Marina & Inna
The ninth in a series of twelve days of Christmas. Personal stories by Ukrainians now in Austria. In their own words.
Marina sent me a text on December 6. She included with it a photo of herself sitting in a nightgown in a wheelchair in a hotel room. She wrote she arrived in Vienna with her mother and sister this fall. They have not received any aid other than the so-called “pocket money” (€40 per month, per person), and asked me for a Hofer card. I replied to Marina, yes, I will find your family a card, would you also like to give me an interview?
Marina (42) came with her sister Inna (39). They both look much younger. They are petite, pale, both with short hair, expressive faces, and agree to order coffees only after I insist. Twice. I began to ask questions. They began to share their journey.
Marina and Inna are from Chuhuiv, Kharkiv Oblast, less than 40 kilometres from Kharkiv. I link to the Wikipedia page immediately, because their hometown (population 40,000) has a colourful history and its role as a military town impacted what happened to them during the war and also their willingness to talk about what they saw. There is some part of their story both sisters did not want to share with me. They made eye contact, and agreed not to talk “about that”. I don’t push the issue.
Marina says matter of factly, “our town was under occupation.” Marina was not surprised when the war started; she had been following the news very closely online. She knew the military significance of her hometown. Being in a wheelchair is difficult in peacetime, but during war, it is even worse, Inna explains. No one wanted to help the two sisters evacuate. Even when the Ukrainian army made a corridor so civilians could evacuate, Marina and Inna didn’t have a ride. Cousins had offered to help them, but when the sisters called, they had already left, without them. This was April.
The Russians occupied the area after the war broke out on February 24, and there was heavy fighting. Marina explains communication was cut off. She describes a situation in which the Russians surrounded the city but the Ukrainian army didn’t let them in. Marina and Inna’s parents were in a village in the region, and it was occupied by the Russians. Yes, the soldiers stole what they could. Marina and Inna describe life in occupied Chuhuiv like inside “no man’s land”. Every day, they waited for the Russians to come. At the end of March, the Ukrainians came. Marina and Inna went to their parents in the village. Volunteers were helping local residents go to Uzhgorod (Ukrainian city on the western border with Slovakia), but they only helped Marina and Inna get to Poltava. From Poltava, the sisters paid 10,000 Hryvnia (around €250 — a huge amount of money by Ukrainian standards) to get to Uzhgorod. Evacuating war-torn Ukraine was not free, not even for handicapped civilians.
Marina, Inna, and their mother arrived in Slovakia in April. They were exhausted. They didn’t know anyone in the EU. They ended up in a small, former mining town near Bratislava. They were assigned an “apartment” that was actually a cellar. The social worker who made the assignment mentioned it was her property. It wasn’t a home; it was a storage space, Marina explains. Next door was a “night club”: a brothel. The Slovakian government compensated the landlord (in this case, the social worker) a whopping €720 per month for housing the three women from Ukraine in her cellar. The three women never saw the social worker again, but her husband regularly came around and tried to demand an extra €270 towards rent/utilities/not clear what for. Inna got a job working in the kitchen of a pensioners’ home. It paid €200 per month. That was the official salary. For the last month, they didn’t pay her.
Marina and Inna are clearly traumatised by their experience in Slovakia. They describe pro-Russian social workers. I ask if they met any nice people along the way, any private citizens who helped them? No, they say immediately. There were a lot of drunks in the town. The only money they ever received in Slovakia, aside from what Inna earned, was a €80 one-time payment for Ukrainian refugees by the UN. The family of three decided they needed to leave Slovakia. They took a train this fall to Linz. They had read somewhere online that they could ask for help in Linz. But when they arrived, the Red Cross in Linz told them there are no facilities for wheelchairs in Upper Austria (yes, I asked twice, this is really what the ladies say they were told), and they were told to take a train back to Vienna. In Vienna, the family was assigned the BBU federal dorm, the big gray former office building I described here yesterday.
“How was the Vienna dorm?,” I ask, already of course knowing the answer, but wanting to give Inna and Marina the chance to describe it in their own words.
“Austria was not any better.”
Oh.
Inna gets right to the point. She describes an atmosphere in which she felt Ukrainians were discriminated against compared to refugees from other nationalities. This is a sentiment I heard before from other residents of this dorm. There were many nationalities housed there, this caused tensions, and some Ukrainians felt as if staff on site favoured Arab-speakers when resolving conflicts. “They always take the side of the other nationalities,” Inna says, matter of factly.
Really, always? I push.
Yesterday, Marina and Inna applied for Canadian visas. In line, they met Ukrainians applying who had travelled from Prague and Poland. “We Ukrainians are treated like trash in the EU” some of them said to the sisters. Apparently, the entire line discussed this feeling of discrimination. Maybe they just meant Europe is growing tired of the refugee situation, I ask? No, Inna says, not tired — it’s a mood against us. “In Berlin, 85% of Ukrainians found their own housing. Europe is not loyal to the Ukrainian people. In Slovakia, no one helped us.” Inna says firmly.
Marina explains. She had been bed-ridden for two years at home in Ukraine. When it came time to evacuate, they borrowed an old Soviet wheelchair from a neighbour. It was not in good condition but it was something. By the time they reached Slovakia, the wheelchair needed a new wheel. For one month the family asked the Red Cross for help. Everyone turned them down. Same local Caritas Slovakia. Finally, the family paid out of pocket to have the wheel fixed and Marina thinks they were tricked into overpaying for the repairs. “Where did you get that wheelchair?” I ask, pointing to what looks like a fairly standard product here. “In Austria, they gave it to me in the dorm.” No questions asked? No questions asked. For free.
Canada, I say, that would be very different, maybe a smart move? The sisters are afraid. They feel like they have experienced negative attitudes towards handicapped people in Europe. Inna explains she knows life in Canada is very expensive and how would she be able to provide financially as the sole breadwinner for a family of three? I ask if Marina might be able to work from home. Inna looks at me and says, “I’m not sure we have the qualifications for that. From what I have read, Canada needs male workers.”
I gently ask Marina when she became wheelchair-bound. She explains. About four or five years ago, she was diagnosed with an incurable disease. It sounds like doctors don’t explain much, and she is passed from specialist to specialist. Marina can stand on her legs, but she cannot walk. She saw an orthopaedic doctor here, but it was a five minute appointment after waiting an hour. The doctor clearly didn’t want to deal with Ukrainian refugees. Neurologists often don’t want to see her because they argue it isn’t their area of expertise as Marina can feel her legs. Their next neurologist appointment is on January 5; before that they were sent away because they came without a translator. Inna speaks English, but that wasn’t enough for this doctor.
In Slovakia, the family was not entitled to any healthcare. They were told they could only go to the emergency room if need be.
Marina’s case is rare, and she feels like doctors pass her around like a hot potato.
Marina wants people to understand how hard it is to be handicapped. No state wants to take responsibility to help you. She has no computer. They need so much money for medicine, for supplements she must take to maintain a normal digestive process. For three years she has not been able to stand up. When Inna worked in Slovakia, most of the €200 she earned went towards buying supplements. Inna adds, “No one can imagine how hard it is for handicapped people, and then war, and then we are young women, with no husbands to help.” Both sisters describe a feeling of being excluded from society.
“The bombs were flying and we could not go to the bomb shelter. You are stuck. Kharkiv oblast was cut off. We were only 30 kilometres from the Russian border. They fired on our city every day. 365 degrees, from all directions. When the attacks came, Inna would stand in the hallway, I would just lie there waiting,” Marina recalled.
The sisters again describe a feeling like the people of Slovakia and Austria want Ukrainians to pack up and go home. Inna feels like they are really defenceless, a family of three women with a handicapped adult. She thinks things would be different if there was a father or husband. “It is very hard for a young woman in her prime to have her mobility taken from her”, Inna explains, looking at Marina. The sisters often speak in one voice.
“At the beginning, we were so excited to go to Europe…” I ask about their current living conditions, in a former hotel in downtown Vienna. “There is nothing to eat,” they say, bluntly. Breakfast and dinner are bread and spreads. There is hot food at lunch, but as Inna has an ulcer (longtime condition), she cannot eat a lot of what is served. They would need to feed themselves, but this isn’t an option. There is no fruit, no yogurt, no dairy products. A lot of macaroni and bread. Not enough vegetables. No mini-fridge in the room.
Inna gets quite sentimental, “Marina was lying in bed for two years. I was caring for her, buying things like diapers, doing everything for her. It was never a question for me. She is my sister. But to live like that as a young woman…I want her to have the chance to walk again...”
The family heard about some Canadian doctors who were doing some volunteer work in Lviv. They wrote to them, asking if they might be able to help Marina. They never got an answer.
When Marina sent me the photo she asked me to use above (she did not want me to publish the photo of her in her wheelchair she originally sent to me), she sent me this message:
Добрий вечер. Нам тоже было очень приятно поговорить с вами. Мы просто хотели, на нашем примере сказать, что немобильные инвалиды и те, кто остается с ними рядом в современной реальности есть выброшенными на "обочину жизни". Сейчас в Украине, к сожалению, будет много таких людей. Поэтому мы хотели бы, чтобы такие люди не были лишены сочувствия и соучаствия и от частных, и от государственных лиц. Мы хотели бы, чтобы в маломобильных инвалидах выделили прежде всего людей, а не проблемы. Свое фото до войны я вам отправляю.
Good evening. It was also really nice to talk with you. We simply would like to say, using ourselves as example, that immobile handicapped people and those who help them are abandoned in today’s reality to the “roadside of life”. Now in Ukraine, unfortunately, there will be many such people. Therefore, we would like for such people not to be stripped of empathy and sympathy both from private individuals and state actors. We would like that those with limited mobility would be seen first and foremost as people, not as problems. I am sending you my photo from before the war.
A lot to unpack here, I think.
I wonder how much of the prejudice is against Ukrainians and how much is against people with disabilities?
I may be deluded, but I think attitudes would be a little better in the UK, although that's perhaps largely because so much of our xenophobia is directed against Muslims from Africa and the Midde East. So many people to hate and so little time to do it in....
Of course, not so many Ukrainians have been admitted to the UK, so again they're not considered so much of a problem.
So sad to read of such prejudice and exploitation of vulnerable people. And to consider that the help being marshalled from your kitchen is not much less than the UN has managed, at least for Marina and Inna.
My Christmas wish for them would be that they get their wish to be treated with dignity and respect. Here's hoping.