Far from home in times of uncertainty

Fifteen minutes. That’s how long Pavel Aleabov took to pack to leave Chisinau, Moldova, after Ukraine was attacked by Russian forces Feb. 24.

Aleabov, who became well-known in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley as a door-to-door book seller over the last two summers, had recently accepted a job in the U.S. He was planning on taking a few weeks to say goodbye to family and friends in his native Moldova. When he woke up on the morning of Feb. 24, he received three phone calls in 40 minutes from friends advising him to leave the country because the government was closing airports until March 4.

It wasn’t the first time Aleabov had experienced a government closing the airports. A similar situation happened to him in 2020 when he was in Uzbekistan. What was expected to be a closure of one week ended up being almost four months.

“Knowing that, I just decided to pack my stuff,” Aleabov said. “I literally had about 15 minutes to pack.”

He called a friend, a painter who was planning to mail a painting to Bucharest, Romania. Aleabov offered to pay expenses to drive them to Bucharest so he could get a flight out. His godmother’s daughter, who works from London, also joined them.

“So we all three jumped in the car and took off,” Aleabov said. Although his friend was laid back about the trip and wanted to stop for coffee.

“I’m like, ‘dude, let’s cross the border with Romania and after that we can stop for as many coffees as you’d like,’ ” Aleabov said. “Because I knew if we’re going to postpone and take a little bit longer to get to the border, the line might be way too long and would take us forever to cross the border and both of our flights were at 6 a.m. the next day.”

It turned out to be the right call.

“After we crossed the border we saw the line and it was enormous — and that was just the first day,” he said. Days later, people were waiting half a day to cross the border from Moldova into Romania.

For Aleabov, the timing couldn’t have been better for getting out of the country. He has a full time job in the U.S. and a visa that allowed to leave Moldova. “I do think God has a plan for everyone and all the circumstances that fell, like all those little pieces of the puzzle, that fell into place it was almost perfect timing,” he said.

Even though Aleabov didn’t have a safety risk with staying in Moldova, he needed to leave so he could come to the U.S. for his job — he is the financial provider for his mother and siblings.

“I did not want to take the risks of staying in the country,” he said. “There was a lot of uncertainty but I did not want to risk the well-being of my family for me staying an extra week in Moldova. It was just not worth it.”

Now in Nashville, Tenn., working in the IT department of Southwestern Advantage, an education material sales company, he’s watching the situation in Ukraine from afar.

Moldova, which is one of the poorest countries in Europe, has taken in 230,000 refugees as of March 10, making it the country with the most refugees per capita, according to ReliefWeb, a humanitarian information service provided by the U.N.

Aleabov said most of the help is coming from the Moldovan people. Businesses are providing discounts for food and offering medical care, and people are providing places to stay. That includes his mother, who is hosting more than a dozen refugees.

“We’re doing at least something, we always can do more, that’s for sure,” Aleabov said. “Sometimes, even a little hand of help might make a pretty significant difference in some people’s lives.”

He also started a GoFundMe page, found at gofund.me/1848de84, to help his mother with finances for taking care of refugees. He said the government is very corrupt in Moldova, so funds given to the government might not go to the people.

“I just want to thank all the people all over the world who are trying to stop all this madness and trying to stop the war because at the end of the day, regular people will be the ones paying the price,” Aleabov said.

Most of the refugees leaving Ukraine are women and children. “Men cannot leave the country because they are military-bound,” Aleabov said. “They are basically given weapons to stay in the country and defend the country while women and the kids are able to leave.”

Ukrainians use Moldova as a common route to travel to Romania and then to other countries in Europe like the Czech Republic and Germany. Moldova is landlocked by Ukraine on the east and Romania on the west, so going through Moldova is the only option for some Ukrainians.

Aleabov said he talks with his family in Moldova everyday because the country has good internet that isn’t restricted. At least for now. If the U.S. embassy is evacuated from Moldova, Aleabov said that will be a sign for his mother to leave the country.

“(There’s) that uncertainty, and the scary part is that nobody knows what might be (happening) tomorrow or what might be in an hour because things are changing very quickly,” Aleabov said.

Aleabov can see the stark changes in the situation in Ukraine, having been there two months ago in December for a ski trip.

“It’s really difficult to keep your thoughts away from the whole situation because obviously I have friends and family in that area,” Aleabov said. “It’s very difficult to keep your thoughts away from it, but at the same time I do my best to control what I can.”

Right now, that means focusing on his new job to help his family. He’s worked for Southwestern Advantage to help pay for school and did several internships with the company. He attended Moldova State University and the Anglo-American University in Prague, earning a master’s degree in computer science in 2013 and a business degree this year.

The internship is what brought him to the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley in the summer of 2020 and 2021 where he sold books and educational materials from Southwest Advantage to students.

“You guys (the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley) are my second hometown. There is no other place in the U.S. I can call my home,” Aleabov said. “The L-C Valley is my home in the U.S. even though I’m living in Nashville, L-C Valley is a part of me. I love you people.”

It’s Aleabov’s travel experience that helped him understand what makes a country and a better world.

“I do believe that if people will travel and people will experience other cultures, then we’ll get to know people from different cultures, backgrounds, color of skin, religions, traditions — all that will make our world a better place. Because we’ll be able to understand each other better and understand why certain people behave the way they behave,” Aleabov said. “That’s one of the things I’ve learned in just coming to the U.S. … is that people are not the politicians, people are the country and that’s what makes America great are the people. You guys are just phenomenal, I just love being here.”

Brewster may be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.

How to help

Donations to Pavel Aleabov’s Funds for Ukrainian refugees in Moldova can be found at gofund.me/1848de84.