The business of war (Day 47)
Stories from all over Ukraine heard in Vienna, what to read / listen / watch, plus a very brief comment on Nehammer's Moscow fiasco.
Isn’t she gorgeous and uplifting? Such a strong and hopeful painting. She slid in to my WhatsApp messages yesterday afternoon from an artist I met that one time I went to translate at ACV. Marianna painted her yesterday using a canvas she found at the home where she is staying at the moment in Austria.
My morning started at 6:30 — the kids are off school this week but my volunteer shifts continue, as do the requests. A fellow volunteer was looking for a driver today to drive three generations (grandmother, mother, toddler) from one refugee housing hotel to another, more permanent refugee “dorm”, also in Vienna. Naturally, there is no car or driver available from whichever charities are operating the facilities, and naturally, the family has no money to pay for a taxi for 3 adults and 5 suitcases. I offered to send money rather than drive myself, thinking that would be the most efficient use of my time, and my car isn’t that big.
So from the parking garage at the Vienna train station I am transferring €60 electronically to a fellow volunteer I do not know personally, and she will order two Ubers, and a third volunteer, a Russian-speaking man who works nights and lives near the first hotel, will help move this family from A to B. I explain all these details because I want society to understand how ordinary people are using their time and money and brains to find solutions where the state / NGOs have failed. This Ukrainian family is moving to the dorm because only then can they receive the social payments; you cannot receive aid in Austria unless you have an address. At the moment, they have €40 to last…who knows how long. I offered to provide some money if necessary, but multiply this by the thousands and you start to see the scale of the issue.
This morning I met families from all over Ukraine. I posted this just as I finished. On busy days, there is no time for notes at all. Today was a slower day.
I met a mother about my age with her teenage daughter and a very cute mini Dachshund. They needed help getting tickets to Italy, where an older daughter is studying and waiting for them. Tickets sorted (two times changing trains, arrive by 10pm tonight), I took them to the lounge. They told me they are from Kherson. Occupied by the Russians for weeks already Kherson. “Everything you hear is true,” the mom said, looking me right in the eyes. I nodded. How did you manage to get out, I asked? And the mom explained. You pay the Russians $1000 cash per car. They provide the vehicle and driver. You wait until the fighting dies down and they say it is safe to go, but you never know for sure if it is really safe. The day before, several cars got shot up anyway. These guys involved in this people moving black market claim to know which roads they can take to not get shot at; they are working in conjunction with the Russians to get through checkpoints. People are so desperate to get out they pay and don’t ask questions. The drive takes them through Mykolaiv (now the scene of horrible fighting), then south towards Odesa, and from Romania you get on the refugee train route.
The mom from Kherson told me they spent four hours last night on cots somewhere in Hungary; she didn’t sleep a wink because the Roma were already working the place, stealing. This is another element of the current Ukrainian refugee wave that cannot be written about in politically correct terms so I don’t know how to address it — there are Roma arriving by the hundreds in huge groups and their goal is clearly financial / operational in nature. Some Ukrainians have told me the families don’t even have Ukrainian citizenship; they join the flow of people in Moldova and Romania. We see the groups in Vienna. It is a problem. I have seen them begging already at cafes at the Vienna train station as soon as they exit the train, the kids are sent to “work”. Many say they want to go to Germany. I have been told by Ukrainians they were afraid at Wien Messe of being robbed for this reason. I am summarising briefly here because it is a forbidden topic that judging from the numbers of people I have seen in recent days is eventually going to need an EU solution.
Next I met a family of seven from Kharkiv. A familiar story. They thought their neighbourhood would remain safe until one day that was no longer the case. They are on their way to Düsseldorf to a relative. Take them to the lounge. Snacks, drinks. Try and fail to get them a seat reservation. A kind soul in ÖBB suggests they go to the restaurant car and keep ordering for as long as it takes. I pass them this news back with their tickets and a €50 note. You’ll need it, I say. They thank me. I help them all onto the giant train to Germany, looking carefully for the restaurant car. The kids are little and getting wild. A five year old is still a five year old. They have Peppa pig, and a hippo, and a Minecraft stuffed animal and a toy dinosaur and show me all the animals they have brought with them. The moms and grannies are so patient. I cannot even imagine.
Next I see an older woman walking with one crutch. She is limping. Do you need any help, I ask? Any questions? She and her daughter are going back to Ukraine, to Chernivtsi (for more on this southwestern Ukrainian city near the Romanian border do read this beautiful essay). They need a seat reservation. I run back to the ticket office and secure them a booking to Cluj. They need some snacks for the train. I run to the mini market and buy them some fruit bowls, juice, fresh sandwiches. She asks for bandages for her leg. I run to the charity and am pleasantly surprised they have bandages. They walk me through long corridors to their locked storage room. Voila. Bandages. I grab some and thank them, amazed I didn’t have to go to the pharmacy myself.
When I return other Ukrainians have lined up to ask me questions. Is my ticket to Berlin correct? Can you buy me something to put between my toes, I am diabetic, my feet hurt when I walk (quick trip to the drug store, buy some kind of strange little sponges that are supposed to provide support in between toes)? Some more fruit, if possible? How do I get to the Ukrainian embassy? At that question I send the young mom to the info point, thinking surely it cannot be that hard to answer.
Ten minutes later, she is standing there. Did they not help you, I ask? They did but I cannot manage it, she says. What can’t you manage? A subway and two trams, she says. How can I do that? I will help you, I say. Even my kids manage it. She was then quiet. I walked her and her two boys (teenager, elementary school age) to the subway, explaining over and over how to reach the Ukrainian embassy by tram. She needs to get some kind of photo ID for her youngest son; he has only a birth certificate. They are living in some village near Steyr (central middle of nowhere Austria), three sisters, three kids. Oh boy, I thought. They have travelled for hours just to come to Vienna to process a document the embassy may or may not want to process for them. I say over and over: if you get lost, there are Ukrainians everywhere, ask for help, ask in English, Austrians will help you. I literally placed them on the subway, and said count two stations. I forget sometimes how overwhelming big cities can be if you aren’t used to them.
Mom, grandmother, toddler. Need a ticket to Poland in a few days. Came to Vienna to process a Canadian visa. Help with tickets. Walk to tram 18. No one has any idea where tram 18 is. It takes us like 20 minutes to find it. Mission accomplished, I wish them good luck. They are from Chernihiv. There is nothing to go back to. They are living with a Polish family but that cannot be a solution forever. I wish them good luck.
Next I meet five people from Zaporozhye who are staying in Messe Wien but want to go to Zurich. We manage to get night train tickets for them. These are great because a) you can sleep (sitting up but still) and b) the seat reservations are free. I walk them then to the cafeteria after getting them a ticket. The older man tells me he used to serve in the Soviet navy; he someone once ended up in Jacksonville and Orlando Florida in 1991 just as the Soviet Union was falling apart. He tells me he had a dream on February 14 that there would be war. He is disgusted by the Russians. He is not the first ex-Soviet military man from Ukraine I have heard say such things.
Several things to recommend to you, again in no particular order.
This Rolling Stone report from inside the Ukrainian front lines, a rare look at what it’s really like from a soldier’s perspective. It also talks about taboo topics such as Ukraine’s own losses, which have also been heavy.
The New York Times on the mood in Moscow and (some) Russians ratting each other out for not publicly supporting the war in Ukraine. Totally spooky.
This on Putin = end of Russia:
A beautiful lyrical essay on Odesa (in German)
Finally, I should probably comment on the Nehammer in Moscow shitshow (pardon my French) today. If you follow me on Twitter, you know how upset I was yesterday when the news broke. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been that upset in a long time, and I have been upset quite a lot recently!
Nehammer’s trip to meet Putin in Moscow is a PR student for Nehammer, a slap in the face to Ukraine which just hosted him on Saturday, and a propaganda gift for Russia’s president Putin aka war criminal aka mass murderer who will now get to splash photos of an EU leader in Moscow on Russian state TV news. This is a total disaster and it speaks volumes that no one in the Austrian political establishment (or the EU for that matter) did anything to stop this from happening. WTF?!
You do not negotiate with terrorists. Period.
Zelensky himself explains this perfectly in this recent 60 Minutes interview:
As always, this is the thought I continue to come back to. I will be thinking about this no matter what noise comes out of Moscow today. A dark day in Austrian history.
If you like to connect the dots just a tiny bit…this is pure gossip at this point but could prove important, who knows. For context: Austria’s chancellor Nehammer is in hot water at home because it turns out he uses dozens of Cobra agents for his personal security and that of his family, and one of those agents drunkenly crashed a car after reportedly drinking at the family home with Nehammer’s wife. Now stories are emerging of the family using the Cobra guys like babysitters and butlers, driving kids to sports’ practice, etc. It’s quite the little scandal, particularly because Nehammer initially called complaints about it from other political parties ‘political attacks’ against him.
Thanks so much for reading and for your continued support. I could not do what I am doing on the train station without private donations to help fund those small purchases there on the spot, and your paid subscriptions help me explain to my family my long absences from doing what is supposed to be my “day job”. There is a good old Russian saying: if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. I think about that often now.
President Zelenskyy's interview with 60Minutes was exactly the honesty our world needs to hear. He has no more lives to give, indeed.