Oksana & family
The tenth in a series of twelve days of Christmas. Personal stories by Ukrainians now in Austria. In their own words.
Oksana offers to meet me in Vienna at a coffee shop in a train station and share her family’s story. She is now living in Pressbaum with her mother, twin teenage daughters, sister, and niece. Six women. They stuck together, left Ukraine together, journeyed into the unknown together, and are now building new lives in Austria together. Before we met, Oksana sent me her own prose. Recollections from her past. Jumping from past events into the present, touching on dreams for the future. Oksana grew up in Mariupol. Lived after marriage and kids in Kyiv, and later in Dnipro. But Mariupol will always be symbolic with home. She writes very poetically. I ask if I should translate, include it here? It’s probably too long, Oksana says. She would maybe one day like to write a memoir.
Oksana begins her story with the story of Mariupol. Over the years, she watched her hometown blossom into a big, nice looking European city. They even fixed the roads! Of course it was not so big like Kyiv or Dnipro, but with a population of 750,000, Mariupol offered something for everyone. There were year-round sports for the kids, the sea. There was a joke that in Mariupol you don’t do out for a walk without grabbing your bathing suit first — every way leads to the sea. There was a time years ago when young people felt they had to leave for other big cities, but that too changed. They began to stay. There was a large Greek diaspora. International delegations visited. Mariupol was an industrial city, too. Nature and industry were in conflict at times, but there was a feeling things were improving. When the war first broke out, in 2014, Oksana recalls seeing tanks on the streets of Mariupol. It was events like this which prompted her to move to Dnipro with her daughters.
Oksana is raising her twin daughters alone. The girls are now almost 17. It’s their birthday next week. They were born in Kyiv, and had health problems as infants. Oksana threw herself into their medical care. Her marriage didn’t survive that. In 2014, she moved with the girls to Dnipro. Oksana worked as a school teacher of English for younger children. In 2017, she returned to Mariupol for the summer with her girls, to enjoy the sun and the sea. On a visit back to Mariupol in 2021, one of her daughters stood on granny’s balcony and pointed to a bright, new shiny technological university, built by one of Ukraine’s oligarchs, and said “that’s where I want to study.” The future looked bright. At the end of that summer, Oksana convinced her mother to return to Dnipro with them. It was just an intuition.
Oksana recalls the four seasons you felt in Mariupol: beautiful, white crisp winter with the frozen Azov sea, a green spring with parks everywhere, a summer of sun, sand and even the dreaded jellyfish, and the crunchy autumn leaves, the sounds and smells of fall.
Oksana remembers a dream she had age five, after hearing so many war stories from her own grandparents. She was in her courtyard in Mariupol ,and there was a tank with its firing arm pointed at their apartment windows. This was the era of Ronald Reagan and nuclear talks. At the time, Oksana’s mom shrugged and said she probably watched too many old Soviet war movies.
Oksana describes a normal last fall and winter, but a tense February 23. Everyone had worried Russia might do something on that date. On February 24, Oksana work early at 5:30am to make breakfast for the girls. They had a long commute across Dnipro to school. Oksana had to get to work at her school. She put on the tea kettle, took some eggs out of the fridge, turned on the news. There were images of Kyiv being fired upon, but for a second Oksana wasn’t sure it if was real or something being played back from the archive. The moment reminded her of 9/11. You watch in horror.
The adrenaline hit. She woke her girls by saying “it’s war”. They stood frozen in front of the TV. Everyone called everyone. School was cancelled. Teachers were all saying they cannot come in to take care of other children, they must watch their own. Oksana was responsible for a class of 35 kids. She tried to teach online after that, but online school was never the same. For a week, they went through the motions, paralysed. The next week, a siren app was developed. Their phones would ring out every time the air raid siren was turned on. It was hard to sleep.
They called relatives in Mariupol. By March 1, they lost contact. Her ex-husband’s sister spend weeks in a cellar. The fighting raged 24/7. They could already tell the sound of an airplane, how many bombs it was carrying: two, four, they listened to them drop. Boom. Boom. The would run out in between to grab snow for drinking water. Weeks later they emerged and tried to walk the 5 meters to the garage. A small projectile had landed into the car, wedged in the bumper. The grandfather drove them to safety in that car, with the projectile sticking out of the bumper. Because it was a jeep, they could go off-road, taking the long way around. Berdyansk was still occupied. They sent Oksana horrible photos of everything “burned out”. The charred remains of their beautiful Mariupol.
The grandparents’ apartments had been robbed in Mariupol. The Russians took everything: appliances, jewellery, anything of value. Back in Dnipro, Oksana was trying to decide what to do. The girls were struggling with online school as the air raid sirens made it difficult to sleep at night. The girls said it was time to go. But where to? Various volunteers offered options, but none of them were suitable. One volunteer offered to evacuate just the girls, without Oksana, to Europe. If you tried to get on a train heading west, to Poland, it was nearly impossible. The trains were supposed to be free but the reality was only one wagon was opened on the platform in Dnipro and the flood of people was like Titanic. The other spaces were all sold for bribes.
Oksana was once named “mother of the year” in Ukraine and had some journalist connections in Kyiv from that award. She kept asking around, saying she needed six spots out of Dnipro. Finally, a third phone call, a mini-bus, just for them, six spots, another family just cancelled. It would drive them to Chernivtsi. Oksana said yes. A friend drove them all across the city at 7am to get to their ride. Six women, three generations, left together. The driver was amazing and in sixteen hours managed to take them all the way across Ukraine from Dnipro to Chernivtsi. He knew all the shortcuts and back roads. This was March 12. By then, it was clear to Oksana, there was no more Mariupol.
At midnight, the driver dropped them near the Romanian border. You had to walk across. On the other side, they were met by volunteers who gave them hot food and drink, clothing, a place to sleep. They were taken to a refugee camp in Romania which was very well organised. There were hot showers and comfortable mattresses and everything one could need, even psychological counselling. On March 15, a bus took them to Sibiu. There, they were housed in a university dorm. They could eat in a cafeteria twice a day, and breakfast was brought to them, generous plates of ham, cheese, fresh fruit — it was like a hotel! They even took photos. A few days later, a volunteer arrived, asked who would like to go to Austria? There is a driver, but no housing. It’s just a free ride. None of the other Ukrainians took up the offer. After all, they were in comfortable conditions in Romania. But Oksana’s girls had studied German in school since 7th grade. She said yes, thinking of her girls.
A Romanian driver took the family of six in his van all the way from Sibiu to Vienna’s central train station. They arrived in Vienna on March 17. The driver ran inside, talked to someone, and then came back out again, explaining he knew where the family could stay and would drive them there. The driver only spoke Romanian and German. He was very kind. He bought the kids chocolates and water with his own money. When he emerged from the train station, he explained he would drive them to Pressbaum, where there wa an apartment for them. Oksana and family agreed.
I listened to this all, thinking this just doesn’t happen, how did they get so lucky? To this day, it’s a bit of a mystery.
In Pressbaum, an Austrian family was waiting for them, and showed them a three-room property they could stay at. It was fully furnished and even the bathroom was stocked with everything they might possibly need. After a few days, the husband took them to register, open a bank account, get their documents in order, give fingerprints at the police station in St Pölten. The Austrian hosts told them they could plant vegetables in their garden if they like. They helped sign up the girls for school. A private gymnasium. Free of charge. They joined 10th grade in spring, and were suggested to repeat 10th grade from this fall. The girls are managing, but school is not their only activity.
In addition to a full school day, Oksana and her girls attend extra German classes in Vienna in the evenings three nights a week. On the other two nights, the twins are already volunteering at the TU (Technical University) in Wien as IT assistants. They hope to study there one day. They have befriended a professor who gives some useful advice. And the girls are still doing online Ukraine school, as they will graduate this May. And graduation in Ukraine might be a faster way into university than Matura — if they are accepted then to a Ukrainian university, a transfer to TU Wien may be possible much earlier than waiting to graduate from gymnasium in Austria.
I listen to all of this in awe of the family’s collective work ethnic, determination, and ability to plan ahead.
Ok, I ask Oksana, but how do you live on the money Austria pays out? Lower Austria never increased the payments unlike many other regions of Austria. It still pays €215 per adult per month, and €100 per child. The nearly 17 year old twins count as children (tell that to anyone who has ever fed and clothed a teenager!). It is not easy, she admits, they receive just over €1000 each month. They do not have to pay for utilities, so can use their money for food and other necessities. Oksana occasionally takes on an odd job here or there babysitting or cleaning. She cannot work legally yet or they would lose all their payments, including whatever is being symbolically (it is usually around €300 per family) reimbursed by the state to their landlord for hosting Ukrainians. Her English is of course an asset. She is able to communicate for herself in most situations. “Although,” she says, “I really try to speak German now, more than English, it is important to show respect to the country you are in.”
Oksana would love to work as a teacher again, but she understands she would need B2 German for that. At the moment she is in A2. It isn’t clear how many levels of German the Austrian authorities will pay for Ukrainians. The message is often subtle, “why would you need the next level?”. Oksana suspects the ÖIF business model was a different one in the past, namely, to collect fines of new immigrants who did not want to attend courses. She thinks the authorities are surprised so many Ukrainians want to learn German, and ask for higher levels of courses. Apparently they only want to pay until B1, not C1. I sit there fascinated by how much information Oksana has gathered in so little time. And a teacher’s desire to be a lifelong learner. Respect.
Oksana summarizes, like the strategic thinker she is, “let me explain the plusses and minuses”. She is very grateful to Austria and the Austrians they have met and been helped by along the way. She has been able to communicate with nearly everyone in English. She is so grateful for the opportunity to live here, in peace. They have enough to eat. She hopes to work professionally again one day.
On the downside — Oksana talks about when free groceries are handed out by the local Red Cross once per week, on Saturday evenings. She describes a sentiment I have heard from other Ukrainians in my Telegram group. They feel like the program in Lower Austria — across many different towns — discriminates against Ukrainians: first Austrians are served, then refugees of other nationalities who have been here longer, then the Ukrainians. Last. Oksana laughs and describes old Austrian grannies driving in cars (for which they buy gas!) and smoking cigarettes (€6 a pack!) while picking up the free food. She knows Syrians with approved asylum receive €800 per month per adult from the state, not €215. She says most staff try to do this delicately, they try not to let everyone see that that bags have different contents inside. But sometimes it is done openly as well.
One time, Oksana says, an Austrian lady drove up to the distribution point, and instead of handing food to the Red Cross, she gave it to the Ukrainians directly. She opened her trunk and personally handed out what Oksana describes as €1000 of food. It was amazing.
There is a group home for refugees in Pressbaum. It is not full. It was mostly mothers with young kids. Some went back to Ukraine. Oksana doesn’t know why they don’t send more families there. She loves Pressbaum. She hopes they will be able to stay. She hasn’t asked their landlord “how long?”. The Austrians invited them to celebrate New Year’s together. She is looking forward. The girls turn 17 next week. They have made friends in school. Taken trips into Vienna together, gone to Prater.
I thank Oksana for her time and candour. I am blown away by how much they have achieved in so little time and how she holds a family of six together, taking on full responsibility for everyone while not sounding remotely resentful not of the circumstances nor the responsibility that has been placed on her reliable shoulders. Her story is yet another example of the power of positive thinking. Good luck and good things seem to happen to the same families over and over, while others have strings of bad luck. I find this fascinating and I don’t know how to explain it other than the energy people give off. Their willingness to work within a given set of circumstances to try and make life better.