Easter weekend (Day 51)
Helping on the ground in Vienna. Brief news round-up. Looking towards next week.
This year’s Easter market on Freyung in downtown Vienna is different. We came across these giant eggs all decorated by Ukrainian artists, all for sale (€300-€500 a pop) to raise money for Ukraine-focused charities. A pleasant surprise.
Today I was not at the train station. I spent the morning “fundraising” and then taking care of some family errands with my kids (doing normal stuff feels totally surreal at the moment). It is weird to emerge into tourist Vienna. Parallel universes, indeed.
This afternoon I drove a mom from Kyiv who is living near me to a specialty cake decorating supply shop so she could get supplies for her baby son’s upcoming first birthday. She came together with her older son who is 13. He still doesn’t have a school place. I promised to ask about that, too. We bought cake supplies (a dinosaur theme!), then stopped by a clothing donation center for Ukrainians which happened to be around the corner.
I was very surprised by the tone with which the volunteers spoke with us. I haven’t been taken for a refugee before, and it was an eye-opening experience. Some of the Ukrainian-speaking volunteers were borderline rude (“You only have 15 minutes, do you promise to be out in time? Who let you in here?!”). The mom wasn’t phased by their tones and looked through the clothes (frankly it looked a like a lot of junk and not much useful stuff) and found a few trousers for grandmother, and baby rain boots for a toddler who also lives with them. We left as quickly as we came.
Next we headed to a grocery store and I helped them buy some supplies for the weekend. I taught the mom the names of the different kinds of meat in German, how to ask for freshly ground meat behind the counter, and the various types of sugar for baking. While we were in the baking aisle another man, a stranger, came up and asked me in Russian where he could find poppy seeds. To me it is already normal at to be a walking info point. I showed him.
I drove the mom and son home, and promised to ask around if anyone has a stand-up mixer they aren’t using anymore, and about a school place in the neighbourhood for the teen.
The area has so many schools; it will likely just take one sympathetic school director to make it happen. The mom sent an email to the official Vienna email address to apply for a school place for a Ukrainian child. She never got a reply. She doesn’t have her blue card yet; she has an appointment on May 6 to get photographed. It is a long wait without a job. Her husband is in Kyiv and is going back to work (car dealership) but the company isn’t paying out any salaries at the moment for obvious reasons.
I met them about a week ago when they came to me on the train station via another volunteer to pick up a used suitcase I had. The thing about all these connections is I don’t even ask anymore where did you get my number from, I just do what I can, within reason. Thanks to the fundraising this morning, I was able to help them with these shopping trips this afternoon. It’s not rocket science. They were very grateful and I have been told granny is at home baking blinchiki for my kids as I write this.
Switching gears — the news.
Please stop whatever you are doing and read this. Each and every word is so important and so incredibly painful and Joshua took the time to write this as eloquently as one can describe all horrors of horrors. He gives a voice to each and every person he met. Everyone I meet recently from Chernihiv, both city and surrounding region, is understandably completely traumatized.
I found this to be very informative on the decision-making structure within Russia where Putin has clearly lost it and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot anyone is capable of doing about it. There have also been some reports I haven’t had a chance to read this yet about what is happening within Chechnya, as Kadyrov the loose cannon seems even more determined than Putin to “take Kyiv”.
You have all heard by now about the Russian “Moscow” warship which is now at the bottom of the Black Sea. Russian news mentioned it briefly at 9am this morning and then promptly stopped talking about it altogether. Even though Russia claims the ship sunk because of a fire on board (not because Ukraine hit it), that hasn’t stopped Moscow from threatening to attack Kyiv more in retaliation. Logical arguments clearly not official Russia’s strong suit.
Russian propaganda has completely lost its mind. Just look what is happening in Katyn today. Just totally and utterly insane.
I am really worried about next week. Here in Europe I am worried about Easter long-weekend and how this will affect help for Ukrainians who just arrived, and in Ukraine I am worried about the ominous phase two of the war, during which Russia attacks again, this time focusing on the battle in the east and south of the country. I think about open plains and what that means. I think about the waves of refugees who may still come.
I think about occupied cities like Kherson which seem to be just awful at the moment. Total lawlessness and you can’t get anything: gasoline, medicines, nothing. Today I heard from a woman originally from Kyiv now in Innsbruck who called me a few days ago because my friend Nastya in Budapest had given her my number. The woman wanted to let me know she spoke with a contact I had given her in Belgium and now her sister and nephew will try to get out of occupied Kherson and go to stay with the lady in Belgium if everything works out. I took 15 minutes time to chat with someone who got my number from someone else; I put her in touch with a person in another country and somehow, you hope, you really hope, these little miracles sometimes do happen. It’s incredible and very uplifting. Let’s hope it all works out.
From a military perspective, I found this thread to be informative about how things might play out from next week. From a human perspective, I worry that for each weapon the west sends it is not yet making additional plans to house more Ukrainian civilians fleeing the war.
As for me, well, I’ve signed up for the next three mornings as a volunteer translator at the train station, and I will try and deliver as much direct aid as I can given the circumstances. Sunday and Monday are going to be challenging here, as everything will be closed, even supermarkets. Austrian holidays are next-level bonkers, and Easter weekend is a doozy.
Thank you for reading and for your continued support. More photos from this morning: