How My Friend Fled Wartime Ukraine

Hello and welcome to a somber Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is March 5th.

Like most people across Wannaska, we've been glued to the news, watching in horror as the Russian army advanced on Ukraine and how the Ukrainians have fought tooth and nail to hold their ground. My husband grew up under Soviet-era rule. His parents can tell the tale of Russian tanks rolling into Prague in 1968 because they lived it. Our Czech family knows instinctively and intellectually what is happening in Ukraine. With the fierce volley and finger-pointing of "fake news" flurrying around media the last couple of years, we watched with bated breath to see how the world would respond. Then exhaled with relief that the world response has been universally unified in support of Ukraine.

This is real. Very, very real.

Our Ukrainian friend, Stacy, is a single mom, living and working in Kyiv. We met Stacy when she was a 16-year-old AFS exchange student in Minnesota during the 1998-99 school year. Thanks to Facebook, we reconnected and have stayed in touch. Even before the invasion, we were messaging. Are you all right? I would ask. I have no words, she would write back.

Despite the clues and the insistence from the U.S. and President Biden that there would be an invasion, she said that Ukrainians were largely calm. It just didn't seem real. And yet, she noticed the rise in news reporting from the U.S. that there would be a war. In January, companies across Kyiv considered three scenarios. The first would be an infowar between the West and Russia, in which case Ukrainians could ignore the noise and go about business as usual. The second scenario: a limited conflict. If this happened, they would need to prepare for downed internet or electricity. The third case - the unthinkable - full-scale war. That just couldn't be an option, people thought, so businesses prepared themselves for limited conflict.

Stacy, however, had a feeling that something bigger was coming. With the increase in news reporting and the US ringing the alarm bells, she believed the warnings that it might happen after the Olympics or after the weather got colder so the tanks could travel more easily. Within her company, she was part o a team that worked to prepare for scenario #3 creating information sheets about how to evacuate and what next steps were to be taken should employees have to flee to Poland.

For her own family, she bought a can of gasoline and a paper map in case she lost cellphone service, but also to avoid the ensuing traffic jams of the major thoroughfares by traveling the smaller, lesser-known village roads out of the city.

Two weeks before the invasion, she made the decision to drive to Lviv with her two children and dog. Her mother chose to stay back in Kyiv - her own contingency plan: an agreement with a friend to go to each other's homes if the other got bombed. 

Even in the relative safety of Lviv, the initial bombing was surreal. When the warnings came that Lviv could be attacked, Stacy donned her children with helmets. They first hid in the bathroom before moving to the basement. She felt that if Russia were to be successful in occupying some territories in Ukraine, it would be successful in taking over the country. For the future of her children, she needed to cross the border and just get out.

In Kyiv, her mom hid in her bathroom. While the Ukrainian military was able to manage the ground attack, they were helpless against the air attack. After much insistence from Stacy, her mom - with Stacy's sister and the family cat - finally fled Kyiv on Friday. A half an hour after her mom left the city, the Russian convoy arrived. Stacy wanted to wait for her mother to arrive from Kyiv, but finally, decided she couldn't wait any longer. The new plan was for Stacy to go ahead and for her mother to follow her route. Her mom made it to Lviv later on Saturday. Her mom's friend is still in Kyiv sheltering in her home.

In those first days after the invasion, the line of cars waiting to cross from Ukraine into Poland was so long it started in Lviv 50 miles away. The wait time at the Polish border was anywhere from 40 to 70 hours.  She had a map prepared by the border guards which showed her that the lines were shorter at the Slovak border. While waiting at the Slovak border, volunteers who had organized themselves, offered hot drinks, diapers for babies, and medicine for people waiting to cross. It was impossible to leave your car. What about going to the bathroom? I asked. You didn't. The border crossing was in a city (Uzhhorod) and there were no bushes or nature to hop out to anyway.

After a half-day of waiting in the line, Stacy moved forward only a couple hundred meters. Finally, the local volunteers encouraged her to go to the Hungarian border, insisting she would be able to get through there. She spent 12 hours in the queue at the Hungarian border then crossed into Hungary early Monday morning. Sleep-deprived, her legs swollen from sitting in the car for so many hours, she knew she needed to stop and rest. Housing was either too expensive or unavailable because of the sheer number of people fleeing Ukraine. She reached out to the one person she knew in Budapest. Even though it was 1 a.m., he wrote back, instructing her to meet him at a specified gas station. He came, left his car at the gas station, took her car, and drove them back to his apartment where they were able to eat, wash, and have an internet connection.

Throughout all this, Stacy was still in touch with her work colleagues. Just before leaving Lviv, she'd managed to organize a temporary residence for the Kyiv employees in a renovated schoolhouse south of Lviv and was trying to connect and track the movements of those who'd also fled.  

She spent two nights in Hungary while waiting for her mother, sister, and cat, who finally arrived on Wednesday. Despite the joy of being reunified, Stacy knew she had to go on to Krakow to get her family established there and to continue working with the management team to organize her company's employees. Stacy arrived in Poland Wednesday night where she was able to secure an apartment via a friend of a friend. Her mother remained in Budapest to get her car fixed and arrived in Poland today. (Actually, while I was typing this!) Also, today, Stacy picked up one of her colleagues in a suburb of Krakow.

Stacy shared that in the Kyiv suburb where she lived, the residents who stayed are baking their own bread, buying potatoes from each other, and looking for extra gasoline. They still have electricity and water – most people have wells - but they don't dare switch on the lights. Otherwise, they just sit and wait. The cities have been badly bombed with bombing taking place in residential areas. The app on her phone signaling an air attack goes red constantly.

"They’re not following any rules of war," Stacy said, of Putin's intent. "The goal is to ruin the nation. It doesn’t seem to follow a purpose but just go and shoot around. Those people spend nights and days in the basements. You don’t know how people are going to survive it. Those who stay believe that someone is going to save them."

Now that she is in Poland, the family can finally sleep and recover from the physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. But their troubles are far from over. Stacy is still part of the team responsible for helping settle those of the 400 employees who fled and providing whatever resources or support they can to those who stayed in Ukraine. At this time, she's not sure if she will stay in Krakow, go to Wroclaw, or commute between the two. She's not sure if Poland is temporary, if she will have to find residency in another country, or if she'll be able to go back to Ukraine - ever.

This is just one family's story, but, according to today's Wall Street Journal, it is the story of one of 1.45 million Ukrainians who have fled in the last week. Stacy has an education, speaks English, has a job, has a car, and is white. There are far worse stories than hers of other Ukrainians with little to no education, don't speak English, have no job, have no car, and are not white.

Consider this: The population of Minnesota is 5.64 million. If 1.45 million Minnesotans were to leave our state, that would be more than 25% of our population. The population of Roseau County is only 15,331. The number of people who have fled Ukraine is 95 times greater than the number of people living in Wannaskaland. Imagine: nearly 100 groups of 15,000 people have all left their country. In one week. It leaves me breathless. 

All week, people have been asking my husband, "How do you feel?"

Distressed. He feels distressed. He is shaken to his core as the memories of oppression during his childhood revisit his body and mind.

People ask if he has family in Ukraine. No, he doesn't. Will his family in the Czech Republic be affected? At this time, no. But the fear is this: if Putin captures Ukraine, who will be next? Stacy says that 70% of Polish people are afraid that Poland will be next. Putin has made his intentions known to reclaim a Soviet-era rule. If he's successful, that means that, yes, the Czech Republic along with other Eastern European countries are in danger. The greatest fear is nuclear bombs.

Perhaps the better question to ask instead of "How are you?" is "What can I do?"

• Ask European friends to consider hosting a Ukrainian family for free or low cost. The number of refugees is staggering. There simply aren't enough public services to absorb all of them. The website EU4UA is a website where families can get started.
• Share the news. A database for foreign media outlets of video footage from the war in Ukraine has been gathered by volunteers to be shared with the world.
• Contact your representatives in Congress. Urge them to support Ukraine with humanitarian aid, a no-fly zone over Ukraine, and supplies to the Ukrainian military.
• The website Support Ukraine Now has a more comprehensive collection of suggestions, resources, and links. You can even click on your country of residence for specific ways to help.
• For Americans, here's an article from Vox, How you can help Ukrainians.

To wrap up, I leave you with my friend's final words from our Friday's (yesterday) conversation:

"Real people are dying in the streets. We need the world’s attention. In our history, we never attacked anybody. We’re a country of farmers. We need help. It’s a 21st-century catastrophe in the middle of Europe."

 

Stacy's children: 1)During peacetime, 2) Sheltering in Lviv, 3) In Krakow with their dog Yahont.

On This Day

Historic Highlights (credits)

1981 - The home computer ZX81 is launched

The British ZX81 was one of the world's first home computer and was sold over 1.5 million times.

1970 - The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty enters into force

Nuclear powers China, Russia, U.S., U.K., and France initiated the treaty in 1968. It has since been ratified by 190 nations around the world.

1960 - Alberto Korda takes his famous picture of revolutionary Che Guevara

The iconic photograph, called Guerrillero Heroico, was taken at a memorial service for the victims of the La Coubre explosion.

1872 - The air brake is patented

George Westinghouse is credited with the design of the railway braking system that uses compressed air.

1616 - Nicolaus Copernicus' revolutionary book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is banned by the Catholic Church

In the book, Copernicus claimed that the Earth revolves around the sun. The Church maintained Ptolemy's geocentric system. The book is considered a milestone in the history of astronomy.

Happy Birthday to You!🎶 

1970 - John Frusciante, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer

1951 - Lat, Malaysian cartoonist

1948 - Elaine Paige, English singer, actress

1910 - Momofuku Ando, Taiwanese-Japanese inventor of instant noodles and cup noodles

1908 - Rex Harrison, English actor

Remembering You

2013 - Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan military officer, politician, President of Venezuela

1963 - Patsy Cline, American singer-songwriter, pianist

1827 Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist and inventor of the 1st battery

1770 - Crispus Attucks, a possible slave, is 1st of 5 killed during the Boston Massacre at beginning of the American Revolution

254 - St Lucius I, Pope and Bishop of Rome

Count your blessings, love your people, and make it a great Saturday. 

Kim