Bandera the hamster (Day 50)
Another busy shift at Vienna's train station. Podcast on phase two of the war. LA Times on fighting in southern Ukraine. Russian forced adoption of Ukrainian children.
Please meet Bandera the hamster. Yes, that is his real name. He was travelling with a mom and two kids (15 and 8) from the Kyiv region to Constanze, Germany. The family had been attending a Waldorf school in Kyiv (there are only four in all of Ukraine), and have been invited to come attend a Waldorf school in Germany. I told the mom how lucky she is; she nodded in understanding. Bandera is absolutely tiny and seems to be taking the trip in stride. He looks very well taken care of.
It was very busy at the ticket desks today and I am really worried the free tickets for Ukrainians will come to an end soon. The rules are unclear, so many Ukrainians already in Europe think this means they can keep travelling for free, for as long as it lasts. I try to explain that each unnecessary journey you take is a train ride taken away from a refugee who needs to flee Donbas or southern Ukraine next week. Sometimes they get it, and nod quietly, other times they try to explain “you see I have this appointment…”.
The rules are unclear and it’s murky. We can clearly see who has been travelling for three or four days already with tons of bags and exhausted kids, and those who look freshly showered and have only a purse and a shopping bag and ask for a ticket to Bratislava. For now, it’s all somehow working, but the Easter holidays mean there are very few seats left as it is. I have a bad feeling it’s going to get really tight from next week. Am hearing swirling rumors the free tickets might end soon. One solution could be you must show you arrived recently in the EU via your passport stamp. But that wouldn’t help those who ended up in a dead end and want to try a new country. I don’t know the right answer, but I can see it is going to become a problem, and soon.
I wanted to take my own kids to Prague for a night, or so I thought until I heard the price (€195 for 4 tickets each way). Then we have a staycation or drive; unfortunately the gas will still be cheaper, even at today’s crazy prices. My point? These free tickets aren’t free. They are being funded by taxpayers. And they won’t last forever. We need a clear EU-wide solution for this, just like for housing and benefits and our hosting of Ukrainian refugees in general.
I met a tired mom with three kids hanging on her. I escorted her to the cafeteria. She told me they had just received Canadian visas. That was a first! They are living in Bratislava, had come to Vienna to apply. After a month-long process, they finally received their visas. They have a relative in Vancouver who told them Vancouver is too expensive. They plan to go to Montreal. They may need help with tickets. Thanks to the magic of Twitter, they are already in touch with a kind Russian-speaking soul in Canada who will try and help them if they need financial assistance to buy flights to Canada. I ran super fast back to the cafeteria to connect them before I lost touch with her. The family is from Ternopil.
On my walk back to the station, I ran into a group of women taking a photo of this graffiti. We laughed together. We got talking.
They are staying at Messe Wien — that is the big center with cots etc. where Ukrainians are taken in Vienna when they don’t have any housing. Two moms in their forties and two daughters aged around twenty from Kharkiv. One pair have been here longer. They are already in Messe Wien for a second time because the first time they were initially sent to another mass housing hall near Schwechat (airport), and then a terrible hostel in Lower Austria (again, don’t want to get sued, will provide address to journalists via Twitter DM). The mom and daughter were told to sleep six to a room. It was filthy, the window didn’t close. They ran away, back to Messe Wien. They have met some women who have already returned to Messe Wien three or four times. They told me about other people driven to half-finished buildings to live in; a first floor covered in dust, construction still happening on top floors. Last night some people at Messe Wien got robbed again by a group of Roma. The police were called, tried to search to bags, but no one has any comfort that their stuff won’t be stolen when they are gone. They did say they are fed three times a day by the Red Cross which operates Messe Wien (two times sandwiches, one time hot food).
I listened to it all, said how sorry I was, on behalf of all of us who do care. Passed the info onto one journalist already looking into such situations. I asked what they needed. Aside from an affordable apartment to rent in or near Vienna, one mom was still in winter boots. We went downstairs to the shops and she chose a new pair of sneakers for herself. I said very loudly while wearing my charity vest that I am doing this from my own pocket in German. I can imagine the tabloid headline if someone were to accuse a local charity of buying new sneakers. I took their phone number, promised to let them know if I hear about good apartment rentals in the Vienna area, something they might be able to afford, the four of them together (all adults, all want to work), and wished them well. It was the least I could do, to be honest. Without an address, they cannot apply to receive social benefits (€215 per adult per month). It’s a vicious cycle. They will need luck and kindness of locals here in Austria to break out of it.
Good news from Ireland. A kind Irish family reached out. I am trying to convince the Ukrainian mom to make contact. They are still really unsure of everything. They are going to need their hands held. I hope it will work out.
I haven’t had as much time as usual to follow all the news, but a few things to recommend to you.
First, this podcast interview with Oleksei Sorokin is very information on the next stage of the war. He says he expects it to begin in full force by early next week. Ominous. Worrying.
Second, this LA Times reporting from Mykolaiv oblast on the battle for Ukraine’s south, very near Baba Anya’s home village.
Third, a horrific and at the moment underreported story about how Russia is literally deporting Ukrainian children to Russia — which is included in the official definition of genocide. I was left speechless by this video.
I have to go run and do mom things so I need to end here. My piggy bank to help is now as of today empty. I spent more than the last of it on train seat reservations and sneakers today. It was the right thing to do.
I sent my CV to the charity. I don’t know if they will want someone like me as an employed translator here. Somehow, I doubt it. I keep doing what I do best, a little help here and there, a connection here and there. I get calls and texts all day from people who somehow got my name and number. I do what I can and what I can’t, I can’t. Something so simple as connecting two people with each other’s phone numbers is actually sometimes a life-changing thing. Thank goodness for social media and technology. Sometimes it really works wonders. But not without a heart. You have to have a heart for any of it to work as it should.
I keep writing this because I love it and it provides a record, a moment, some kind of fixation of what is happening here in real time. It lets those of you who are not here see a bit of what we on the ground see, and it is also a therapeutic exercise for me personally.
Thank you for reading.
I have been following since nearly the beginning--and I can sense out of your writings the emotion you feel at the circuitous routes you have to travel to get people help. I feel this is important work--the actual helping and the writing. I will continue to send what I can. Happy (Catholic) Easter from the States.
Include info on how to refrub/resupply your piggy bank. Lots of help here with no place to go. Sounds like you do not have much overhead so the MONEY would be right to work in a good place for good people.