Oleg & Nastia
The seventh in a series of twelve days of Christmas. Personal stories by Ukrainians now in Austria. In their own words.
Oleg is Ukrainian. Nastia is Russian. They are husband and wife. They are both in Austria now. Asking for political asylum. They cannot live in either of their home countries together anymore. In Russia, Nastia was set up by the police on planted drug charges after she supported opposition politicians like Navalny. In Ukraine, the country banned entry for Russian citizens. Oleg and Nastia’s story reads like a thriller, except, it is real life, and the outcome is anything but clear.
Last fall, the couple were living together in Kharkiv. In November, they decided to visit Nastia’s mother in St Petersburg for a few weeks. While Oleg and Nastia were out walking the dog, police surrounded them and presented what turned out to be a fabricated search warrant. Ordinary police entered the apartment first, and then the investigators. There was no video. The investigators immediately produced a white little bag they claimed to have found upon entering the apartment. The couple were put in handcuffs, taken to the local police station where they were separated. Oleg was thrown in a cell with drug addicts, he recalls. Nastia said to them, I will sign anything, just let my husband go. Nastia’s mother began looking for the couple. She called her lawyer…the police said they cannot help, but the lawyer managed to located which police station Oleg and Nastia were being held at.
Nastia was sent to an “investigation isolation unit”. There was some kind of hearing. She was sentenced to house arrest with a bracelet on her leg. The war in Ukraine began on February 24. There was supposed to be a big court trial in summer 2022. Oleg stayed in Russia to be with Nastia. For two hours a day she was allowed to leave her apartment while under house arrest. Oleg’s family was telling him horrors from Kharkiv after the war began — they could see from the windows of their Saltovka neighbourhood jeeps with “Z” painted on the sides. They left for another part of Kharkiv.
Oleg and Nastia began to devise a plan how they could run away from Russia. When I heard this, I must admit, I said to Oleg — you know it is almost incomprehensible, to think about running away from a giant country like Russia with its impassable borders and while with an electronic bracelet on your leg and a criminal record! Oleg explains: the authorities made mistakes which made such a move easier for Nastia and Oleg to contemplate.
When Nastia was put under house arrest, the Russian police, per their own protocols, should have taken away her international passport. But when they asked her for her passport, she told them the truth “I handed it over to have my maiden name changed to my married name,” and the local police dropped the ball. So Nastia simply went back to the passport office and asked for her old passport back. They handed it over.
Oleg and Nastia began devising an escape plan. They would first head to Belarus which has few border checks with Russia, and from there would try to cross into Latvia. Nastia was allowed out of her apartment between 4pm and 6pm each day. The police thought she went to talk with her therapist. The couple found train tickets for a train to Minsk that left St Petersburg in the evening. They each bought tickets using their own passports — Oleg with his Ukrainian passport, and Nastia in her maiden name. The train was Belarusian. The conductor told them: if you have a Ukrainian passport, you have to be prepared that after February 24 they are often kicking Ukrainians off the trains. I cannot tell you what will happen, but it is more often an occurrance now than not. At the last minute, Oleg and Nastia decided to get off the train. They went back to the apartment in St Petersburg and came up with an new plan.
Oleg would buy an airplane ticket from St Petersburg to Minsk. Nastia would take the train, and they would meet in Minsk. It was 12 March. Nastia threw away her SIM card before she boarded the train so she could not be tracked. She cut off the metal bracelet off her leg. Oleg tells me they still have it as a “souvenir”. Nastia’s mom was aware of the plan. The couple told her ahead of time. The police showed up to question her, a few days later. They said, “We think they ran away to Ukraine. When we take Kyiv, we will find her and bring her back.” This was March 15.
Oleg managed to fly out, answering FSB questions on the border, but this was normal as he was travelling on a Ukrainian passport. Clearly, I said to him, the various Russian authority databases do not talk to each other so well — the airport police were evidently not able to establish this Ukrainian was married to a Russian who was under house arrest.
The couple met in Minsk, and immediately found a Belarusian driver online who could take them to the Latvian border. Except the border was a “car” border, you couldn’t walk across. So they had to stop cars and ask who would agree to drive them. Oleg knew they didn’t have much time. Although Russia and Belarus are close allies, their interior ministries do not share databases, and Belarus did not know of Nadia’s police record. One Latvian driver told them openly “I’m not going to help drive any Ukrainians”. Finally, the seventh car they asked agreed to drive them. When the couple got to the Latvian border, they told their whole story, the whole truth. Nastia was issued a temporary seven day visa as the wife of a Ukrainian, and they were instructed to go immediately to Riga to apply for an extension on humanitarian grounds.
Oleg and Nastia went to Riga, where they found a volunteer who helped them find a place to stay and navigate the bureaucracy. Nastia was given temporary residency for six months. The couple wanted to go to Ukraine, to help the war effort, but Oleg’s parents urged them not to come. Nastya is a trained doctor, she waned to help. Oleg is a radio engineer. They had a friend in Slovakia. She told them to go there. There was a room in a village not far from Bratislava. The couple had no money left; they had spent everything on lawyers and tickets. They travelled to Warsaw where a volunteer helped them find a bus to Bratislava. Friends in Kharkiv warned them to stay in Europe: there is no work here, don’t come. “We all thought the war would end soon,” Oleg recalls, “and we could return to Ukraine.” The couple waited in Slovakia. It was May. They were registered like Ukrainian refugees, found housing with a nice family. But they began to realise the war would not end anytime soon. They must find something.
Ukraine had just passed a new law banning Russian citizens from entering Ukraine. Oleg realised going home was no longer an option. He found a website, “Burgenland Help”. He shared his story online. There were offers to help, offers of housing with a family in Mattersburg. In June, the couple went to Austria. They were welcomed like family. They lived with the family until September, when they moved to refugee housing, a dorm shared with seven other Ukrainian families near Nickelsdorf, closer to the Hungarian border, and now have been given the opportunity to clear out an abandoned house and move in there by locals they befriended in Burgenland. The place only had a bed and heating and they must work to make it a home, they had to clean it out before moving in, but they are grateful.
An Austrian helped them find a lawyer familiar with the asylum process in Austria. The couple were allowed to apply for social payments as Ukrainian refugees, but were not issued blue cards, as they were not living in Ukraine on February 24 (they were in Russia). (That is a technicality in the way the EU protection status is offered — I have heard this from several people who were outside of Ukraine on February 24 and now have legal status problems).
At the end of August, a letter arrived by post. Russia has put out an Interpol notice looking for Nastia, asking for extradition. That was very scary, Oleg recalls. Nastia would be in real danger if returned to Russia where she was framed for a crime she did not commit due to her political activities, and the couple cannot go to Ukraine, as Nastia would not be let in.
Next week, on December 13, the couple will have their “interview” with a court in Burgenland to present their asylum case. The lawyer told them they should have good chances. As Oleg explains, “Nastia cannot even go get a passport in her married name. If she shows up at the Russian embassy, they would arrest her on the spot.” Oleg says locals have written letters in support of the couple. He hopes there may be some kind of humanitarian visa. Perhaps journalists might be interested in their story. I explain I am not a journalist, I just share stories online. I never know ahead of time who will read them and what the response might be.
Oleg is 28. Nastia is 32. They met online in 2019. She came to visit him in Kharkiv. She fell in love with Ukraine. She even started learning Ukrainian. For a while, Oleg lived with Nastia in St Petersburg. They both worked for a dental clinic. He as an account manager, she in administration. Nastia had supported the political opposition in Russia. This made her a target. The couple then lived together in Kharkiv, where Oleg had inherited an apartment. It was only supposed to be a two week visit, last November, to see Nastia’s mom in St Petersburg.
I ask Oleg if Austrians believe their story when they hear it. I explain — I believe every word. I lived in Russia for many years. I saw how the police operate firsthand. I remember what it was like when they would pull over your car and ask to open the trunk and you have to be careful you watch their every movement that they don’t frame you for something. But Austrians, I said, they may not know how Russia really works on the inside. Oleg explains calmly, “there are two charges the Russian police use on a regular basis to frame political opponents: drugs and terrorism. Those two statutes are the easiest for them to use to fabricate charges.”
Oleg says he thinks the Austrian court believes Nastia’s version of events. The Austrian justice ministry even apparently asked Russia, do you still want Nastia, and gave them one month to answer. They did. “Yes, we still want her, she is a dangerous criminal.”
“I know it sounds like a thriller,” Oleg adds. Indeed. Except here the ending is not clear. I want to share positive vibes, I promise to share the couple’s story of their incredible escape and journey which brought them to Austria, where kind people have helped them along the way. To shed light on why they cannot return to Russia nor Ukraine. And I refrain from sharing excessive personal thoughts on Austria’s asylum system. I offer a few useful contacts who have been advising vulnerable people for decades. Good people I have met along the way this year. I suggest Oleg use the media if the couple are asked to do interviews. Public opinion can help, I think to myself, remembering the case of the teenager Tina who was to be sent back to Georgia despite attending a Vienna gymnasium and being fully integrated into Austrian society.
Oleg and Nastia are keen to work but have not been able to do anything legally yet other than odd jobs here and there because of their uncertain legal status. Without blue cards, they cannot begin the integration process other Ukrainian refugees undergo. It is somehow a miracle they were able to receive some state financial support. I attribute that to Burgenland which in my anecdotal experience has been more humane than some other regions of Austria when it comes to treatment of refugees.
I wish Oleg all the best, and thank him for sharing their harrowing journey, which is by no means over. Fingers crossed, which sounds somehow wholly insufficient.