Project HOME
REFUGEES
More than a year and a half has passed since the start of the full-scale war in #Ukraine.
As a result, over a million people, mostly women, children and the elderly, reached #Warsaw in the first months just after 24th February.
In this series, I focus on people living in one of Warsaw's accomodation centres. I was curious to know what their journey to the Polish capital was like, where they fled from and how they found their way in the new reality. For some of them, this is their very first stay abroad.
In particular, I wondered what daily life looks like for seniors or people with disabilities who are unable to work due to their age, mobility constraints, besides obvious difficulties involved in learning a new language.
With these limitations do they have the opportunity to build social ties with Poles and get to know better the culture of the country they now live in?
How is it to suddenly become and be called a #refugee?
How do they manage to cope with the unfolding tragedy in their homeland and live in limbo between the desire, yet the impossibility, to return and the necessity to 'live on'?
The protagonists in this series regularly expressed their gratitude to Poles for the support they received.
I was able to conduct these interviews thanks to the courtesy of the staff at the accomodation centre. Special thanks - for their trust, the opportunity to talk and take pictures - go to Oleksiy and the protagonists of my interviews.
Vse bude Ukraina!
#standwithukraine
Yekaterina & Liudmila
From Zaporizhzhia
Liudmila comes from #Zaporizhzhia. When the russians bombed the shopping center next to her home after many months of regular hiding in bomb shelters, she decided to leave #Ukraine in May 2022. "I left to nowhere" she says, as she had no idea where to go to. She decided to stay in #Poland though, so that she can go back as soon as the war ends.
She showed me with sadness a few pictures from her hometown #Zaporizhzhia and the destruction caused by the frequent shellings targeting various civil infrastructures, like residential buildings.
Her mother Yekaterina is 86 y.o. She badly broke her hip then the war broke out, turning her world upside down. She left #Ukraine when the bombings of her city intensified in October 2022 together with her 12 y.o. cat Filoush to join her daughter.
She immensely misses her grandson who stayed in the homeland and can't speak about him without tears filling her eyes.
Yekaterina moves around in a wheelchair and is dependent on her daughter for many tasks. During the day when she is at work, Yekaterina tries to occupy herself by coloring drawings or regularly solving crosswords. She also loves to read and the staff of the center tries to get her books in Ukrainian as often as possible. Her favourite author is the XIXth century writer Taras Shevchenko. She used to work until she was 78 y.o. in a factory and spent 52 years in the same company.
One of the most moving sights I encountered visiting Lyudmila and Yekaterina is the cat curled up against Yekaterina's legs as in an attempt to heal his mistress' illness. Liudmila has been trying for a while to finalize administrative procedures confirming her mother's degree of disability.
LIDIA & VIKTORIA
From Nova Kakhovka
First, Lidia fled #NovaKakhovka in the late Summer of 2022 with her grandson.
They were on the road by bus for five days. For the senior person with #disabilities she is, it was a particularly exhausting journey.
With teary eyes she recounts they waited 18 hours at the border with #Latvia on the russian side, being told not to move an inch and to stand in the queue for the whole time. She showed me the seat she took on her escape way - fortunately she could at least sit on it. In addition, she was separated from her grandson she could see again only once the border crossed.
She cried seeing the #ukrainianflag for the first time after 7 months in the Latvian bus taking her for the rest of her route.
"It is one of the few items we brought with us. It used to be the seat my son-in-law used to take to fish. It reminds us of home."
Then, approximately 2 weeks later, Lidia’s daughter Viktoria escaped the city of #NovaKakhovka a few days before the russian occupiers held the pseudo referendum. Refusing to take part in this sham, they fled with her husband and aunt through the annexed territory of Crimea and then through Russia to join the EU border with Baltic States.
I first met Lidia in June 2023, a few weeks after the Kakhovka hydro-electric dam on the #Dnipro river was destroyed by the russians. While the house of her daughter Viktoria still stands, Lidia lost her apartment to the flood. They both recounted how tense the months under russian occupation in #NovaKakhovka were. Around the city blockposts (the so-called kpp - kontrol'no-propusknoj punkt) flourished almost instantly - "it was even impossible to go to the cementary in groups bigger than 2 persons from the same family or friends circle. They were probably afraid that the visiting people could stir up unrests".
They also confirmed what we heard in the media abroad - "russians were ordering Ukrainian men to undress to check if they have bullet wound, which might indicate this person served in the army of fought in battles. They also checked the #tattoos looking for Ukrainian patriotic motives. It is well-known that men were taken away and tortured for that".
Lidia and Viktoria are always busy at doing something despite their #disabilities.
118 - that's the number of pairs of #socks Viktoria and her retired mum Lidia have crocheted since they settled down in the accomodation centre. They send them then to #Ukraine to the boys fighting on the frontline.
They recycle #wool from secondhand clothes that are no more worn and make these colourful sets of socks to keep the #soldiers warm.
Lidia often welcomes you with a warm smile in spite of the deep incertainty she lives in. She is especially worried about what will happen after the 4th March, 2024. Will the special act ruling the status of refugees from Ukraine in Poland be extended?
"Where would we go if they close our accomodation center ? To the railway station, as we have nowhere to go?" she asks with a worried voice.
She says that as a senior and a person with disabilities she might be seen rather as a burden on the contrary to persons fit to work.
Natalia
From Zaporizhzhia
At the beginning of the war, air raid alarms were constantly ringing in #Zaporizhzhia.
Natalia, her daughter, granddaughter as well as their cat were sitting most of the time in bomb shelters. They left for a friends' datcha close to #Enerhodar, but were soon forced to escape. She had only 3-4 clothes with her. "I left as I was dressed and I only had a change of underwear". Natalia fled the country by evacuation train and arrived in Poland with her family in March 2022. "We have watched so many movies about World War II, we never thought we will experience something like that" she says with a sigh.
She has been living in this accommodation center for more than a year and as a pensioner she has tried to occupy herself. "I am an active person" (ya ne sidyashiaya), so she decided, among other things, to plant sunflower seeds around the center to make it more agreeable. "Like at home". Together with another resident of the center, Mikhailo, they take care of the plants.
Natalia and her daughter also decorated the walls of the accommodation center with paper flowers. She first made the coat of arms of #Ukraine then the Polish one, which required more efforts due to the small details of the eagle's wings.
It was very important to her to express her gratitude to #Polish people for their support this way.
"Children are our future, we did so well that we took them out of the country" she says in a preoccupied tone. Natalia hopes they will be able to return to Ukraine sooner than later. She often wonders when the #war and all its horrors will stop.
Her daughter, who was a manager in Ukraine, has found a job as a cleaner in a school. Being forced to leave your home country forces you to adapt, swallow part of your dreams and put your life on hold for an unknown period of time.
Svetlana & Mikhailo
From Balakliya
Svetlana and her husband Mikhailo are willing to tell me their story, but he doesn't want to be photographed while Svetlana authorizes me to take pictures only from a given angle as she suffers under a serious eyes illness. They both met many years ago in #Uzbekistan, where they lived 10 years before moving to #Ukraine.
Already on the first day of the war, planes were flying over the heads of Svetlana and Mikhailo in #Balakliya. They took their documents and essentials to flee the city with their son-in-law, daughter and granddaughter. After reading about the movements of the russian troups and finding themselves 30 km from the border, they got back to their city at the beginning of March. Svetlana shows me the pictures of her home and how they sealed the windows with adhesive taped to minimalize the creation of small fragments during shelling blasts. Unfortunately their home was damaged by the bombings and they couldn't stay longer. After 2 weeks they departed for the home of Mikhailo's parents where they stayed until the end of September 2022.
They decided then to leave for #Lviv with their daughter and granddaughter. The family took a bus organized by #volunteers to reach Poland. They finally arrived in the accomodation centre where they are staying now.
They would like to do something useful and be completely autonomous. They have been spending a lot of time lately on appointments with doctors as many health issues either appeared or developped. Mikhailo says it might be the consequences of the war-related experiences they went through. Svetlana showed me pictures of their garden in Ukraine, highlighting how greatly they miss it. Meanwhile they take great care of the flowers and plants in the center.