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Millions of Ukrainians headed to Romania when Russia attacked their country. Instead of a land of poor and hostile bandits, as the propaganda had described it, they found the help and shelter they needed - even if there were also marginal voices spreading, as everywhere in Europe, disinformation about refugees. Some of them stayed, others moved on. Veridica has the stories of some of them, from the first days of the war until now.
With the children in the cold, at 2 A.M., but far from Putin's bombs
February 24, 04:03: Putin says in a televised speech that Russia will launch a “special military operation aimed at demilitarizing Ukraine. All Ukrainian servicemen who lay down their arms will be allowed to return to their families”. Putin insists that the goal is not to occupy the country, but to disarm it. CNN and Sky News live: Any attempt of foreign intervention will bring unprecedented consequences. The Russians are attacking Mariupol from the sea, Donetsk with missiles fired from Russia, and are heading for Kyiv from the North by land. Footage of soldiers and tanks marching, explosions, screams, smoke, panic, tears, darkness. The first hour of war.
For three uninterrupted days I kept a YouTube channel open, watching the live feed of a camera located on a building in Euromaidan. I was a prisoner on the information front, unable to watch anything but news about Ukraine.
Meanwhile, little by little, the people around me began to organize themselves to help the refugees who were coming in larger numbers. I felt I had to do something too. I collected two bags of warm clothes, mostly for children, which I gave to a friend who was going to the Isaccea customs point. But it wasn't enough. I went to the North Station (Gara de Nord), but people there were already very well organized. Since I don't speak Russian, I would’ve stayed in their way rather than help, so I decided to step back.
On my way home, I read that the Filaret bus station needs means of transport for the movement, around the city, of the refugees arriving in Bucharest by bus. I stop at the store, pack the trunk of my car with water, tea, coffee, sandwiches and sweets and show up at the tent specially set up for Ukrainians in the bus station. I tell the people there that I am also available to help with transportation, and they ask me to wait for the buses to arrive.
After two hours of silence in the cold, I see a line of people coming towards the tent, pulling all kinds of luggage. Among them, an old woman barely walking, supported by her daughter, not so young herself. One of the translators listens to her and bursts into tears: She says that there is a big war there, with bombs and shootings, like it was when she was a child. I don’t know if it’s the cold, but I feel a tear trickle down my right cheek. Stuck in the middle of the bus station, I find myself surrounded by a sea of people. Among them, a lady in her 40s with two small children, a dog, a cage with two cats and a travel bag. She explains to me in perfect English that she didn't have enough hands to take all the luggage she needed, but she is happy they're all safe now. Shyly, I give the two children a bottle of water and biscuits. The eldest says thank you in a low voice, and the little girl stretches out her arms to hug me. I later realize that the tears are not from the cold. It's 2 in the morning, and my little girl is sound asleep, definitely untucked, because it’s so warm in her room.
The refugees expected to find a country full of gangsters and thieves
The first trip is to a hotel in the area known as Titan, together with Oleh, Andryi and Viktor. Oleh shows me his passport, he was born on March 4, 2004, 3 hours ago he was not 18 years old. The others were just about to come of age. They were high-school classmates in Odessa, and their parents sent them away from danger. The parents stayed to take care of the houses so that the children would have something to return to after the war. Andryi has an older brother who has been working in Vienna for several years. In a couple of days, they will go there too. Viktor is the IT-type, disheveled and bespectacled, and he speaks slowly and clearly. Even I hear that he has a weird accent. Oleh explains to me that it’s not the accent, Viktor speaks Ukrainian and they answer him in Russian.
I later learned from Oleh that Viktor didn't stay in Vienna, he went to Germany, on his own, after about two months and now is in charge of the computer network of a club in Mannheim. Andryi and Oleh work at a hotel-restaurant in Vienna and live in the apartment rented by Andryi's brother, now conscripted into the Ukrainian army. Every time we talk, Oleh apologizes because his first question about Romania was: how do you Romanians manage in this country full of gangsters and thieves? That's all they knew about Romania. It took Russian military vessels aiming their guns at the Odessa seafront for me to learn that Romania is a beautiful place, full of good people. Soviet education still works, he jokes every time. He promised me that, when the war is over, he will put me up in his parents' house in Odessa and show me around the city.
Polina is (was) a dental student at the Medical University of Odesa. She found accommodation via airbnb, at a guesthouse in the Obor area. After three days, she will leave to join her mother, who settled in Italy. I sense that she has a beautiful smile, but she refuses to show it to me, or rather she can't. She speaks German and English in addition to Russian and Ukrainian. After two weeks in Italy, she decided to go to Germany. Not knowing the language, it was difficult for her to find a job. During the three days she spent in Romania, she fully felt the Romanian warmth and hospitality and was impressed by the help she received. She remains forever grateful to Romania, whose gastronomy she fell in love with, and to Germany, for the way in which she was received and helped to find a purpose. My heart remained in Ukraine and after the victory I will be on the first plane home.
I make one last trip with a group of Turkmen construction workers, to the dormitory of a high school in the Obor station area. Neither of them says anything, they don't talk to each other either, they just sigh from time to time. Arriving at the destination, they want to pay me for the transport, but with the help of a translator I explain to them that this is not an option. One of them shakes my hand and, with tears in his eyes, says something to me in Turkmen. The only word I understand is Allah; I nod my head and head home. I meet the translator again by chance after a few months and he tells me that the four Turkmens did not go home, they stayed and are now employed in construction, doing rehabilitation works around Bucharest. Dirty with lime and rubble, hunched under the weight of cement bags and with their hands battered, they curse Russia daily, in Russian, and thank Allah for the life they have in Romania and the money they regularly send to their families back home.
In the midst of the refugee crisis, Dacian patriotism demands its rights: “why should we help them?”
Meanwhile, in the light of day, Dacian patriotism is activated, demanding its rights: Why should we help the Ukrainians? If we were in their place, they wouldn't even look at us. I try to calm some people down, telling them we should be happy we are not in their place, but to no avail. You give alms to the Ukrainians, and our poor Romanians are left with nothing. I argue again that Romanians in need are helped too, no one has forgotten them. The funny thing is that both Romanians and Ukrainians are helped by the same people, the free Dacians are probably still busy with the fight against the health dictatorship. Well, to each their own war.
The Frenchman who pulled his baby out of the Russians' bombs
The second night. I dress warmly, but the cold is just as strong. A young man of about 30, short and skinny, gets out of the first group of refugees. He walks towards me and, in French, asks me how much it would cost to drive him to a hotel in the Traian Hall area. I tell him that it's free, he doesn’t seem convinced, but he calls in English an older woman and a young woman about the same age as Michel (he had introduced herself in the meantime) who was holding a baby to her chest. On the way he tells me that the baby is his child, the young mother his ex-girlfriend, and the woman his mother. A French expat, he had worked for a while in Ukraine, fell in love with Olena, but they didn't get along anymore, and he went back to France when the baby was only 3-4 months old. On the morning of the first bombings, his mother quickly packed some bags and ordered him to go to Ukraine to bring his child and ex-girlfriend to France. To make sure that he will complete the “mission”, she comes along. They arrive in Romania by plane, rent a car and, after giving a huge bribe to the Ukrainian customs officials, head for Mykolaiv.
The city is bombarded non-stop by Russian artillery. They literally walk through the explosions to Olena's house, but the house is gone. They find Olena and the baby in the cellar, with the grandparents, who refuse to leave. Grandpa says he's waiting for the Russians, to kill at least 2 or 3. While negotiating the departure, the car rented in Romania is hit by a bomb. All four leave on foot, on the way they are loaded into a military truck and taken to Odesa. Michel's mother is pleasantly impressed by my French, but I know she's just being polite. Olena is crying silently, and from her right seat, clutching the baby to her chest, she tells me that my city is almost gone. After 4 days, I take them to the airport. Olena tells me that in the silence of their first night in Bucharest, she and the baby slept soundly for the first time, after 10 days of horror. She will remember that silence and tranquility for the rest of her life. Now Michel, Olena and the baby are a family and live somewhere near Lyon. Michel has come to Romania 2 times to help Ukrainian refugees trying to reach France. The last they heard from Olena's parents was in mid-July.
“Have you seen what expensive cars these Ukrainians have?”. How the anti-refugee discourse finds its way even on the playground
Have you seen what expensive cars these Ukrainians have? Are these refugees? Leave me alone with these Ukrainians, clearly they are loaded!, I hear parents at the playground talking. I explain to them that being a refugee does not automatically mean being poor, hungry and dressed in rags. These people are fleeing death, not poverty. It's human to help them feel safe. They found themselves in a totally new culture, hearing a language they don't understand much of. Those who have money do not need anything from anyone, they are staying in expensive hotels, eat in fancy restaurants and are probably planning their summer vacation. But what about the others? Ordinary people like us, with ordinary lives, what are they to do?
A 10-year-old boy approaches his father and tells him that he thinks that the blond boy over there also wants to play football with us, but we don't understand what he's saying. Just play with him, let him score and then all of you go and hug him. The kid does score and smiles to his mother, who is watching him proudly from a bench. After dark, they walk hand in hand to the tram station near the park.
“I hate from the bottom of my heart all Russians who rejoice when they see on TV that a Ukrainian city is bombed and people die”
Approximately 3 million Ukrainian citizens have entered Romania since February. Most of them chose to keep going, to Western Europe, and only nearly 90,000 of them decided to stay here. When they lived in the dark Russian world, Romania was their enemy. That's what they were taught, and somehow history didn’t work in our favor either. But suddenly, on a cold February morning, all that changed. Romania became home.
Regina is 41 years old and until March 5 was a real estate agent in Kyiv. She left Ukraine with her two daughters and a friend and her daughter. The girlfriend went to Germany. Regina chose to come to Bucharest, although the original plan was to settle in Chernivtsi. But the memory of a trip to Romania from years past made her decide to cross the border. She says that from the first moment she felt the love of the Romanians, and the help she received exceeded all her expectations. When she is not working, she helps her younger daughter, who is still a pupil, with her homework, attends meetings of the Ukrainian community and strolls around Bucharest.
Regina was born in Russia, her mother is Russian, and they only spoke Russian at home. Now she cannot find the words to pour out her anger with her native country, with the dictator who rules it and all those who, even though their lack of reaction, support him. She says she will never forgive them for this war and the genocide against the Ukrainian people. After the war she will surely return home to the family she left behind and the quiet life she had been living there. Her 91-year-old grandmother still does not know that there is a war in the country and she is waiting for her daily visit. Regina hopes to be able do it again. She misses Ukraine and suffers for the thousands of innocents killed there. She is happy that she chose Romania, a country she knew nothing about, but in which she rediscovered humanity, friendship and peace.
Vova is almost 20 years old and used to live with his girlfriend Sonya in Kyiv. On weekends he would visit his family living a few kilometers from the Ukrainian capital. He was a manager at a food manufacturer, responsible for the relationship with large companies and restaurants. Five days before the start of the war, at the family's insistence, he left Ukraine with Sonya and his father, bound for Bulgaria. Although on all channels the Ukrainian authorities were trying to keep the situation under control, urging the population to stay calm, his parents knew the Russians. After three days, the father decided to return to Ukraine. The day after his return, a state of war was declared, and the borders were closed to men aged 18 to 60.
With very little money and no source of income, Vova and Sonya decide to apply for Canadian visas, but the closest embassy is the one in Romania. He is starting to get interested in cheap accommodation in Bucharest for the period it would take to obtain the visa. A good friend of his mother sends him a phone number with a Romanian area code. Talk to this man, he might be able to help you. They contact him and the man puts them in touch with a family that provides them with an apartment for as long as they need and then, almost daily, buys them food in huge quantities. We were very very very very very very very very lucky to get to know him. He ends up meeting a woman who needs someone to take her six children to and from school and spend some time with them afterward. He is very good with children, so he is employed and that's how he earns his first money in Romania. On weekends he visits the city and remains deeply impressed by the size and beauty of Bucharest's parks (we couldn't even imagine such beautiful parks, in Ukraine they are 10 times smaller and fewer.) He falls hopelessly in love with Romanian cuisine, and papanasi become his favorite desert ever.
Vova has not seen his family for almost a year. His mother, twin sister and grandmother are in Canada. His father and grandfather are in Ukraine. Sonya's family are all in Ukraine. Everyone spoke Russian at home, although they understand Ukrainian very well. When I tell him that the Veridica website has both English and Russian versions, he tells me that the English one is enough. I hate from the bottom of my heart all the stupid Russians who still swallow the propaganda of their government of liars and rejoice when they see on TV that a Ukrainian city is bombed and people die. Vova knew nothing about Romania until ten months ago. Today, he sincerely loves Romania, knowing that here he will always find someone ready to listen to him, to help him, to smile at him. Vova and Sonya are now working in Bali, but will definitely return to Romania.
He is still not thinking of going back home, to Ukraine.
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