PEACE FLAGS were waved, and prayers and songs reverberated in the Panaji’s Fontainhas quarter as parishioners gathered at St Sebastian’s Chapel on Friday evening to pray for peace in Ukraine. The flag of Ukraine furled on a screen, visuals from the war-torn regions of that country were played and Father Roque Da Costa sent a message of peace. This, however, was not the first such meeting in Goa.
A week ago, on the evening of mahashivratri, songs were sung in praise of Lord Shiva at a lodge near the Arambol beach in north Goa. Most people who sat in a circle around the singer were Russian. But amid the chants and prayers were voices of solidarity with Ukrainians and concern over their own country’s aggression.
Filmmaker and musician Paul McLay (35) describes himself as a mixed-blood Russian who hails from Moscow and has been living in Goa since the first Covid lockdown of 2020. He says the lockdown brought all communities in Goa — Russians, Ukrainians, Europeans and local residents – together, and they have been living as one since. Condemning the violence in Ukraine, McLay says the war has not caused any new rifts and the community, in which many Ukranians speak Russian, remains united in their call for peace.
But over the last fortnight, as Russian troops advanced into cities across Ukraine, there has been disquiet among Ukranians in Goa. Most of them have been talking to their families back home, hearing bombardment in the background, about supermarkets running out of essentials and sirens warning their families in Kyiv to go underground.
Their lives in the leafy lanes of north Goa have been taken over by continuous monitoring of news from back home, new WhatsApp and Telegram groups of Ukrainians in Goa reaching out to each other. Even as many of them battle sleepless nights, they are trying to help compatriots in Goa cope with the mounting burden of bad news from home.
