Alla Olkhovska is a photographer and gardener living in Eastern Ukraine very near to the front of the war between Ukraine and Russia. She and her husband and mother-in-law and other family members live with the constant reality of massive attacks from multiple kinds of weaponry. Unable to leave the country, Alla supports herself and her family by selling rare clematis and peony seeds online from her extraordinary garden, which she manages to cultivate amid war. But that's not all, she also has written books, made webinars, done countless interviews, counselled and advised many international gardeners and helped produce a documentary about her own story.

The harsh winter and the need right now

Alla lives in a house that was built by her grandfather and passed through the family. Although the house has not been directly hit, the constant bombardments and attacks have left its infrastructure broken. Here are the needs she is identifying right now. All of these are essential to being able to continue to live in the house through whatever the winter may bring.

Generator

Alla has been lucky enough to own a fuel generator that has served for a long time. She writes, "we had a small 3 kW petrol generator which is not intended for long periods of use and which didn’t provide enough power. The appropriate variant for us will be a 5 kW generator, preferably diesel one."

Accumulator

This assists the generator, by taking the pressure off the need for it to produce energy all the time. She writes, "Such a station accumulates energy and then works for some hours and during this time the generator can have some rest .... it also allows [us] to have some sleep because you do not need to control it all the time as you have to do with the generator. "

Voltage stabilizer

The voltage stabilizer prevents other appliances from being burnt out or destroyed by sudden power outages or surges. She writes, "We already had an episode when after explosions there were severe power outages and our refrigerator and other appliances were burnt down... We treasure these devices a lot, they are very expensive. I also bought a small stabilizer, but it was burnt down during one of the power outages."

Air Inverter

Heating is the most critical issue in winter. The generator helps provide electricity, but must be met with good gas production. Having an air inverter will allow them to isolate one room of the house that can have consistent reliable heat. She writes, "The strikes in recent days have wiped out more than half of Ukraine’s domestic natural gas production and the strikes on the gas system continue which puts the heating season under a big question… This means that even if we have a generator, we still won’t have heating in severe frosts....I consulted what can be done and here the option may be installing an inverter air conditioner to provide plus temperature in at least one small room. There are models which work well during the frosts."

Windows

The original windows for this WWII era house have never been replaced. Not only are the long in need of repair, but constant strikes have loosened their placement in the window wells, or worse, caused the glass to shatter and be gone. This means that weather pours in. To combat this, Alla has put up oil cloths on most of the upper windows but regularly deals with floods. She writes, "The windows can be installed and replaced, but here they are huge as the overall height in the rooms is 3,5 meters and thus they turn out to be expensive – we have 9 of them on the first floor and 2 absent windows (bigger in size and more expensive) on the second floor. But at least installing the windows above and changing a window at least in the kitchen (it’s in the worst state) will already make a difference."

Water pump & filtration station

Alla has been extremely lucky to have had access to a well in her garden, established by her grandfather and augmented by a watering system that is throughout the garden. This well is part of the magic of Alla's beautiful flowers. Unfortunately, this water is all they now have for drinking water, and it is not potable. She writes, "it’s a technical water with lots of pollutants. It would be a big relief to install a pumping station to pump water from the well directly to the house, as well as a filtration system to make the water potable. Water is a critical issue, and the longer the war lasts, the more pressing it will become. I’m especially concerned with it because water has the direct impact on health and its quality is especially important for people with weak immune systems such as Vitaliy and Tamara. Tamara also has kidney stones, so drinking contaminated water is especially dangerous, as it will lead to the progression of kidney stones."

Each of these issues is vital to the well-being and ongoing survival of war.

Who I am and how I know Alla

My name is Sherry Coman. I'm a professor at a Canadian college. In May of 2025, I curated and produced an exhibition of Alla's photographs, working collaboratively with her. During the preparation time, I had several zoom calls with Alla in which I became more deeply aware of the tremendous perils she lives with daily. As a film and media professor, I am able to deeply appreciate the skill and craftsmanship of her photographs.

You can find out more about that exhibition here

How the donation works

When you make your donation to GoFundMe, and after your financial institution has transferred the funds, they go into my bank account. I then use Paypal to send the money on to Alla. I will cover any transitional fees. You can be assured that 100% of your money goes directly to Alla.

Other ways to support Alla

There are other ways to support Alla and her family that are available on her own blog: lindengrovegardens .tilda.ws , and through the website built by her dear friend Mia Broder : allasgarden.com.

Thank you in advance for your support!