Graf & Kristal & family
The twelfth in a series of of twelve days of Christmas. Personal stories by Ukrainians now in Austria. In their own words.
Note: this story really should have been number thirteen. Yesterday, I published what was number twelve, and then deleted it by the evening, after the heroine asked me to take it down. Her parents feared sharing their story might have negative consequences for the family still dependent on local authorities for social housing, etc. I respected their wishes and removed the post. If you read it: the heroine stood 100% by what she told me, her parents simply didn’t want it out there for public consumption. The very sad truth about the reality for many refugees in Austria is we may never hear from them about what happened / is happening to them because many will not speak up for fearing of making an already precarious situation worse. I know, in my lived experience, sharing one’s story usually leads to positive outcomes, people willing to come forward to help, but it is not my decision to make.
Alexander reached out to me and said he would like to share their overall very positive story. He and his large family (12 people in total plus 4 gorgeous dogs) have been in Austria since March. They are from Kyiv. When war broke out, they first headed to the dacha, but the situation wasn’t any better there, so they headed west. Alexander was let out of the country as the primary caretaker of his father who is handicapped, but this wasn’t easy to document. He went to three or four different government offices in search of the right paper which would allow him to leave the country and prove he was not eligible for active duty. In the end, it was good luck Alexander had been born in western Ukraine — he had to find an original birth certificate in a local registry to prove he is indeed his father’s son.
The family first crossed into Moldova, where that country’s “integration ministry” was offering seats on various evacuation flights out of Moldova to other countries. I was really surprised to hear this as I have yet to speak with a single refugee from Ukraine who left via airplane. Alexander explained his family was offered seats on one of the four planes heading to Austria. The flight landed in Vienna, and the Ukrainians were handed cards of various colors indicating how they should be processed onwards. Alexander’s family was handed a green card for “big family”, and was driven from the runway, after a brief rest in a hanger, by bus to Graz. In Graz they were housed in a temporary shelter for five days before being transferred to Kapfenberg. It was actually former factory housing near Kapfenberg. 14 separate apartments each with their own kitchens and bathrooms, all of which are now occupied by Ukrainian families. An NGO placed them there, but the real help came from local volunteers who brought used furniture, appliances, everything the families needed to make themselves comfortable.
The children of the family started attending school in April. They are pulled out of normal classes for several hours a day to receive extra German instruction. The adults signed up for German courses via ÖIF. Transport is now a big issue now that it costs money, and most of the language classes expect their students to pay for tickets on their own up front, and then ask for reimbursement. No one seems to ask themselves how an adult trying to survive on €190 per month should pre-fund a monthly ticket purchase. In Steiermark, each family member now receives €190 per month (earlier this was €150), so one adult plus one child still receive less than in Vienna (where it would be €260 plus €145).
Alexander says some Ukrainians are already working at the local factory. He missed out during the summer when he didn’t apply to the last remaining vacancies in time. He says many different nationalities work in the factory: Chechens, Syrians, Spaniards, just not Austrians. The salary is “not bad”, about €1,600 after taxes. Alexander’s background is in IT and economics, but he is not able to work from home as he previous job required being in an office and performing document validation / identification.
The nearest shops are 5 kilometres from the apartments. There is a bus stop out front, but on the weekends the bus runs only once every three hours. For example, on Saturdays, you can line up for a bag of free groceries (Alexander estimates retail value around €30) from the Red Cross in a neighbouring town, but this means leaving at 4pm by bus to be there by 7pm and you don’t make it home until 9pm. A five hour trip for a bag of donated food.
Alexander managed to bring his electric car over from Ukraine. He charges it in a local supermarket parking lot. He bought insurance for the year via a Ukrainian company. He hopes they don’t make him change his license plates yet (additional cost) and the dogs also won’t have to be registered yet (additional cost). There are all sorts of rumours flying about what might change in 2023.
He says the family kept planning a date when they would return home and then kept postponing it. From spring, to summer, to fall, the deadline kept shifting. Each time they thought to go home, a rocket landed near their home in Kyiv. The children really want to go home, but the adults are aware it is safer now to stay in Austria, without air raid sirens, without the daily struggles to access electricity.
Alexander’s nephew got a spot playing for a local football club. Volunteers helped him try out, and he was the only player selected (two Austrians didn’t get picked). He was promised a salary of €520 per month, but that hasn’t materialised yet. There are problems with the health insurance as the NGO cut off his coverage as soon as it heard he was playing on the team and now it has to be reinstated. I tell Alexander I hear this often: as soon as one family member gets a job the rest of the family is left without insurance and usually they don’t discover this until they go to a doctor and some administrator tells them their e-card doesn’t work.
The football star nephew is grateful for the opportunity to train and keep in shape, something he would not have had in Ukraine, but he has also struggled with not having been paid yet. No one believed him when he said he receives only €40 per month pocket money. Locals and other immigrants are familiar with the line I hear so often (daily!) from Ukrainians: “but the Syrians/Chechens get €800 per month, each!”. Many cannot imagine Ukrainians only receive Grundversorgung, not Mindestsicherung. So the footballer waits for his contract. He was promised back-pay to July. Now it sounds like they only want to pay him going forward. His uncle says at least he got to keep training, he should be grateful for that, have to just let go that he played for them for free for four months…at least he got to play internationally, experience soccer beyond Ukraine.
Alexander raves about the help the family received from local Austrian volunteers. Locals have gone out of there way to offer help where they can. The attitude from NGOs is different. Help seems to be highly dependent on the human factor. Whether or not an administrator thinks you really need a translator to go to the doctor (or not), if you are really sick (or not).
The children are attending local schools and then coming home in the afternoons and doing Ukrainian school online until evening so as not to fall behind in that curriculum. I ask Alexander if the kids get tired, it sounds like a lot of work? They are used to it, he explains. In Ukraine they had school and after school activities and always had full days until 9pm or later. With the covid pandemic, everything moved online, and school did too. Some of the teachers are themselves refugees teaching online from wherever they not are in Europe. Alexander explains to me how adaptable Ukrainians are — that many Europeans are surprised when a Ukrainian explains they may have worked in five professions in a short period of time. “We are universal workers,” he explains.
Alexander starts talking about the food help, again. There is another program that hands out food leftovers (expired?) from supermarkets in Kapfenberg on Tuesdays at 3pm and Fridays at 9am. For the Friday 9am delivery, people start lining up at 3am. For the Tuesday 3pm delivery, people wait from 5-6am for hours. Alexander estimates about 40 people show up each time, but one family might walk away with 4-5 bags of food, worth an estimated over €100, so this attracts people willing to wait. He says the Chechens know this and have been even sleeping, camping out on the spot overnight. There is a social market in Leoben, but it only lets people shop there who have a local residence permit. The social market in Graz lets everyone in, but without free public transportation, it isn’t possible to reach the store at an affordable price.
How do you feed the dogs, I ask? “The dogs eat my allowance,” Alexander laughs. €160 per month just to feed them, as they are purebred Golden Retrievers and one has a chicken allergy, and they need to eat a special diet. Alexander removes the ticks himself from their legs after walks in the nearby forest. He knows how expensive the vet can be here — one pill set him back €41 once. He know buys medicine for the dogs in Ukraine and sends it here. The dogs are discovering all kinds of creatures in the nearby forest: mice, snakes, one day even a mountain goat came down to say hello.
A former German instructor came over to visit this weekend. Alexander spent three hours trying to speak German. He really enjoyed it. He explains how many Ukrainians have a fear of talking because you don’t get much actual speaking practice while sitting in German language courses.
He is grateful for the life his family has been given here in Austria. He knows they have had a soft landing compared to many. He knows life is more comfortable here now than it would be in Ukraine right now. Despite the bumps along the way (these appear to be mostly with the local NGO technically in charge but not wanting to do much proactively), these seem to be overshadowed by the generosity of local volunteers who have taken a real interest in helping the new Ukrainians in town. Alexander expresses his gratitude over and over. He sees situations where things are unfair — a local NGO trying to pay Ukrainians €5 per hour for tasks like transition, but also sees other volunteers trying to make things right — offering odd jobs at €10 per hour paid through various gift cards.
Alexander says they will definitely stay for winter. Maybe by spring they can think about going home. Maybe. He sends me a half dozen of the most adorable dog photos you have ever seen. I thank him for his time.