Duane Hicks
As many Borderland residents complain about the seemingly never-ending cold and snow this winter, Fort Frances’ newest resident is loving it.
After all, it reminds him of his homeland, Russia.
Hailing from Yekaterinburg, but most recently having lived in Toronto, certified general accountant Ivan Goncharov is the newest member of the team at BDO, along with Alberton native Rebecca Mills and Frank Khimani of Brampton, Ont.
Goncharov said he was very happy to arrive here last month and see everything covered in white stuff.
“I love to see a lot of snow,” he remarked. “When I first came here, I was like, ‘Wow, finally!’
“I like winter. I think nature needs to sleep and relax,” Goncharov smiled, adding he wouldn’t feel comfortable in a place with only palm trees.
“It can’t be summer all of the time,” he reasoned.
Goncharov was an exchange student for one year in the U.S. in the late 1990s, enjoyed it, and knew he wanted to return to North America one day.
“I wanted to come back but I was more interested in Canada because it has the same climatic zones as Russia,” he noted.
“I wanted to see and experience how people live here.
“Also, politically or socially, I wanted to find a more fair society [in Canada],” added Goncharov.
“I wanted to see better roads,” he noted. “And I wanted to get some experience I could bring [to Russia] one day—how they build houses, how they maintain roads, how they live, how they interact with each other in a country which is very similar to Russia.”
Goncharov first visited Canada in 2009, when he toured a good part of the country (from Toronto to Vancouver) on VIA Rail.
After working for KPMG—a very large company that provides audit, tax, and advisory services—in Russia, he then returned to Canada in May, 2012, spending 18 months living in Toronto.
“Toronto is like, as people from Moscow would say, a big village because it’s a huge city, around six million people, but it’s so spread out and there are a lot of two-storey houses as well as skyscrapers,” noted Goncharov.
“It’s quite dispersed.
“It doesn’t have problems with traffic jams. My city is small in distance but it will take you hours to cover those five kilometres,” he chuckled.
While he described living in Toronto as a positive experience, it was located too far south for his tastes.
“I’ve seen trees and plants in Toronto that I haven’t seen in Russia,” Goncharov remarked.
“To me, it was always warm in Toronto,” he continued. “I knew some people from France in Toronto, and whenever it was cloudy, they didn’t want to go outside.
“But for me, it was like, ‘It’s summer guys. Let’s go somewhere!’”
Looking for a job further north, Goncharov considered other parts of Canada, including Whitehorse and Yellowknife, but then found a job here with BDO.
Having been in Fort Frances for exactly one month as of Monday, Goncharov is enjoying it here.
“So far I love it,” he enthused. “Yesterday [Sunday], I went for a walk. I went through the majority of the town and I could not look at the houses and not smile.
“Some houses are small but they are so nice,” Goncharov noted.
“I like the amount of snow. I like the friendliness of people.
“Here, I have a job and feel better than I did in Toronto,” he added. “I like the climate. It’s more dry, at least in the winter.
“When it’s humid, and the temperature, even when it’s higher [than it is here], you still feel cold.”
Goncharov also is impressed with the wilderness and wildlife surrounding Fort Frances.
“People in Canada treat nature with more care and respect,” he remarked. “There are so many animals.
“I have seen deer in town. It was one of my very bright experiences.
“It happened just a week ago. The deer was looking into my eyes and she was interested, a little bit scared, but it was a happy face,” he recounted.
“I’ve seen animals in the zoo and now I understand they are not happy,” Goncharov said. “They look absolutely different than the ones that are free.”
Where he’s from in Russia, people have been hunting animals for centuries and there’s not many left.
As much as he likes winter, Goncharov said this area is surrounded by lakes and beaches, and he is excited to see what it all looks like when the season changes.
“I am looking forward to the summer,” he remarked.
“I want to enjoy this area. I want to explore the forests to see what kind of plants grow there.”
Goncharov said he went ice-fishing for the first time a week ago and while he enjoyed it, he feels he will like summer fishing even more.
“I never did it in Russia,” he noted. “Although I went to lakes, I never went fishing.
“But here, it’s easy to wake up early and catch your own dinner,” he enthused.
“It was a very fresh dinner [when I went ice-fishing],” he noted. “I hadn’t eaten something so fresh, so nice in a long time.”
The only downside to his experience so far?
“Something I am afraid of is I will like this area so much that I will not like to go home,” Goncharov confessed.
But as much he is loving Canada and Northwestern Ontario, Goncharov said it’s quite likely he will return to Yekaterinburg at some point in his future.
“The Motherland means a lot to me. I realized it when I came here,” he noted.
“Far away places could be very beautiful, and life there could be very just,” he stressed. “More opportunities could exist somewhere far away, but still the land where I grew up means a lot to me.
“I want to go back,” Goncharov said. “I often see my motherland in my dreams and the people I grew up with.
“But I want to get experience here, see how this place lives.”
