“This is my life - this is where I want to be”: Lansing’s Lesya Ryzhenkova, from Ukraine, becomes U.S. citizen

by Julie Berg-Raymond

Lesya Ryzhenkova - originally from Ukraine and co-owner with her partner, Mike Kolsrud, of The Good Life Gallery and Frame Shop in Lansing - recently turned in the green card she has been carrying for nine years and became a citizen of the United States.
“But I still have my Ukranian soul inside of me,” Lesya says.

When visitors and locals head to Lansing’s annual “Taste of Lansing” Thursday, May 27, they’ll find Lesya, body and soul, serving her homemade vareniki - a dumpling stuffed with meat, potato or cabbage filling, and a national dish of her birth country.

“Taste of Lansing” is Thursday, May 27, from 4:30 to 7 p.m. One ticket allows the purchaser to walk to the community businesses and taste the food they have to offer. Tickets will be available at Main Street Lansing, Red Geranium, and Kerndt Brothers Bank. Each ticket purchase is entered into a drawing for a $100 prize.

A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES
Born in 1977 in Myronivka, Kyyivs’Ka Oblast’, Ukraine, Lesya Ryzhenkova has one brother and two sisters who live in Ukraine. Another sister, Natasha, is married to Scott Ewing, a Waukon area native; they moved to Oregon three years ago. Lesya’s mother has a green card and travels back and forth between Ukraine and the United States each year.

Lesya and her daughter, Dasha, moved to the United States in 2010. Dasha, now 25, attended Waukon High School and graduated in 2014. She lives in Minneapolis, MN and earned her own citizenship last year.

“Dasha said to me, ‘Mom, this is my country. This is my culture; this is where I want to live.’ She is an American citizen, and her English is perfect,” Lesya explained. “I thought, ‘I don’t want to be apart from my daughter; I want to be a citizen, too.’ My friends and my boyfriend have helped me to feel this is my home, now, too.”

In one of life’s sweet synchronicities, Lesya has, in recent years, re-connected with a childhood friend from Ukraine who moved to St. Paul, MN in 1999. The two went through school together for 11 years in Ukraine; but they lost touch when her friend moved to the United States.

“Now, we’re so close,” Lesya says. “They visit here four times a year, and I visit them. She’s like family to me here.”

HOW IT BEGAN
Lesya’s first visit to the United States was in 2007, when Natasha and Scott invited Lesya and her nephew, Viktor, for a one-month visit. “I love them; they are an amazing family,” Lesya says. “They tried to show us everything in one month. We visited Wisconsin Dells, a water park, the Mississippi River.”

“Our family is not from the rich,” Lesya says. “To be able to come to the United States, see a different culture, eat different food, to see even the houses and stores - it was, like, ‘Wow!’ all the time for a whole month,” she recalls. “I was so happy I had the chance.”

At the time of that trip, Lesya spoke no English. “Natasha translated all the time,” she says. “It’s a good lesson for everybody. When I was in school, my teacher (who also was her neighbor) said to me, ‘Lesya, you need to learn English. And I said, ‘Why? I live in Ukraine; I’m going to spend all my life in Ukraine.’ And she told me, ‘You never know how your life will change.’”

Lesya’s life today is a good example of that; and while she may wish she had studied English when she was younger, she is catching up quickly.

“If you have a chance to study another language, it’s good,” she says. “I want to go on and make my English better; my English is too ‘small’ right now - I can express so much more, in my (first) language.”

The visa Lesya had been issued in 2007 was good for 10 years, and she knew she would be coming to the United States again to visit her sister. So she decided to start learning English, studying an hour every night. In 2008, her mom - who was spending time in the U.S. with Natasha and Scott - told Lesya she was missing her and asked her to come and stay for a while. Lesya’s daughter, Dasha, stayed with her aunt in Ukraine; and Lesya came to the U.S. for a six-month stay.

In 2010, Lesya and Dasha moved to the United States. “I want to say a big thanks to Waukon High School teachers and the principal,” Lesya says. “Dasha came here at almost 15, and the school helped her a lot. For us - for any immigrants - to leave your country, your friends, your school is always hard, and scary. It is like a baby being born - a new life. Dasha had a person who walked with her everywhere, explaining to her, taking her on the bus, every day from November to May. Dasha was a cheerleader, and she finished high school in honor society,” Lesya says. “I was so proud.”

A BUSINESS IS BORN
In 2018, Lesya’s mother came to the U.S. with some of the hand-beaded pictures she and Lesya’s sisters had been making, as hobbyists, in Ukraine. Not a traditionally Ukranian art form, as such, the intricate, labor-intensive work involves hand-sewing beads onto drawings and patterns.

Lesya showed some of her mother’s finished pieces to friends, who told her she should take them to art shows - to which Lesya remembers initially responding, “What’s an art show?”. With around 50 beaded pictures in hand, Lesya looked for a place to have them framed – and walked into the Eagle’s Nest Gallery in Lansing, then owned by John and Judy Schild.

“They told me, ‘We’re sorry - we are selling the shop,’” Lesya recalls. Her partner, Mike said they should buy the cutting machine and other work materials so they could frame the pictures, themselves. Lesya taught herself how to mat and frame, they moved the equipment to Mike’s garage, and she framed about 30 pictures. Then she hit the regional art show circuit - showing and selling the work in Des Moines, Austin and Lanesboro, MN, and Empty Nest Winery, among other venues.

“People were like, ‘Wow - it’s beautiful. It’s nice; we never saw that before,’” Lesya says. “I was so happy. I said, ‘Mom, we need to make more.’”

One day, Lesya recalls, Mike came home and said to her, “I bought it.”

“You bought what?,” she asked.

“I bought you a business.”

“But what am I going to do with it?”

“You’ll figure it out - you’re smart.”

SCARY START
Lesya and Mike opened The Good Life Gallery and Frame Shop in November, 2019, in the former Eagle’s Nest Gallery location at 249 Main Street in Lansing. Offering hand-beaded art, framed paintings and photographs and custom framing, the shop’s aim is to help people preserve their memories for the future – as suggested by their slogan: “Live It, Love It, Frame It.”

“I’ll tell you the truth,” Lesya says; “it was scary. I asked my sisters, ‘Can you make me more pictures?’” Happy to oblige, they went to work - producing more pieces for the gallery, some of which feature as many as 72,000 beads.

Within a few months, COVID-19 hit; and the United States - along with the rest of the world -found itself in the throes of a deadly pandemic. Businesses went into lock-down, schools went online and people were told to stay home. It was an inauspicious time for a new business, already an endeavor not without risk. But with the support of the Lansing Women in Business group, Main Street Lansing, and local people wanting to see another business succeed in town, the gallery and frame shop was able to make it through the toughest time.

“It’s coming back,” Lesya says of business. “I love to see the people. They know we have a frame shop, and they come.”

NEW BEGINNINGS
Lesya, for whom Ukraine remains her soul’s home, says Iowa’s natural beauty reminds her of the place of her birth. “Iowa looks like Ukraine,” she says. “For me, it’s not a big change. We have sunflower fields and corn and wheat fields; we have four seasons.”

Most of the English Lesya has picked up in the past 10 years has been from television. And she also is not afraid to ask for help. “I tell my friends, ‘Please correct me. If you want to laugh, you can laugh; I don’t care. But you guys, you have to help me.’”

She has some friends, Will and Mary Ament, to whom she gives particular credit for helping her learn English. “Will spent 12 years in Africa and taught English to kids,” she says. “I told him, ‘I need to learn English, somehow.’ Twice a week, we went to the library. He was a really good teacher; he talked to me a lot. I told him that one day, I will apply for citizenship; and he bought me two books - one was for grammar, and one had all the 100 questions, with explanations, for the American citizenship test.”

Lesya traveled to the Neal Smith Federal Building in Des Moines February 23 of this year for her naturalization interview, during which she was asked six questions from the 100 questions she’d been required to study - after which she had to read one sentence in English and then write another one.

“Everything took me 15 minutes,” Lesya recalls. “It depends on how ready you are, and I was ready. He told me I passed, and after that we just talked a little bit.”

April 7, she then drove back to Des Moines for a ceremony during which she took the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America, officially making her a U.S. citizen.

“It was exciting,” she says. “And I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to my daughter, my sister, my boyfriend, and to my friends and the community for their support in making this decision in my life.”

Having now become a citizen of the United States, Lesya says, “This is my country now. This is my life - this is where I want to be. I plan to go to college. I’m ready now; I can read English. I have lots of plans; my ‘American life’ has just started. I hope it will be a great journey.”