Katerina

The fifth in a new series of interviews with Ukrainians who have now established themselves and built new lives in Austria.

Katerina overlooking the alps on a visit to Tirol

Katerina (“Katya”) and I had been exchanging text messages for a few weeks, trying to find a time that worked for both of us. You can tell when someone actually has a demanding job when they do not have time to meet you in the middle of a day on a Tuesday. So it was a Saturday at lunchtime when we finally met at a small, hipster cafe selling over-priced speciality coffee off of a busy Vienna shopping street. The weather was nice. We sat outside. Katya immediately asked me if we could use the informal ‘du’ form of ‘you’ as we spoke Russian. I am so programmed meanwhile to speak with everyone in ‘Sie’ as a sign of respect that it takes me a few minutes to adjust. At one point, she gently reminds me again.

Katya is now 44 (she looks years younger), warm and bubbly, and seems so comfortable talking about herself and sharing her story. She also has a very analytical approach. She seems to instinctively know which details are important to a writer (in this case, me), so that the story flows without me having to interject a lot of follow-up questions. By the end of our long chat, I am amazed, both by what I have heard, and by how much of ‘success’ in life truly does depend on simply not giving up and pushing forward, always believing in yourself.

Katya left Ukraine with her then four-year old son Mark on Feburary 27, 2022. She did not hestitate to make the decision. They were living in a high-rise in Kyiv and she recalls seeing the city on fire from her windows. There was then the horrible fighting around Hostomel. Katya made the decision to leave at night, fearing more roads might be blocked or damaged if they waited longer. Her ex-husband drove her and their son to the Ukrainian border. Her car had been prepared. Katya had been constantly refilling the fuel tank, making sure it was always full, and she even had an extra canister of gas in the trunk. Her original plan had to be to go to her former mother-in-law in western Ukraine on the Friday, but the war broke out on Thursday. Katya’s goal was clear: she needed to get her son out of Ukraine.

Katya had distant cousins who had emigrated some time back to Austria. They were living in Vienna in a modest apartment. She contacted them and they agreed to drive to the Hungarian-Ukrainian border and pick up Katya and Mark on the other side. Katya recalls walking across the border into Hungary and being met by a sea of volunteers. She had rushed to leave Ukraine as soon as possible because she believed the longer she waited, the more people would decide to flee, and the longer the lines would be everywhere. She was well prepared, had all her documents packed already, passports for both her and her son (many Ukrainian children at that time did not have international passports and crossed the border with only their birth certificates).

Katya arrived in Vienna so early in the war that when she walked into the local police station near her cousins and asked how she could register as a temporarily displaced Ukrainian, they told her they had no idea. Eventually, Katya joined many others lining up at 4am to get into a chaotic expo-hall in Vienna (I experienced it myself as a volunteer — horrible organization and treating refugees like cattle is what I took away from that day) in order to officially register in Austria and ask for the basic payments.

Katya had arrived in Vienna with €400 to her name. She had recently purchased a new apartment which was under construction in Kyiv, and she had poured her life savings into that purchase. She had been working in Kyiv as a freelance producer during her maternity leave, as she had 15 years of experience working in video production, project management of advertising commercials.

Katya knew she could not stay long with her cousins, who had also taken in other guests from Ukraine. Through one of the many Telegram chats Ukrainians quickly set up in Austria, Katya found someone with a summer house (little cottages on tiny garden allotments in Vienna which do not have winter heating) who said she could live there rent-free for a few months. It was March. And it was cold that year. The family would need it by May. Katya convinced another mom with her daughter to join her, and the four moved into this cottage. Volunteers brought them everything from blankets to mattresses, even stopping by after a wedding to give the Ukrainian families leftover plov.

It was at this time that Katya received a €50 Hofer card from our Cards for Ukraine program, and she remembers buying an ice cream with it for Mark, because it was the first time they could go into a store and buy a small treat without worrying about the price tag. “I will never forget that,” she says, and thanks me again. I feel awkward receiving these thanks because it was a collective effort; I was only the messenger.

By May, Katya managed to find an affordable apartment in a working-class Vienna neighborhood. She was receiving the monthly payments (very modest) from the Austrian government. After about four months, she recalls, she understood their stay in Vienna would not be over anytime soon, and she gave herself the goal of learning German. She luckily immediately found a kindergarten spot for her son, with all-day care, in a Catholic school in her neighborhood. Miraculously, it was also free of charge. Her landlord helped her to make the arrangements. Katya began taking German courses, and studying on her own at home using Duolingo.

I ask Katya if she ever entertained the possibility that the war might end soon. She says yes, of course, but she knew she could always pack a suitcase and go home. Her goal was, while she had the time, to use it to learn German so she could have a chance of working in Austria in her profession. She never even travelled back to Ukraine since leaving. Not once. Her parents are in Ukraine. They refused to leave.

Katya began intensive German courses in the summer of 2022, and by the summer of 2024, she had learned German to C1 (this is near-native level fluency, a remarkable achievment in a very short period of time!). At first, she explains, she thought she might be able to find work in an international company with just her fluent English. But after going to a few interviews, Katya began to see things from the companies’ point of view: you Ukrainians are highly educated but here on temporary visas, and it will require some investment and patience on our part to help you improve your German, and then you might just quit in six months and go home…the risk was too big. Katya understood companies hiring in Austria are looking for stable, long-term employees.

There were some video production jobs in which English would be the working language, especially if the directors of the shoot were international hires, but the internal working language would be German. Advertising, unlike IT, where many are able to work with only English, required both languages, Katya explained.

Instead of becoming depressed after hearing this feedback, Katya was grateful. She told herself she now had a unique opportunity to learn a new language for free, while she was living off of the small stipend paid out by the government. She went from zero to C1 in one and a half years. After she received her B1 certificate, Katya began her job search again, in parallel to her B2 classes. She voluntarily went to AMS (the Austrian job center), and asked for help with her search. She tells me proudly she never felt the victim of any kind of “snobbism” or anti-foreigner sentiment, and truly believes that if you are respectful and polite to people, that will be returned to you.

At this point I have to stop Katya and ask if she was always a good student, because the pace of her progress with German is really something remarkable. My kids for example have eight years of French in school and will only graduate with B2 French. Yes, she nods, I was always a good student and a fast learner. She is well-read, well-travelled, and tells me in her youth she even toured India with a backpack. “I am not a snob about where I sleep”.

So with B1, Katya began looking for an office job. She was often told with her 15 years of experience that she was “overqualified” and also that B1 was not enough German for the workplace. Over two years, AMS only sent her two or three jobs (yes, you read that correctly) to apply to (the rest she found on her own). One was a secretary for a car wash, the other were FMCG marketing positions. She was not hired. Katya looked for marketing jobs, video production, obviously, and also even interviewed for some social work positions. She recalls one interview partner from a charity being taken aback when Katya proposed using chat GPT to run social media accounts. She was nearly hired by a Catholic radio station. It seems Katya came very close to nearly getting many good positions…but for whatever reason it did not happen. By this point, she had C1 German and any rational applicant might have started to get really depressed and demotivated, but Katya did not.

“I am a calm person by nature,” she explains. “I decided I needed to change tactics.”

I am listening with all ears, eager to hear exactly how Katya cracked Vienna’s infamously difficult professional job market.

Katya signed herself and her son Mark up for a casting agency which sent its clients to work as “extras” on film and TV sets. Mark was hired for a commercial for XXXLutz (a large Austrian chain of furniture stores). Katya accompanied him on set armed with her resume. During a lunch break, she managed to sneak her way to the team from the ad agency hired by the company to produce the commercial. She began with “Übrigens…” (‘by the way’), and told the team about her experience. It just so happened that they were at that moment looking to hire another video producer.

“Within a week, I had a job offer.”

At this point my jaw has hit the cute little yellow table we are sitting at on the sidewalk.

(Katya also managed to be an extra in an upcoming show on Netflix; she tells me she was asked to stand behind the reception in a hotel scene. Being an extra isn’t particularly lucrative, but actors do receive small financial compensation for their time on set.)

Katya was hired by the number one ranked Austrian advertising agency. A local company (not sharing the name). Their clients are many of Austria’s largest companies. The work force is, as Katya describes it: diverse, well-educated, with lots of young people. The working languge is German except for when they work with foreign directors or film in other locations outside Austria.

I ask Katya how she finds working in German. She explains that she uses the paid, premium version (covered by her employer for everyone’s use) of chat gpt to write emails at work, but she has gotten much better at sitting through and understanding team meetings in German. “Of course it is hard when there are 40 people on a call and many of them are using dialect or slang”.

Recent projects of Katya’s include video productions for the 100th anniversary of Vienna Insurance Group and Darbo, a famous Austrian jam producer. She tells me she has a good salary but it is less than the company would have to pay an Austrian with similar experience.

“It is a win-win for both sides.”

She even negotiated (this part as an American always surprises me!) a 30-hour work week as a single mother, so that she can always pick up her son from his after-school care on time. They are also sometimes allowed to work from home. She warned her bosses she would need advance notice if she were to be expected to travel for work. For example, there was a recent shoot at a castle near the Czech border, but Katya could make arrangements ahead of time (Mark’s grandmother is visiting).

Katya can only recall one xenophobic incident during her time in Austria, and this was a random encounter with a Wiener Linien staff member at a job fair, who told her with her level of spoken German (at the time she was in C1 class) she could only work “washing the trams”. Katya, however, didn’t take personal offense. Instead, she realized he was operating from his limited worldview and judging her off of a few words of interaction, knowing nothing about her.

Now, Katya is focused on improving her specific vocabulary for everything related to her work in video production. She would like to apply for the RWR+ program (she on paper is an absolute poster child for why the Austrian government designed the path to permanent residency for Ukrainians working here), but there is a catch. The catch is she would need an official document of agreement from her son’s father, and he cannot get that document without going to a Ukrainian embassy, and he cannot do that because he too is now in Europe but cannot just show up at a Ukrainian embassy as a Ukrainian man for obvious reasons (they would require him to register for the military before providing consular services).

In short — we do not know yet how the paperwork will go, but Katya would like to stay in Austria. She says after about two years, Vienna already felt like home. Her son Mark is now seven and a half, and all his life which he can remember has taken place in Vienna. His father lives in another European country now and sometimes visits him. At home, mother and son speak Russian, but now she tries to speak more Ukrainian too, as Mark would have learned Ukrainian as his “school” language back home.

Katya is now totally fluent in four languages: Russian, Ukrainian, English and German.

I turn the conversation towards more personal topics, and ask if she managed to find friends or even romance here. Katya explains that she easily found friends, being a very social person. With regard to her dating life, Katya explains:

“I was not looking for something casual. I was looking for a life partner,” explains Katya, who is twice-divorced, and has raised her son alone since his birth. “I knew I wanted to find a man who was homey, perhaps worked in IT.”

With this image in her head, Katya came across an message in a Telegram group, in which a Ukrainian woman was asking if anyone would like to be introduced to her Austrian male friend who was looking to date. “He works in IT, is a bit shy, but eager to meet someone.” Katya said to herself — well, he meets the criteria I said I wanted. So she sent a message, and for six months, she built a friendship with her now-boyfriend. They would meet for coffee once a week. One week, she wanted to cancel, as she had no childcare. Not a problem, he said, let’s meet on the playground. And so they did. They chatted on a bench while Mark played.

Katya has been dating her boyfriend for over a year and a half now. They took it slowly, starting out as friends. She says he is very good with her son, whom she introduced him to early on. “I decided it was better if my son would see that I have man in my life rather than suddenly surprising him with an introduction to an ‘uncle’ who suddenly appears in our lives.” She says she feels welcomed by her boyfriend’s family. They are of similar ages. He never married and does not have kids of his own. Next month, all three are moving in togther, into a new flat they have rented not far from Mark’s school.

Katya shows me photos on her phone of her boyfriend and son together. They look so sweet and genuinely happy.

I pause and tell Katya just how amazing I find her story.

“I didn’t do anything special. I just treat people well and don’t walk around wearing a crown.”

I think for a moment about the crown reference, and to women I know of a certain age who do carry an invisible crown around and are therefore permanently disappointed when life does not offer up on a silver platter of what they think they deserve. Katya is a testament to the combination of positive attitude, grit, creativity, and hard work — if you combine all of these, things do work out eventually. And you have to be a a little bit fearless. You cannot live in fear of rejection. I note this for myself.

We end the conversation talking briefly about my prior volunteer work, and Katya mentions she volunteered for many years with Rotary Club in Ukraine, and since in Austria has helped a team which has sent ten used ambulances from Austria to Ukraine since the war began. Of course, I think, people who are impressive in one area of their lives are often impressive everywhere. How this single mom had time to volunteer in addition to learning a new language from scratch and finding a job in her field is something I cannot explain. I think it just all comes naturally to her.

Katya literally gives off positive energy. I thanked her for her time and left our meeting feel really inspired by what I had just heard. She was off to buy pillows for their new apartment. I hope I have done justice to her story here, that you can feel the light she brings to everything she sets her mind to. What an inspiration.