Viktoria & sons
The third in a series of twelve days of Christmas. Personal stories by Ukrainians now in Austria. In their own words.
Viktoria (40) meets me on Friday morning at a Vienna patisserie where the average customer age is well above 75 and the waiter ignore you three times when you ask for the bill because they heard you speaking a foreign language, and loudly at that. I was surprised to hear Viktoria lives in the 18th district, an area of Vienna you usually don’t associate with refugee housing. I know one dorm in the neighbourhood, but they are in an apartment. I don’t know what to expect. Viktoria walks in, tall, blonde, slim, blue eyes, with a lovely smile, in an oversized sweater (it’s snowing out the window) and it is hard for me to imagine what the story will be she is about to tell me. When you look at her, she looks from a distance like any other neighbourhood mom on the school run. Yet another huge life lesson never to judge any book by its cover.
Viktoria is a psychologist by education. Her parents both died before the war started. She went through a difficult divorce with a narcissist ex-husband. In other words, Viktoria explains, she wasn’t in a good place before Russia decided to change their lives forever. She has two sons, 5 and 12. She is raising them alone. She had moved out of a larger apartment she owns in Odesa to rent a smaller apartment and live on the difference. Viktoria was among those Ukrainians who never ever believed Russia would actually attack.
At 3:30am, on Febuary 24, she awoke from the sounds of war starting. She immediately began panicking, not quite believing it was actually happening. Her kids were still sleeping. Everyone was calling everyone, pouring over the news, not sure what to do. There was no school that morning. The more you watch TV, the worse you feel. Viktoria’a oldest son (12) understood exactly what was happening. Her youngest (5) had no idea. During those first days of war, Viktoria still thought the war would be over in a few days. Her ex-husband has a friend in Vienna. He told them there are apartments for those fleeing Ukraine if you put your names on a list run by an local insurance company. She sends over her passport details and that of her sons, not really planning to leave. Not yet.
They go to a cafe in Odesa and air raid sirens interrupt their meal. When the sirens go off, Viktoria begins to take her kids to the underground parking garage, carrying snack and blankets, footballs. “Why do we have to go, mom?” they would ask. “You’ll just play some football for a few hours,” she would assure them. Neighbours would gather, talking about how to get their internet connections to stretch to the garage. When upstairs in their apartment, the family slept in their clothes, dressed in case they had to run outside, an emergency bag waiting by the door.
A few days later Viktoria is walking with her youngest by the sea in Odesa, a siren goes off, he screams, starts asking why the banditi want to hurt them, is afraid someone wants to kill his mama. He grabs Viktoria by her legs. By this point the news from around Ukraine is getting worse, Viktoria starts to think the war may last longer than a few days. She begins to consider going to Moldova. She calls a relative who has three daughters, and they agree to go together in Viktoria’s car. 7 people 1 dog all their belongings. They leave on February 27.
After 12 hours on the border, Viktoria says they were warmly welcomed in Moldova. A family took them into their own home, and treated them like family for a few days. Viktoria experienced horrible tooth pain. The husband arranged for her to see a dentist. The Moldovan dentist pulled out one of her wisdom teeth, free of charge. Viktoria waited a few more days in Chisinau to recover, and then the family took off again by car, just the three of them, for Romania.
Viktoria drove through the night in Romania and planned to keep driving until she was on a serpentine mountain road, at night, with no telephone service, with one of her car service lights flashing. It had lit up earlier in the day, but she hoped she could push forward until the next bigger city. Instead, the car simply died as Viktoria was driving it. She got out, and stood in the middle of the dark road, fearing wolves, and hoping to wave down the next cars that would approach on the highway. The next car happened to be Ukrainians, and they stopped, took Viktoria and her boys in their car, and drove them to the nearest city, Cluj, to look for the police. The police were very nice about the whole thing and sent a tow truck to the get Viktoria’s car and the repairs cost her around €100 — a reasonable price for a tow, battery change, and repairs to the steering wheel.
The police told her there was a hotel in the mountains she could rest at for a few days. Her tooth was still hurting. At the reception, a bearded man approached Viktoria, offered to help with her car. She was skeptical, but when she met his wife and child, she relaxed a bit. Viktoria and her sons spent four days at the hotel in the Romanian mountains. The local man helped find a doctor who prescribed Viktoria antibiotics for her now infected post-wisdom tooth removal wound. After her fever subsided, she decided to continue onto Austria, but without the car. By train. The Romanians agreed to let Viktoria leave her car there, with them.
Viktoria and her boys took a train via Hungary, where they were stopped and interrogated because one of the boys’ passports was technically expired, and finally made it to Vienna on March 12. Her ex-husband’s contact met them by taxi and took them to a 50 square meter apartment owned by an insurance company in Vienna. But it was empty. Totally empty except for one little table. Viktoria shows me a photo of her youngest lying inside a suitcase on an empty room floor. The apartment would be provided free of charge, but Viktoria would have to take care of everything else herself. The family arrived mid-March, and only received a payment from the Austrian government in May. Viktoria frantically searched for free furniture on websites and through volunteers. She focused on trying to build a fresh living space for her and her sons here in Vienna. When she left Ukraine, she had only $400 with her. She knew she had to watch every penny. She was constantly in fear she would not have enough money to buy food.
Viktoria’s sons asked all the time when they could go home to Odesa. They began school and kindergarten in April. The eldest has a long cross-town commute to a NMS (new middle school), the youngest found a space in a private kindergarten last spring and now a state-run kindergarten from September, but only for half-days, as Viktoria is not working. If she starts working anywhere legally, she would immediately lose her payments. Such is the ridiculous (for lack of a better word) Austrian program for Ukrainian refugees.
Viktoria would take the boys to Train of Hope at Stadion, for free meals and to look for humanitarian aid, clothing for summer, a chance to play with other kids. She scoured Willhaben for used or donated furniture. Volunteers I met at the train station also helped the family with basic kitchen items. Viktoria looks out the window, at the falling snow, and says she knows she is surrounded by the beauty of Vienna but I cannot see it myself. I nod in understanding. That feeling is very dear to me, personally, I relate a lot to that statement.
Viktoria’s eldest goes 45 minutes to school but he has no public transport ticket yet because they haven’t bought passes yet, afraid to dig into the food money. Some days he was to travel home 45 minutes, just to eat for 10 minutes, and go back to school for an afternoon session. He isn’t allowed to take part in the after-care program in school because the family cannot afford to pay for lunch there (€150 per month). He is in a Ukrainian class where they only learn German, and only sometimes are allowed to attend other classes like Math and English. Viktoria, like so many other Ukrainian moms, worries about large gaps in her son’s education. In December he will have to take a German test, and if he can pass it, only then will he be allowed into a “normal” classroom. Do remember this is already a NMS, not a gymnasium.
Viktoria’s youngest attends a state-run kindergarten that is now free but only from 9am to 2pm and the staff are not particularly affectionate or attentive. He made one friend. A Turkish boy.
Viktoria applied for the Familienbeihilfe (child benefit for all parents living in Austria) at the end of August, but did not receive any money yet. She is praying these funds will arrive soon, as they are supposed to be back-dated to March.
Viktoria talks a lot about health problems. Her youngest had a terrible ear infection. Not knowing what to do, she went to Stadion (Train of Hope). They called an ambulance, the ambulance whisked them to a hospital, where the emergency room treated her son. Viktoria now buys medicine in Ukraine to have in stock here in Vienna.
An American lady met the family and bought the eldest a football and football shoes and a scooter for the youngest. She bought them sneakers for summer. Viktoria explains she had to learn how to ask for help. That was a big psychological barrier to overcome.
Her eldest really misses his friends. An extrovert by nature, he has at times gotten into the wrong crowds of kids here in Vienna, those hanging out in parks, looking for what they deem to be a little mischief but the police take seriously. She describes a rock-throwing incident her boys were not involved in but other neighbourhood kids tried to frame on them. An altercation with another father, an immigrant of a different nationality. The dad tried to put the €1500 fine on Viktoria, she pushed back and said there was no evidence of her boys involvement. He backed down.
Viktoria would love to put her eldest in football and her youngest in karate but there is no extra money. Together, the family receive four hundred and something Euros per month (I was surprised this wasn’t €260 + €145 + €145), and if karate costs €80 per month, it is simply too expensive. Over the summer, she saved up money to buy her eldest a used e-bike he could ride to and from school. One night, it was stolen out of the locked bicycle room in their apartment building. She looked on Willhaben for a replacement, ordinary bike — a man offered her one, but only after he made it clear he wished for sexual favours in return. She refused.
The boys’ father doesn’t send money from Ukraine. Viktoria returned to Romania, drove her car back to Ukraine, moved their things out of the rental apartment, moved their things back into the apartment she owns, and locked the door. She cannot rent it out. It is filled with their things. She brought back clothes for all seasons.
We don’t go to restaurants, Viktoria says. McDonalds for my birthday. She hasn’t been to German classes yet. She has been focused on the boys. She found online speech therapy in Ukraine for her youngest, whom she really worries about. A group session will cost the equivalent of €1.50 per hour. She risks riding the tram every time without a ticket.
Her finances are about to take a huge hit as the building where they live is now under new management and Viktoria just received notice they will have to pay their monthly electricity/gas bill on their own from now on (amount TBD) plus communal fees to the management company of €147 per month. I stare at Viktoria in shock, not understanding how she will ever be able to afford this and still put food on the table. “Do you have a contract, do you get the reimbursement for €330 per month towards rent?” I ask. “No,” she says. “The contract says zero.” I suggest she ask for a new contract. To at least be able to receive this money towards “rent”. She is scared to bring it up with the new owner. What if he will simply ask them to move out? A neighbour hung up a rather unfriendly notice in Ukrainian in the building lift recently, asking them not to stomp in heels at all hours of the day and night and be courteous about their neighbours needing to go to bed early and wake up early. I explained to Viktoria Austria is infamous for unfriendly neighbors, and not to take it personally.
“I feel like a guest here, always,” she says. “I am not in my own place. My youngest counts pretend sleeps until we can go home. I want to go home to our country, he tells me. But in Odesa at the moment there is only three or four hours of electricity per day, and going home right now isn’t an option.”
I offer Viktoria to take some cakes home to her boys. She declines. She hands me a little brown bag with some kasha and individually wrapped sweets from Ukraine. We chat a little bit about possibilities to earn part-time, additional income, in an unofficial way. Babysitting, cooking. I get the feeling Viktoria is not ready for that. She has been through so much this year. Alone, with two children she is responsible for, without parents to call and ask advice of, without a helpful ex-spouse, in a new country she didn’t choose but ended up in through fate of circumstances. There is a deep sadness in her eyes despite her beautiful smile. I relate to it so much, not really being in Austria by choice. The people, she says, they can be very cold here. I nod in understanding. We have been talking loudly in Russian. Viktoria plays me a few videos on her phone. The waiters in this uptight cafe are not happy with us. I have to ask three times to be brought the bill. I don’t leave a large tip.
We both walk out into the slushy snow, grateful for the chat, sad it didn’t solve anything.
If anyone would like to get in touch with Viktoria directly, I have her email address.