It was war that drove Alona Hamova from her home, but, in a way, she always knew she was destined to leave. For Ms. Hamova, it was a place of limited opportunity and imagination, a place that thwarted her ambition. “I lived in this village where everyone told me, ‘Oh you have to be this way only,’” she said. When she was 22, she got a tattoo of a whale on her stomach and struck up a conversation with the artist. The artist became her mentor, and Ms. Hamova was learning the fundamentals of tattooing.

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Persons: Alona Hamova, “, ”, Hamova Organizations: National Linguistic University Locations: Novovasylivka, Ukrainian, Berdyansk