Das Problem ist (Day 36)
Another busy day at Wien HBF. Putin's war draws Russians in Russia towards him, quite the opposite of what west hoped. Russian army funerals in Buryatia, stories from Mariupol, Kharkiv, Chernivtsi.
This is Pony. She escaped from occupied Kherson by car along with her owners. I met them in Wien HBF this afternoon. They were asking where they could sleep tonight. I tried and failed to get them one of the many hotel rooms Stadt Wien is sponsoring at a nearby hotel to the train station. Organization A says Ukrainians have to go to Point B (across town by subway, change trains once) so that Organization C can decided if they qualify for a hotel room and then maybe in the evening Organization C will send them back to the train station where Organization D might give them a key to a hotel room after 20:00.
I asked about three times to make sure I understood correctly. Every time I got a different story. Things change daily if not hourly, I was told. In the end I just paid for a room for a night so the family of 3 and their dog could rest for one day. They don’t see to know where they are headed. They seemed pretty disillusioned with what they experienced in Austria so far. In those situations I always wish I had better advice than “go west” when people look at you with exhausted eyes which convey the only thing they need right now is a semi-permanent roof over their heads.
Today was busier. A mom and little girl from Zaporozhye heading to Zagreb. A friend of a friend might be there but her phone is dead so she can’t contact them ahead of time. We got mom a coffee and the girl a coke and a donut, some slices of pizza for the journey. Mom wanted to have a cigarette before she got on the train. Stand here, I said, probably no one will notice. When did we ban smoking outside? I felt like I was in LA for a second. All the best and onto the next.
Kyiv. Odessa. It’s a blur. One mom came up to me and asked if I could help her get sneakers for her son. They are going home to Brovary, outside of Kyiv, Ukraine after 25 days on the road. Is it safe to go back, I ask, cautiously? It was liberated a few days ago, mom replies. Ok, I nodded. Mom and son made it all the way to Spain before deciding to go home. We went to a sports’ store and got him a new pair of running shoes. The cashier spoke Russian to us. I wished her a safe trip home. Another mom saw what happened and asked me for help. She is here in Vienna with two kids. Fled Odessa at the very beginning when they could see warships in the Black Sea and their house was near an abandoned military base. Everything is so expensive here, she said. I know, I replied, and handed a little cash when we were out of sight of everyone else. Mom started to cry. Don’t worry, I said, I know it’s hard at the beginning. Are the kids in school? You have a place to stay? Yes, she nodded. I managed to get them a ticket for the lunch, too.
I learned how to ask nicely in my best German for the literal meal tickets so I can give them to as many families as possible. I walk Ukrainians to the door so they don’t get lost on the way. As I was leaving the cafeteria, I met two young moms with two toddlers. They didn’t have any ticket. I begged the security guard, who took one look at the young kids in strollers and let them in. They are hungry, I said to him in German. He nodded, in understanding, and motioned for them to go inside. Everything is a negotiation. Everything that should be easy and obvious isn’t. First experiences in Austria are designed as a warning: don’t expect this path to be smooth and without many bumps in the road.
People come to the train station to ask all sorts of questions. I met many travelling to Vienna to apply for Canadian visas. Canada, if you knew all the pain and exhaustion you cause with your visa system for Ukrainians going to friends and family in Canada. How many can afford weeks if not months in rented accommodation until their visas come through? As a Canadian, I’m embarrassed, but at least the appointments somehow work. The U.S. visa system for Ukrainians seems to have completely collapsed.
More tickets to Frankfurt, Munich. People still moving in circles. Two women spent two weeks in Slovakia, now onto Germany. A family told me someone told them the only jobs they could get in Austria would be picking vegetables for room and board. Free SIM cards. A trip to the pharmacy for medication. Help with long-term luggage lockers. A million little things. Four cups of coffee before a train trip to another town in Austria, to ask yet another authority about a room that might be free. So many questions. So few answers. I find myself saying sorry for hours on end, even though we are volunteers and those getting paid don’t seem particularly upset by the Kafka on drugs system they have collectively created. By design, I suppose.
I did what I could today. Tonight, two more rooms in a local hotel for a family with a 4-month old and a diabetic 9 year-old arriving by car from Budapest. We are like a chain of Russian speakers passing Ukrainians families from one to the next, westwards.
In other news, today I am thinking a lot about Putin’s position within Russia. You would think all out war in Ukraine and crippling economic sanctions would have made him vulnerable, but the result inside Russia seems to be quite the opposite. I shared yesterday the kind of patriotic fake news nonsense circulating amongst the Russian granny WhatsApp chats. No one is making them share such videos. It means the Russian TV messaging is working in certain crowds — in this case pensioners in mid-sized central Russian cities.
Regarding the Russian elite who remained in Russia, this is a must read. (Farida has promised an English translation later today):
The opening sentence reads:
“Since they have adopted sanctions against us, we will f*** them. Now they will have to buy rubles on the Moscow Exchange in order to buy gas from us. But these are flowers. We will now f*** them all!” - an acquaintance of a high-ranking Russian civil servant tells me enthusiastically.
You get the idea: instead of hating and blaming Putin for the mess Russia is in, those left in Russia are blaming the west and aligning themselves behind both Putin’s regime and his bloody war. Perhaps not unexpected, but personally I am surprised. I think it speaks to the information bubble Russians find themselves in, and also some kind of psychological reaction to “Russia” suddenly becoming a four-letter word overnight in the minds of many in the west.
Also we should not forget those who wanted to leave, who saw what was coming in Russia, because it didn’t all happen over night — they left already. Those who stayed, they stayed for a reason. They made a choice to stay. Putin has equated himself with patriotism, and so far, during this initial phase of the war that cannot be called a war in Russia, it appears to be working. But it won’t work forever.
The bad news is this means Putin isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. That is really bad news. Unless the world is prepared to deal with an aggressive, pathological liar running Russia for years to come, the west is going to have to turn up the temperature to speed up what has to be Putin’s eventual end. How many more years of this are we all prepared to put up with? Biden’s off the cuff comment in Warsaw wasn’t smart, but the sentiment is completely undertandable and shared by many.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is not giving up. This was Zelensky last night:
Some other recommended reading — a beautiful essay about Chernivtsi:
Chilling stories from Mariupol and Kharkiv:
Russian army funerals in Buryatia (east of Lake Baikal):
I’ll stop there for today. Thank you for reading. As always, please let me know if there are topics you would like me to dive deeper into. Tomorrow I will be volunteer translating at one of the registration centres here, and I will hopefully get a better understanding of the bureaucracy Ukrainians face (to be honest I am scared already).