Her father didn’t play, she said, but he coached.

The plan, Power says, was always for her sister to graduate from high school in Ukraine and play college tennis in America.

When her sister and mother arrived in Philadelphia in June, Michael Power’s sister, who graduated from Merion Mercy, called the school on Berestetska’s behalf.

The school welcomed her with open arms, Kim Shimer, the school’s director of communications said in an email. Merion Mercy knew little about Berestetska other than that she played piano, might need some help with English, had little to no financial means, and played tennis.

The school, Shimer said, had no idea she was exceptional at the sport. On Nov. 5, Berestetska along with her teammate, Ashley Gomes, won the PIAA Class 2A doubles championship in Hershey. The duo never dropped a set during the competition.

She has been training at Legacy Youth Tennis and Education, formerly known as Arthur Ashe Youth Tennis and Education Center.

Power says her sister travels for tournaments a few times per month and still hopes to play in college.

Until then, Berestetska has fully immersed herself at Merion Mercy, where, she says, tennis helped her make friends. She even attended a “Friendsgiving” at a classmate’s house with about a dozen friends last week.

Her family doesn’t celebrate many holidays at home, she said. Expressing gratitude around Thanksgiving, however, isn’t necessarily just for those born in America.

“I’m very thankful for my family and my American family, too,” Berestetska said. “I’m very thankful for my sister and my mom. I’m thankful for Merion Mercy because they took me in, and I’m thankful for the coaches at Legacy.”