Day 26
A new phase for Ukrainian refugees: beginning to understand the reality of what it really means when Europe says it's open and wants to help. Recommended reading from on the ground Ukraine.
Meet Harry. She (yes, Harry is a girl) arrived from Kharkiv via Poland and Czechia. A lovely 9 year old girl is in charge of her. Harry slept with her owners for a few nights with Austrians in a nice Vienna suburb, but for whatever reason, Harry and her owners and a cat whose name I didn’t catch found themselves standing in Vienna’s central train station this morning with the address of a refugee center in Lower Austria. I had met them yesterday and was really surprised to see them today. After all, they said they had a place to sleep in Vienna. The two women have an offer to go to France, although it’s all rather sketchy — someone over the internet, but they believe other Ukrainians are already there. The town looked nice, not far from Lyon. They decided, standing their with all of their luggage, one child and two pets, that France sounded better than a government building address in Lower Austria. I took them to the ticket counter.
We were super lucky as we got an ÖBB staffer who wanted to speak Russian and genuinely seemed excited to help figure out the best way to get from Vienna to Lyon while being able to sleep on the train overnight rather than having to search for a room for the night. He was so sweet “odna sobaka i odin kot” repeating how you would say “one dog and one cat” in Russian. Tickets sorted, I helped the women stuff their things in the lockers and gave them directions on how to get into the city for the day, keeping in mind they still have a dog and a cat with them. They refused to take any money. They gave me big hugs. I wished them good luck. The 9 year old said “when we get back to school we won’t show homework but our passports with all those stamps!”. I don’t think there are stamps anymore but I know exactly what she meant. She isn’t going to school as she should be but she is seeing more of Europe than she ever expected. I do worry though. Mom said her husband is still in Kharkiv. They really have no idea what they are heading into. There is so much uncertainty around it is hard not to feel consumed by it.
While Europe lights up buildings and throws charity concerts, many Ukrainians are starting to ask all the right questions, namely, how exactly are we going to be able to support ourselves here? Where will we live? How will we send our kids to kindergarten and school? Will we have enough money to survive? The first stage was tears, the second stage was shock, and now we are in the third stage: plotting. Trying to figure out what option is best. Poland is full. Germany is nearly full. Someone said Switzerland is horrible. Very few good stories emerging from Austria, so far. Spain sounds promising. Maybe head south, summer tourism jobs? Ireland, could be a good option, but hard to reach.
Listenting to official rhetoric, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that Europe wants to pretend it is doing something while actually sending the message: don’t come here and expect to be taken care of to Ukrainians. I heard this on the radio as I was driving to the station and if you understand German, do have a listen, hear how they talk about the dilemma of what to do over a sum of money not even sufficient to buy a week’s worth of groceries for a family. Apples and oranges. Official claims and so-called solutions vs the reality on the ground.
I know an angel in Budapest, originally in Moscow, who is every night housing up to 30 Ukrainian refugees through hands on grassroots efforts and fundraising across the ocean. If you can read Russian, do read my friend’s public post about how some Ukrainians are even turning around and going back to war after seeing the “warm” welcome in Europe and what the reality on the ground in Hungary is like. If you scroll through the comments, you will hear similar stories from Germany, France.
Everywhere it is the same. Everywhere in practice Ukrainians can stay, but the reality is long-term housing is not easy to find, no one knows when they will be able to work legally. It is lovely that Erste Bank is offering free bank accounts to Ukrainians, but what do you do when you have no money to deposit? You can’t earn money legally because no one processed your registration? The evening news shows a registration center that to our knowledge isn’t even open for new appointments?
And all those countries demanding visas: Canada, UK, Australia, Israel, I don’t even mention the U.S. because who knows that the reality is there — do you really think the average Ukrainian refugee has access to a laptop to connect to the internet to scan application documents, apply for a visa, a place to stay for weeks waiting for approval, and then enough money to cover a long-haul international flight for the family plus pet? Of course now. But you all know that. So you pretend to help by offering such visa schemes while in reality shutting your doors. Might as well be honest about it.
I helped a mom, teenage son and 6 year old daughter put their luggage away. They just arrived from Budapest and are on their way to France via Zurich and from France they plan to take a ferry to Ireland. All with the family cat in his cat carrier. The mom asked if she could pay with Forints. Only Euro coins, I said, realising I was out of them. The lockers are so stupid: you can’t pay with a credit card, they don’t take paper money, there isn’t a single employee around to help. So I run to an ATM, and it gives me a €100 bill. Ugh. I go next door and buy a pack of cigarettes so I can get some change in coins. The mom says she doesn’t smoke so I stuff them in my pocket thinking soon enough someone will ask me and I can gift them. We then go pile in all the luggage so the family can see Vienna for a few hours. I do this several times every shift.
Another family was panicking — 20 minutes until their train and the luggage locker wouldn’t open. I asked five different people to help before someone came. 10 minutes left. The railway guys busted open the jammed locker and we then literally ran with 3 women, a little girl, and a baby asleep in a buggy to the elevator to the platform. They were in a total panic if they miss their train to Munich they would miss their train to Stuttgart…5 minutes left. I sprinted down stairs, alone, bought the first sandwiches I could find that looked edible, begging the staff to work fast. Ran back and handed them the food just as they were hoisting the buggy onto the train with the help of a teenage boy. Good luck and deep breath and onto the next crisis. And it’s like that for hours.
There is no doctor on site at the train station. In my opinion, this is a problem. There were calls for ambulances yesterday. I dealt with a woman today who was clearly not well mentally and although she was not alone I worry. As the weeks drag on, the war drags on, the stress builds, the passengers passing through Vienna will only be more in need of medical attention. We have a raging covid pandemic here. We could have one doctor or someone capable of handing out medicine on site. We could have a luggage storage that was especially for Ukraine that didn’t require searching for Euro coins. We could have a lot of things if someone really cared. We volunteers really care, but we are not professionals, and we will burn out. I did several supermarket runs today just to refill silly little things like bananas, instant soups, hand wipes, all of which run out and aren’t immediately replaced. There are large, systemic failures, and I start to wonder if they are intentional. I tell myself I cannot fix everything, I can only fix the little problems in front of me for those 15 or 30 minutes. One mom was so nervous I had to wait with her the entire time until her train arrived. I could tell she was at her breaking point, travelling with a little boy of 4. So I gave her that half an hour of my full attention. It’s all you can do.
I haven’t been able to follow all the news as closely as I would have liked to over the past few days, but very broadly — Russia is turning up the temperature of both its threats and actions but has had limited success on the ground. I expect Russia to become more brazen, act crueler, and for Belarus to perhaps get involved this week in the war, per many rumours. I get annoyed when I hear soundbites like this from NATO, as if they still think this is only about Ukraine.
This is the last dispatch from the last remaining journalists in Mariupol. The Ukrainian army pulled them out after they learned Russia was looking to kill them:
Kyiv was heavily attacked last night.
8 people died as a result of this Russian air strike on a shopping center in Kyiv’s Podil district:
The aftermath this morning:
Peace talks? I remain really skeptical. The Ukrainian people, after all their sacrifice, death and suffering, would not accept Zelensky handing an inch of territory over to Russia, not even the occupied territories of DNR, LNR and Crimea. You cannot negotiate with a terrorist. He will never speak or act in good faith.
If you have the stomach for it, please read this report by Guy Chazon based on phone conversations with people who survived the siege of Mariupol and managed to flee. The world must not look away from the pure horror of what Russia is doing in Mariupol. There are also very alarming reports Russia is rounding up residents of Mariupol and deporting them to Russia. You know who else did such things? Stalin.
I don’t have any big predictions today, but I do have one little recommendation. Your favourite governor Vitaly Kim of Mykolaiv is now on Twitter with English subtitles to his daily videos. Give him a follow:
I’ll finish with this insane image from Kharkiv. The caption says “The military infrastructure object "kitchen sink" was denazified by a precision strike in the Kharkiv region”.
Thank you for reading. I saw somehow in the statistics that this little blog is already among the top 50 Substacks for “News” which is pretty cool. Thank you for your support!
Ok, so take this comment with several grains of salt, please.
I know next to nothing about Austrian politics. However, to me as a former PR person, there would be some potential major benefits for local politicians to get out in-front of this story, to take a proactive no-nonsense approach to the refugees.
Sadly, you say, "We could have a lot of things if someone really cared. We volunteers really care, but we are not professionals, and we will burn out." Yes, this is sadly true; you all need some politicians to back you--even if just a mayor or two. Who can we tap? I would love to help figure this out.
--christopher