julian Simeonov BIO

Date and Place of Birth: Nov. 11, 1998, Toronto, ON, Canada

Father: Ivo Simeonov, born Sofia, Bulgaria

Mother: Olenka Syrotynsky, born Toronto, ON, Canada

Julian Simeonov has a degree in Mechanical Engineering, McMaster University (2022), Hamilton, Ontario. Currently he is working, doing engineering design for a vertical farm company in Toronto. His goal  for the future is to design equipment for the Space Industry.

Julian’s maternal grandfather, a priest, was forced to flee Western Ukraine in 1947 as many Ukrainian Catholic priests were persecuted and imprisoned for their faith, and many were killed by the Soviets. With his wife and two small children Father Ivan Syrotynsky fled to Poland where he taught school, never revealing that he was Ukrainian. In 1959 they came to Toronto sponsored by his wife’s family.

As a child Julian spoke Ukrainian and English at home and a little Bulgarian and was able to spend a lot of time with his Ukrainian grandmother. For a while  he attended Bulgarian school as well as Ukrainian Saturday school from grade 8-11 and was a member of the Ukrainian Youth organization Plast from childhood. Today he is very active in Plast as a counsellor at summer camps, and a member of the Plast fraternity “Vovkulaky” who do a great deal of charity work for Plast as well as in the Ukrainian community, be it raising money for camping gear or for the war effort in Ukraine.  This fall Julian will be taking on an official administrative position, as “zvijazkovyj”.*

Julian has travelled to Sofia, Bulgaria several times with one or both of his parents and has particularly enjoyed the peace and simplicity of village life close to the capital. He planned a trip to Ukraine in 2020 but Covid and the war intervened.

*Troop leader in Plast

INTERVIEW EXCERPT

Date and place of interview: August 19, 2023, Toronto, ON, Canada
Length of interview: 1 hour 4 minutes
Interviewer: Ariadna Ochrymovych
Language: English

Interviewer: And how do you really feel in terms of ethnicity?

Julian: I think throughout a large part of my life, or like chunks of my life, I would have said always half Bulgarian, half Ukrainian. Maybe there were chunks in my life I would have just felt a lot more in tune with the  Ukrainian side. I had a recent trip to Bulgaria, so I feel kind of very in tune with that side because I was just there and I can, I saw the connection I still have there. I think if you had asked me two years ago, I don't know that I felt, if I'm being honest, I don't know that I felt particularly connected to either side. Like I saw that I was Ukrainian-Bulgarian and I still recognized and saw that I had both of those sides with me, but I don't think I felt particularly connected to either one of those.

I just kind of felt Canadian who had a Ukrainian-Bulgarian background. But I think, it's kind of unfortunate, but I think the war in Ukraine kind of helped bring out that little bit of patriotism in me of like, no, I'm Ukrainian and I want Ukraine to stay independent and free. It's kind of varied over time. If you ask me this question a year from now, I don't know, maybe I'll answer it differently.

Interviewer: So how interested and connected are you with what is happening in Ukraine now?

Julian: I am pretty interested and connected. I think, admittedly, because it's been going on for quite a while now, over a year, a year and a half now, I definitely don't keep up with everything as much as I did at the start.

At the start, when I first started, I'd keep up every day, looking at news. I got a Twitter account because you could get pretty quick information on Twitter. Now I hear of any big news items that happen, I'll keep up with it. A lot of information I get are from friends of mine that are a lot more connected.

I'm lucky to know some people that are pretty involved with supporting those in Ukraine, providing humanitarian aid, providing support to those on the front lines. So I hear a lot from them. But kind of definitely as it's gone on, I haven't kept as connected as probably other people have.

Interviewer : Were you involved in helping in any way at the beginning?

Julian:  Yeah.  There've been a few times that like people, I think more friends of mine have had drives to provide, whether it was particular items or to raise money for, whether it was humanitarian aid, support for those on the front lines. It's been a lot more kind of more on donations, especially towards the start, I would make a lot of social media posts about it, raising awareness.