Blini and borsch (Day 34)
Vienna train station update, Ukraine news round-up.
I was standing inside the ÖBB ticket office at Vienna’s main train station when my phone started ringing. I was trying to help a young woman from Irpin get tickets to Trieste for her, her mom and their old dog Ryzhy (“redhead”) from Kyiv later this afternoon. They have an acquaintance in Italy and decided things might be easier there. They are both unvaccinated, mom feels very strongly about not getting vaccinated, and quickly realised Austria isn’t an easy place to be with out a vaccination certificate. She pestered me with all sorts of funny questions like “Can you go to the bathroom, the bank, on the subway without a test? Can we test ourselves or do they have to do the tests? They make it hurt on purpose, you know!”. I told her if she wanted help with train tickets the vaccination topic was going to have to be closed. She was then quiet, and sent her daughter with me to get the tickets.
As we were figuring that out (dogs now cost €7 — I paid), my phone started ringing. “Svitlana Kyiv”. I’ll call her back, I thought. A few minutes later I emerged from the ticket office to see Svitlana and her kids standing in the train station with all their luggage and a bag full of homemade Ukrainian food for me from granny in Poland. They wanted to say thank you for helping them find a temporary room with a very kind and generous family in Vienna. The kids, aged 9 and 13, already have spots in a local school. Svitlana found an apartment to rent. Small, but it will do, and the rent is manageable. I thanked them and wished them all the best. We had met just last week in the same place, and sometimes the magic works and you are able to help people find housing immediately. Sometimes.
This morning I met a mom from Kyiv with a 10 year old daughter. They left Germany, had trouble with the shared housing arrangement (nothing serious, just the usual trying to live with strangers), decided to try their luck in Vienna. Within a few hours, a generous offer came in from a local family, a room where they could stay for a few weeks. Mom said thank you and asked to think about it until this evening. I tried to convey to her this offer is better than anything the center is going to offer her, but I understand the mentality meanwhile, trying to collect enough options until you can decide which one is the best. I think it comes from so much insecurity in recent weeks and months. It is understandable, if frustrating for those trying to help.
This podcast following one mom from Kyiv in Poland and beyond is incredible. I really recommend it, it mirrors so much of what I have heard over the past few weeks:
This is the process I see now with nearly everyone I speak with. Ukrainians who have been in Europe a few weeks already are trying to figure out where it will be better. Where there are fewer of them, where you might have a better chance of being able to work legally sooner, where there might be more housing available. I met a family who was in Germany, then Italy, decided Venice was too expensive, now travelling via Vienna back to a city in Poland near the German border. Someone they know is there already. I met other young women from Odessa and Cherkassy who asked me if it’s better to stay in Austria or keep going to Germany. I always try to explain I cannot answer that question because so much depends on pure luck. Are you offered private accommodation with relative security and privacy, and perhaps some meals with the family, or do you spend weeks in a giant hall with hundreds of cots, always thinking in the back of your mind where are your valuables making sure you don’t get robbed?
Go west, I say. Summer is coming soon, think about places where there may be jobs in tourism, even if you think those countries are “poorer” than Germany. Keep in mind bureaucracy is slow everywhere, but some places worse than others. They say FinnAir is giving out practically free tickets if you use their promo code.
Ukrainians have already experienced the generosity of countries like Poland and Romania, and have become disillusioned with countries like Hungary. Heard a lot of complaints about Budapest today — not a single volunteer to be found in the train station, trains delayed, no one there to help in any language other than Hungarian.
I met a middled aged woman travelling with her elderly parents. Her dad is in a wheelchair and doesn’t talk much. The parents, who must be in their late 70s / early 80s, fled Kharkiv, initially to Dnipro and then realised they needed to get to Europe. Their daughter met them at the border. She lives near the French-German border. Their train from Bucharest to Budapest was delayed, they missed the next one…long story short I met them just before it was time to find the 9:15 train to Dortmund. Yes, it stops in Frankfurt along the way. No, the access to the wagon is not built for wheelchairs. We took a lift to the platform and then I ran around looking for strong men. I found one Russian speaker and one local German speaker who looked like he could easily lift a man and a wheelchair. They carefully helped the dad take those few steps, essentially lifting him into the train, and then the daughter and I got the wheelchair on board. At this point half the wagon was making sure the family from Kharkiv and their bags all made it onto the train. I wished them good luck.
My volunteer morning was interrupted by a call to hand over two scooters I promised a mom who I saw asking for a scooter in a local Telegram chat. Her daughter is 4, too big for the buggy, too small to walk long distances fro the subway. A friend came and collected the scooter as mom had to go register with the police this morning. The scooters were just collecting dust in our storage room; a small but useful gesture. I remember that age. I remember what it is like trying to get a tired kindergartener to keep walking.
So much news in the past 24 hours I don’t know where to begin, and most of it reads like a bad movie that never ends. The WSJ reported Abramovich (and Ukrainian peace talk delegates) suffered an attempted poisoning attempt while he was flying around as a “mediator” between Russia and Ukraine in early March. This really surprised me, because he strikes me as the last person who would get personally involved in any kind of political negations or humanitarian mission. I guess that just shows how badly he wanted to avoid personal sanctions. I was wrong; I assumed Ukraine would not trust him. The whole story is really fishy though, if you think about it for a second.
Meanwhile, another investigative journalist claims Putin and Shoigu are together in a bunker in the Ural Mountains near Ufa, according to flight data. Usual grains of salt, etc. It’s just all beyond weird at this point, anything feels possible. For more reading the Kremlin tea leaves, I found this post by Prof. Timothy Snyder to be interesting, particularly when it comes to the relationship between defense minister Shoigu and the career military generals, but I don’t think Russia’s elite are anywhere near revolting, as the financial elite moved abroad years ago, and the political elite owe their very existence to Putin’s system.
In Ukraine itself, the Russians hit the Mykolaiv regional administration building this morning. Governor Kim himself was not there at the time, but several people are believed to be trapped beneath the rubble. A photo taken this morning:
I just listened to this radio interview (in German) with an Austrian journalist in Odesa, who describes a really surreal situation in the city at the moment. It is more or less peaceful, the beaches are mined, the local authorities want restaurants and shops to open back up, and the city is being protected from Russian attack as long as Mykolaiv (see above) holds.
Several other recommended reading, in no particular order:
Fascinating thread about the Russian army’s military casualties by a BBC journalists:
Another fascinating thread on how local Ukrainian regional political leaders have remained loyal to Kyiv and this was not what Russia expected:
Chernobyl. Fears totally uneducated Russian troops (too young to even know about Chernobyl) mucking about in the very dangerous Red Forest:
Also Chernobyl, dirty bomb ingredients go missing from Chernobyl lab.
Melitopol. Life in a Russian-occupied city:
A horrendous story (husband murdered, she was raped by Russian soldiers) from outside Kyiv. Please be aware this is very difficult reading, but it is also important the world knows what is happening, that women like Natalya are brave enough to talk about the horrors they have been through.
Finally, I cannot remember if I linked to this beautiful piece of writing yet. I don’t think so. I loved this so much by Michele Berdy about leaving Moscow after 40+ years (!). It also made me cry. Do read it.
Finally, you have probably seen the news by now, but Novaya Gazeta, home to announced it will stop all reporting on the “military operation in Ukraine”. Novaya Gazeta is home to Elena Kostyuchenko’s brave reporting. In fact, it is the only newspaper she has ever worked for. If she wants to keep doing what she is doing in Ukraine, at great personal risk (I cannot stress this enough) to her own safety, she will have to find another publication to print her writing. Her reporting is so important because it is in Russian. She knows what Russian readers need to hear about the war you can’t call a war, about what their government is doing to the people of Ukraine via soldiers not old enough to even know what Chernobyl was. I linked here to Elena’s reporting on the war in Ukraine. The articles have already been taken down by Novaya Gazeta per Russian government orders according to this note dated today.
Thank you for reading. I will take a few days off from the train station, which today was busier but not busy, and on Friday I signed up to do a 6-hour shift of translation at one of the government centers in Vienna where Ukrainians try and register and fill out Austrian paperwork. I am sure it will be eye-opening, as always.
"This is the process I see now with nearly everyone I speak with. Ukrainians who have been in Europe a few weeks already are trying to figure out where it will be better. "
I am struck by this. I thought about possible causes--although I am only an armchair quarterback here--and came up with all leading back to there is no place like home.
From your dispatches and descriptions, I also believe folks are experiencing PTSD. I cannot imagine how it might feel to be, in many cases, "half a family" with fathers, sons, and husbands/boyfriends (and daughters too) left back in Ukraine and not with the refugee families.
Ugh. No wonder they are seemingly skittish and undecided. Your patience is a blessing. Many thanks for doing what you do.
--christopher
p.s. I liked the line about the unvaxxed woman. Good for you.