Petro Lopata

In a series of shocking events over the last two weeks, three Toronto Ukrainian institutions have been burglarized, leading some in the community pointing to the start of a crime wave targeting Ukrainians in this city. The three organizations involved in the burglaries - The Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre (UCRDC), Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund (CCCF) and scouting organization Plast - are all charities.

The first robbery occured overnight March 14-15 at the UCRDC, in the St Vladimir Institute building near downtown Toronto. According to Nadia Skop, UCRDC Executive Administrator, staff left the building March 14 at 7pm after a meeting. When she arrived for work the next day at 10am, she found the offices had been ransacked, and that computers and a safe were missing.

Skop said although there wasnt any money in the safe, it contained the master betacam cassette of Harvest of Despair, the award-winning UCRDC-funded documentary on Ukraines artificial famine of 1932-1933, valued at $6,000. She pleaded for the return of the cassette, which has no re-sale value, saying that no questions would be asked.

Skop also expressed surprise over the fact that of all the organizations housed in the St Vladimir Institute, only the UCRDC had been targeted by the burglars. Despite the UCRDC being singled out in this incident, were going to be enhancing security throughout the whole building, informed Skop.

After the burglary at the UCRDC, the spate of crimes shifted to Bloor West Village, a strip of Bloor Street West spanning from High Park to Jane, with a significant visible Ukrainian presence. Here, over the evening of March 25 to 26, both Plast and the building at 2118 Bloor Street West within 5 minutes walking distance of each other were burglarized by unknown perpetrators.

According to Plast employee Zenon Waschuk, missing from their offices are two older model computers, while a fax machine and printers were left behind. Though there were no immediate signs of forced entry into the building, Waschuk said that the safety-glass doors to their second-story offices were broken with such force that glass shards lay as far as seven metres away from the doors.

Again, only the second story was targeted at 2118 Bloor Street.

Andy Cottrell, who handles maintenance and is part-owner of the building, said a hole had been broken through a wall to enter the joint offices of CCRF and Help Us Help the Children. A music school and an information technology company, also found on the second story were burglarized.

Cottrell breathed a sigh of relief as he told the New Pathway that steel doors in a second-story hallway prevented the burglars from entering the Ukrainian Canadian Art Foundation, television studio Kontakt and other tenants offices.

The ground floor houses a number of retail shops, the Consulate General of Ukraine in Toronto and an Ontario Ministry of Transportation office.