Andrii Varlamov ’27

Andrii Varlamov can’t go home. At least not right now.

But for the junior computer information systems and technology major, Bradford is becoming more and more his new home.

In 2022 when Varlamov was 16, his family fled his home in Kyiv, Ukraine, when Russia invaded the country. Thanks to a tip from a relative with government connections, the family had practiced packing up and leaving the city quickly to drive to his grandparents’ home in the country.

His family, which owned four small businesses that included making cottage cheese pastries in a home kitchen, gave away their store of product to others fleeing the conflict.

“I was definitely worried,” Varlamov said. “But I won’t say I was scared. I was just like – whoa – it’s how it’s gonna be now.”

From his grandparents’ home, Andrii, his mother, stepfather, sister and their dog headed west, away from Russian forces, spending a few months in a ski resort town before deciding to move to Thailand, a place they had been to on vacation and felt comfortable in.

All the while, Varlamov attended his last year of Ukrainian school remotely with his classmates, who had now scattered to places as far as Australia and Los Angeles. He kept his grades up, taking difficult courses like calculus, and continued to meet virtually with his private English language tutor.

One of his friends set his sights on attending college in the United States and persuaded Varlamov to explore this route also. He traveled to take the SATs, then applied to roughly 20 American colleges via the Common App. 

He was accepted by the University of Pittsburgh, which had a good reputation and looked like it was in a good city. When he was admitted to the Bradford campus, it did not look that far on a map. He got a good scholarship.

When he at last made his way to Bradford, it reminded him a bit of his grandparents’ home in the country. “Am I coming back to the same spot I had started from?” he wondered.

Classes were going well, but money started getting tight. His stepfather’s manufacturing and recycling businesses were lost to the war, and his family’s investments collapsed. By last July, he was not sure what was going to happen, but he returned to Bradford for his junior year.    

“I’m on my own,” he said. “Either I figure out something or the game is over.”

Varlamov was able to find a way forward. Financial support came from several sources, including an international student award, donor scholarships and a GoFundMe page. In addition, the DeFrees Family Memorial Fund in nearby Warren, Pa., connected him with the Warren Area Refugee Resettlement Network (WARRN), which provided not only financial help but also a sense of community by connecting him with Ukrainian families in the region.

Linda Kemick of Bradford is a member of WARRN who volunteers with the group to honor her grandmother, who helped resettle immigrants in the area after World War II.

She took Varlamov and his girlfriend, Nastasia Mikhailova, a sophomore business management major whom he knew from Thailand, to Warren for a Friendsgiving dinner with
Ukrainian families.

“It was just nice to see someone from my country,” he said. “It was nice chatting with them.”

Varlamov has been touched by the outpouring of help for him. “It is so much kindness, and I want to give it back by doing what I can on campus,” he said. He is active in student government, works in the university’s makerspace and is an officer in several clubs.

“I like this community,” he says of Bradford. “I want to stay here, and I want to do what I can to help it grow.”

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