Long summer
Long is a word we hear and use a lot recently. Long war. Long wait. Long time. Longing. What we all need more of is in short supply: patience. Myself included.
It’s a Sunday summer evening in Vienna and I am sitting in a Starbucks trying to write this, thinking it would be a good use of my time while I wait to drive a kid from A to B. Except it is so loud, and so busy, I can barely hear myself think. In fact, I cannot hear anything. I find myself running out of patience this week. Instead of being grateful (rather — I am grateful, but that emotion isn’t first and foremost as it should be) that I still have supermarket gift cards to distribute (huge thanks to a handful of regular donors who have kept us going for longer than anyone could have ever imagined!), I find myself getting frustrated with little things. And then you say to yourself, that’s ok, that’s normal, you have been doing this for a year and a half now. A year and a half. It’s unfathomable and maddening all at the same time. I spoke with a friend from Russia yesterday and we both agreed we cannot understand why no one manages to kill the one person whose death might actually lead to a lasting peace. We both agreed someone, some organizations, some countries — someone needs this war to keep going. And then I started listening to a frightening podcast which touched on the distinct possibility of a war between China and the U.S. and I nearly lost it.
The nail salon called and I had to come translate. So instead of writing this I spent the next few hours engaged in conversation with a lovely nail artist from Mykolaiv. We both have 15 year old daughters. Mine had saved up her babysitting money for a Ukrainian manicure (if you know, you know).
So now it is late Sunday evening and I am at home, facing a long list of topics I wanted to address but will probably run out of steam. So I’ll start by highlighting what I have been reading and thinking about, again in no particular order.
(reader — it is now Monday afternoon and I am genuinely sorry!)
Russia passed new draft laws this past week, yet another of many indications Russia under Putin is digging in for a long war. Once e-draft notices have been issued, those men will supposedly be banned immediately from leaving the country. The draft age was raised from 27 to 30. All taking effect January 1, 2024. More detail here.
In the context of recent reports that Russia’s economy is actually doing just fine, all indictors which I have consumed (not having been to Russia since the war began), both independent media and social media, seem to indicate the war is here to stay and the Russian public and the economy have accepted it as a new fact of life.
Putin has made himself synonymous with war, a war he cannot win definitively, but with ample resources and a draft-able male population, and zero desire to place economic metrics first and foremost (an illusion of personal power and delusions of grandeur ‘what will the history books say’ drive his ‘strategic’ decision making), he surely can drag it out for quite some time. Perpetual war is better, from Putin’s perspective, than a peace he cannot sell as a win. I said it when the war first started and I still stick to it — this all only ends when he is gone. Like gone gone. How long that will take is anyone’s guess. An elderly Ukrainian man, a German teacher in fact, said today when asked by a journalist how much longer the war will go on for, “10 years”. We all sort of gasped in horror, and he said it just like that, matter of fact.
“Russia is preparing for a long war” by Alexandra Prokopenko for The Bell.
“Putin is looking for a bigger war, not an off ramp, in Ukraine” by Alexander Gabuev in the FT.
I cannot and will not pretend I can read the Kremlin tea leaves, but I think it is a mistake to focus on Prigozhin vs. Ministry of Defence alone. I think you have to look at the overall economic picture, how people living within Russia feel. The first real panic I ever read in the Moscow mommy groups was this weekend, when a drone hit Moscow City, and many of the Moscow moms heard the explosions from their homes. But then what? Well, they went back to sleep. There is no revolution planning itself in Russia anytime soon. At least not a people’s movement. What will happen between the various forces with access to weapons who compete for resources? Here I would recommend the insights of Tatiana Stanovaya, although I do not agree with her conclusions in this particular case. Prigozhin’s failed mutiny of sorts was a turning point, but I don’t think it truly unseated Putin, and as some wise observers pointed out “revenge is a dish best served cold”, meaning, the chef is still walking and talking for as long as he is useful, but Putin has not forgotten nor forgiven what went down.
For another harsh Russian reality check, check out this video by the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg.
Turning to Ukraine, I really recommend this thoughtful read by Shaun Walker reporting from Odesa, as well as the recent FT interview with Timothy Snyder from a Viennese restaurant. (Ignore the odd-feeling Lunch with the FT format, focus on the content.)
Removing statues and renaming streets: Odesa cuts out Russia
Lunch with the FT (gift article) Historian Tim Snyder “Our misreading of Russia is deep. Very deep.”
A Boy’s Life on the Front Lines in New York Times Magazine. If you like me lack a NYT subscription, Instagram photos here and video here, with photography and video by Lynsey Addario, who was moved to film this thinking about her own 11 year old son back home. I keep watching the video of mom heating her frying pan over the kerosene canister like it is the most ordinary thing in the world.
This summer in Austria feels strange. On the one hand, you have a lot of traffic back and forth between Austria and Ukraine. Visiting friends and family. Moving home. Just arriving. Yes, Ukrainians are still arriving, but even from people with jobs within the NGO sector responsible for refugees in Vienna, I hear mixed messages. One acquaintance says there is little to know available housing in Vienna, and new arrivals will most likely be offered something in other federal states. If housing is available in Vienna, she says, it is the kind where you are “fed” and only receive €40 per month pocket money. We should also not forget there are unfortunately severe restrictions on paid work if you take a bed/room (board) from within the Grundversorgung (social benefit) system. Another acquaintance says Ukrainians are still arriving, in particular from Odesa after the latest round of nighttime attacks. The former hostel that now acts as the “arrival center” is full (over 200 residents at present). There are waiting times to get a police appointment to register (Ukrainians must now book this online, walk-ins are no longer accepted). She tells me there is some housing in Vienna in various dorms which is becoming available, and most people are able to stay in the capital. So the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. The fact remains that there is no rhyme or reason and we cannot explain why some families get lucky, while others seem to suffer a never-ending streak of bad luck. Many are desperately still searching for private housing, which is hard to find, and hard to afford. A woman in my Telegram group fell for fraudsters this week, transferring €150 to “view” an apartment. They took the money and ran.
In short, you have to fight for yourself and your own family at every step of the way. Take, for example, these messages (thread) from Salzburg. Today I received not only a kind offer of language help (native German) from a local resident of Salzburg who has supported our Cards for Ukraine program with generous donations, but also the Ukrainian mother wrote me to say she emailed the governor of Salzburg and actually got a response (!) and has been invited next week to meet the person responsible for families with children. Now, should going to school be this difficult? Of course not. Does speaking up help? Yes, if it is done with a clear goal in mind and without personal insults. I also saw my hairdresser Lena today. After the ORF news report aired about her son not being able to go onto fifth grade, suddenly she received a call. For her son, it was sorted. Immediately. For all the other children affected? We don’t know yet.
This morning we, Vassily, my Telegram volunteer admin and I, did an interview for a German television channel, and we delivered some Hofer cards and spoke with some Ukrainian residents of a Vienna “hotel” for refugees. I will not cover what we discussed as that should air first on TV, but I would like to talk about fear.
In preparing for the interview, I asked several Ukrainians personally affected by the issues the journalist wanted to focus on if they would speak in front of a camera with a journalist from a respectable network. No. The answer was always no. It was challenging to even find refugees who would talk about their lives in Austria even when I was offering €50 grocery cards in exchange for a few words on camera about their current lived reality.
In private, many call me and text me at all hours of day and night to complain about a range of injustices — from social payments not paid out on time, to perceived bullying and racism against their kids in schools, to their kids not eating anything, to not being able to find housing, to of course the “Z” vandalism of the Ukrainian-plated cars which took place in Vienna in early July. At this point I sort of lost my patience and wrote a very simple message in my Telegram group, while understanding that I am dealing with Ukrainians from all different backgrounds, many of whom have been through trauma, are now likely battling serious depression, not to mention extremely challenging financial and emotional circumstances:
“I will say this briefly and then shut up. Tanja cannot speak for Ukrainians. She of course can, but it is like ice cream without a freezer. If you would like Ukrainian voices to be heard in Europe, you have to be prepared to speak yourselves. It ends up being that over chat conversations everyone has a strong opinion, but when media ask, there is silence. If it will remain like that, nothing will ever change, that much is certain.”
Several residents of the hotel were petrified, and I don’t use that word lightly, absolutely paranoid that should they say anything negative, they might be made homeless without warning. You hear stories from across Austria of Ukrainian refugees who dared speak up or complain about the behaviour of a social worker which they deemed incorrect, or about injustices / unfair situations, and those who spoke up were targeted and punished, personally. I heard one such story this morning (not from Vienna) about a mother who went to a local NGO office to file a complaint in writing about a particular employee on the ground in her organized accommodation. The employee remained in the job, while the mother and child were moved — to a refugee camp where they were expected to share a room with a man. The room stank. The mother cried and regretted having spoken up. No one knows what happened after that. Maybe they then left Austria, I am told.
The fact is that many of the poorest, sickest, most vulnerable residents live in fear of speaking out because lived experience has taught them that if you speak up, it might get worse.
This kind of behaviour makes my blood boil, especially as someone who has begrudgingly done media work for the past year and a half, because I think it is so important that ordinary people have a voice and share what is happening to them, and also because I believe Austrian taxpayers and voters have a right to know how their money is being spent/distributed by the state/NGOs in the name of helping vulnerable people who have fled an actual war. I cannot get out of my head the calculation of what would happen if you strip the bureaucrats their salaries, the jobs created at NGOs for the sole purpose of counting every penny from already poor people, and instead simply put a fixed amount of funding into the hands of those who know much better than we do how to stretch every Euro. I truly believe in helping those in need. I do not believe in making the state or NGOs even bigger in order to do so. But I digress.
Thanks to your generosity, and especially to a few “regular” donors who have really kept me afloat since I came back from holiday, I still have 10 x €50 Hofer e-giftcards in my pile. So I am not begging for new donations. Not yet. Just sent my son to the mailbox with these:
Thank you so much for your patience with me when a day starts with good intensions to write and ends up…well, like yesterday. In closing, I would like to recommend a book I just started and am already enthralled in:
I have been reading Christopher Miller’s reporting for years (he is now with the FT), and his prose style is full of intimate detail and yet easy and breezy to read. Really truly recommend this one. I expected something good, but so far (I am only about a third in), it is exceeding my own high expectations. I don’t know how you cover a war AND manage to write a book during the same period. Hats off, deep bow, etc.