Torgashev didn’t see skating for others as an added burden. Instead, it gave him a sense of purpose, which only took on a greater importance when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Skating for his grandparents
Torgashev has always been especially close to his maternal grandparents, Vladimir, 85, and Nina Melnichenko, 80, who lived with the family in Florida part-time when he was growing up. The Melnichenko later returned to their native Ukraine and live in Odesa on the Black Sea, the country’s largest and most important port. Torgashev has used his skating to raise awareness and funds for Ukraine.
Odesa has endured 800 air raid alarms a year. Last month as temperatures hovered below 20 degrees (fahrenheit), nearly a million residents were without power.
Torgashev was asked how his grandparents are doing.
“Surviving,” he said. “No electricity, they do their laundry at like, 4 in the morning, when the energy is working or when prices are cheaper.
“They have sirens all the time, no heat, so they’re in winter coats and blankets a lot. My grandparents, they’ve been through so much, so so much, the whole Soviet Union era. They’ve just been through so much, and they have to continue going through it. So just to be able to distract them with success for a moment, just it means the world to me that I’m able to do that for them.”
His success means perhaps even more to his grandparents.
“The biggest positive is our beloved grandson, Andrew,” Vladimir Melnichenko, the former head of the Ukrainian skating federation, wrote in an email to the Southern California News Group. “The war is a tragedy for the people of Ukraine, and Andrew is worried about us, just as we are in the heart of the war zone. But we are holding on and believe in victory. “
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