Thinking about Kyiv...
I took the photo below one year ago today. A Ukrainian said to me today: this year has flown by. To which I replied, to me it feels like a decade.
My head has been all over the place but not firmly on my shoulders. This morning, rushing out the door to buy 3 Hofer cards before a 10am meeting point at the Arrivals Center, I nearly got to my car before realizing I had left home without a jacket. The whole week has been a bit like that, my usual routine interrupted (school holidays, kids were away), jumping from one thing to the next without a feeling of rhyme — reason I understood. Every little helps.
I have been thinking today a lot about Kyiv. This was how I spent last February 10. Re-reading this paragraph:
I really did not entertain any war thoughts while in Kyiv, it just seemed so unthinkable in a busy, bustling, happy city of 4 million people. But then you open the internet and you can’t really push them away. The endless TikToks of tanks and field hospitals are weaponised mind games at this point.
I was awoken this morning with a phone call from a Ukrainian here in Austria whose grown daughter has now decided to join her. Troubled marriage for many months already, add in war and no job — it’s complicated. The daughter was supposed to come by bus next week, but the call this morning asked if I could meet the bus on Sunday. I had to say no, I cannot. I am already meeting a train on Saturday evening I am yet to inform my own family about. Why now, I asked? What is the rush? She mumbled something about fear of a new attack, the one year anniversary coming up…
At 10am I deliver a card to a mom from Kyiv who is just arrived six days ago to Vienna with her six year-old daughter. Why now, I asked? She looks at me like I am asking a very stupid question. “No electricity, no work, they keep bombing, and the one year anniversary is coming up — Putin will do something to target Kyiv.” Oh, I say quietly, not really sure how to respond. I could not understand people from “relatively safe cities” coming now, in the middle of winter, because as we read the news, it seems pretty steady these past few months. Not great but not terrible. Like people somehow adjusted to the new lived reality. But not without cost (see these photos from Kyiv today).
I text with a woman who went back to Ukraine at the end of summer today. She too shares her thoughts about life in Kyiv now. She writes about how many hours have been stolen from them just from the air raid sirens alone. How it is crazy when you stop to think that ordinary Ukrainians can now identify different types of missiles by sight, and children have too adjusted to this “new normal” of no in-person school, on/off electricity, and bombs flying, and yet “we are a peaceful nation” she writes, and I must agree — none of it makes any sense at all if you stop to think about it.
I walk away from the Arrivals Center and see families unloading suitcases, other families packing suitcases into an Uber. I ask the mom to have the other moms write me. I explain I don’t have cards now but as soon as I receive some more I will prioritize families with children who have not received any financial support yet and are waiting for housing assignments and to be put “into” the Austrian system for lack of a better term.
Last night I was invited to take part in a panel discussion ‘Arrival’ Infrastructures of the Displaced from Ukraine in Vienna at the IWM in Vienna where they are hosting Ukraine-themed events all week. It was based on research performed this summer by an all-female research team. Their findings, 115 pages which I really hope will be punished one day, are based on 35 interviews conducted last summer with all the key players in Vienna from the city authorities to the NGOs to volunteers like myself and of course the Ukrainian refugees themselves. In short, the women did an amazing job of highlighting the major issues and bottlenecks and it was so nice to see everything in one place (we received a 3 page summary sheet which unfortunately I do not think is public or I would share with you all). I was nodding along as the researchers read a summary of their findings aloud. I was an idiot and didn’t take a single photo, but I was so pleased to see a volunteer from Mykolaiv, we had worked side by side for weeks at the train station. She came to listen and surprised me with this gorgeous bouquet of yellow roses. It was a really nice evening and great to see the familiar faces of volunteers and Ukrainians alike, and also make some interesting new connections. I heard “I follow you on Twitter” quite a bit! I do find in-person stuff all a bit exhausting though, after a year of basically communicating through screens. And speaking Russian. It’s weird — you become, over time, used to crisis mode and small talk mode becomes challenging and unfamiliar.
I keep telling myself: you must think big picture, think how to fundraise, think what new projects to initiate, what to do, what to write…and then you get pulled right back down to earth. My buddy Y calls from the hospital. He is a very charismatic grandpa from Kharkiv who only calls me when something goes wrong. He needs me to translate right now and speak to his urologist. He is two days post surgery. So I do that. And wonder why one year later we still don't have a systemic medical translation solution. The doctor was very nice and it was no trouble for me but also somehow unnerving. Like, how is any of this sustainable?
This afternoon, a mom and daughter came to pick up some clothes from me from my girls. They live in a moldy apartment they are objectively overpaying for in Lower Austria, near the airport. It doesn’t have central heating; they heat with something she described like cat litter (I have no idea what the little pellets are they are burning), and all-in this costs the family of three €1000 per month (€750 rent and €250 for the pellets they burn to heat). It is cold so they don’t use the daughter’s bedroom, she now sleeps on the sofa. Mom is working but only part-time as an office cleaner earning the maximum she is allowed without losing her social benefits. School is ok but the other kids bully the Ukrainian kids. I hear this a lot. I explain about who won 25% of the vote in Lower Austria recently (far right, very anti-all foreigners) and say it is probably not even the kids, but rather them repeating what they hear at home. When you hear a 12 year-old talking about war back home as a kind of new normal, it is really upsetting. She is exactly like my youngest. I drove them back to the train station. Mom still has to work tonight. I came home and opened the cake bag and nearly started crying (I cannot really cry anymore, perhaps a sign of just how much I have seen and heard this year).
I wanted to recommend some Russian-language YouTube I have been watching, but then I realised the videos don’t have English subtitles yet, and if you speak Russian you definitely know about them already. In short — two very long interviews (hours long each), with two very smart women, but polar opposites in many ways. Although both are staunchly anti-war, one is in London running Navalny’s media operations and is both very ruthless in her views on Putin’s Russia while being admittedly out of touch with Russia today, having lived abroad for so long. The other is running hospices all over Russia and very much in touch with Russia today including regions most in natives of Moscow never visit, but she has continued to take state money and work together with the government, and for this she has been strongly criticised by much of the “liberal opposition” who fled the country (either in protest against the war and/or out of fear of mobilization). I was fascinated by both conversations and watched them in their entirety, walked away feeling this (whole thread with YouTube links here):
Prompted by Nyuta (see above), I also started watching Professor Timothy Snyder’s Yale lecture series on The Making of Modern Ukraine. Really enjoying it so far and also thinking damn how lucky those nineteen year-olds are. Honestly, there are some really compelling arguments to be made for parts of college being the best time ever.
This report from the BBC in Belgorod today shows the reality of life on the ground in border cities in Russia. It is not easy for foreign reporters to keep doing their jobs within Russia, yet the messaging and presentation is very clever.
Tomorrow, a young hairdresser in Vienna has graciously offered a day of free haircuts for Ukrainian refugees. I put together 7 appointments for her. I was texting them all today, reminding them. One man had to cancel; he got moved far away. The slot was easy to fill. Working with Ukrainians is in that sense totally amazing. They are so “online” and so fast you answer your questions in a matter of minutes. I texted tonight a photo and “I have more girls’ clothes” and received immediate responses. It occurred to me the other day I now read texts in Ukrainian without having to translate them. That just happened slowly, organically over the past year. I listen to Zelensky in Ukrainian, and I already understand. In spring, I did not. It’s been a long time and the scariest part is I have zero idea how much longer it might be. I fear, it might be a long while yet.
I made this Reel tonight, grocery photos from just the past week or so. Thank you so much for your continued support. Without all of you, none of this would be possible. We are only the mailmen/women.
Thanks again for taking the time to write these updates. I can’t imagine how you find time to keep up to date with the news with all these things you do. I really appreciated the links you included in your “big picture” newsletter recently, eg.
Tim Snyder’s lecture series is great, and, incredibly, gets better and better towards the end. I also highly, highly recommend the audiobook version he recently released of On Tyranny. In this version he has an additional ~8h on Ukraine. I am not only amazed by his clear and understandable analysis and reasoning, but how well he articulates this every time he speaks.
https://www.timothysnyder.org/books/on-tyranny-expanded-audio-edition-dn