LOS ANGELES (NewsNation) — There are more than a million Russians living in California, and West Hollywood has one of the largest concentrations, with 10 percent of the residents there being of Russian descent.
NewsNation’s Alex Caprariello spoke to one woman, born in Russia, who’s lived in Los Angeles for more than a decade. Sasha Kapustina still has friends and family in Russia, and as the situation there worsens thanks to the war and the sanctions, she’s growing increasingly desperate to get them out and to help the people of Ukraine.
For the last two weeks, the pictures and videos Kapustina has seen on the news have been very different from what she remembers of her childhood. The images of destruction and fear don’t jibe with what she remembers from her childhood. “My whole family is there. My dad, his wife, both my grandmothers, my grandma, my aunt, my cousin,” she says.
Kapustina is trying desperately to get her family out of Russia. The sanctions on Russian banks have devastated their savings accounts and pensions. They live in constant fear of persecution or imprisonment if they speak out against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kapustina says, “The devastation that the Russian government is causing in Ukraine is horrendous, but at the same time, the Russian government has very little concern for its own people.”
While she tries to help her family at home, Kapustina is also trying to extend help to the refugees in Ukraine. Drawing on her documentary filmmaking experience, during which she traveled through Israel showing clowns who worked in children’s hospitals, Kapustina wants to bring a little greasepaint-fueled joy to refugees across Europe.
The clowns she works with a trained professionals, you could call them “therapy clowns,” who regularly enter war zones and disaster areas to spread light in dangerous and disturbing situations.
When Caprariello asked how she thought the clowns could help the dire situation in Ukraine, Kapustina replied, “We think that it would be great to create teams of clowns who can get in there, escort people out and lift up their spirits by giving them relief in that moment.”‘
She hopes that these specially trained clowns will ease the burden these men, women and children are shouldering during the most difficult time of their lives. She also wants to show that there are Russians, too, who sympathize and want to help.
If you’d like to support Kapustina’s work through the I Clown You project, click here.
