Masha & family
The sixth in a series of twelve days of Christmas. Personal stories by Ukrainians now in Austria. In their own words.
I chat with Masha over Telegram, while her young daughter, Anna, is in the background doing an online German language lesson. As the only Ukrainian student in her village school’s first grade class (Anna is in first grade for the second time — the first year of first grade she began in Kharkiv before the war broke out), Anna is trying to catch up in German, and Masha has arranged these online lessons. Every once in a while, the eight year-old interrupts her mom to ask a question “can you sharpen my pencil?”, in perfect Russian with the rolling of the Rs I will never master which comes easily only to native speakers. Masha answers Anna with the calm patience of a saint, and I think to myself it must be like that when you only have one. I have three, and I was always impatient with all of them, especially when they were younger.
Masha, her husband Dima, and Anna are now the only Ukrainian family in a small town of 3000 people in Lower Austria near the Czech border. Both Masha and Dima grew up in Transdnistria, and unrecognised breakaway state within Moldova. Masha sees so many parallels between what her home region experienced in the 1990s and the war in Ukraine now. A line was literally drawn down the river, with left and right banks separated. Masha and Dima were young but they remember the violence. Masha’s grandmother had to be evacuated. Masha’s father is Ukrainian, having been born in a village in Ukraine 20 kilometres away. Her mother is Moldovan. When Masha came of age, she went through the arduous process of applying for Ukrainian citizenship for herself. She had spent all her holidays in her granny’s village in Ukraine, just over the border. Ukraine was offering scholarships for good students. At the age of 16 or 17, Masha went to Kharkiv to study in university, all by herself. Her husband, Dima, did the same from Transdnistria, moving to Poltava to study when he was 17. He is two years older than Masha.
Masha studied journalism and worked in Kharkiv, supporting herself. Her parents had only modest means and could only help pay for her dorm room. She has a younger sister. She worked hard, lived on the scholarship, worked alongside her studies. Dima moved to Kharkiv after graduation to work as an engineer. In 2012, the couple married. In 2014, Maidan began and Masha fell pregnant. There were some pro-Russian movements at the time in Kharkiv. Masha was working in a department store downtown and remembers one day they had to draw all the shades and hide inside the jewellery department. Even in 2014, she and Dima had suitcases packed.
“We left for Ukraine in search of a peaceful life and opportunities for the future,” Masha recalls. It was not easy for either she nor Dima to apply for citizenship, but they did it, purposely. The entire family, even eight year-old Anna, are still technically registered at the address of granny’s falling apart village home just over the Ukraine border from Transdnistria. Masha and Dima lived in a “sleeping region” of Kharkiv, and in 2014 they saw many refugees arrive to their neighbourhood from Donbas. They helped within their means. They are still friends with a couple in their 60s who fled a town on the front lines. That couple had just bought a new apartment when the 2014 war broke out.
Masha recalls they had opportunities to go abroad. Dima worked in Poland, two stints of half a year each. He was offered good jobs. Masha didn’t want to leave Ukraine. She liked the people she was surrounded by. She was happy with the medical care. Anna had just started first grade. Masha had just gone back to work. Neighbours helped babysit. Masha and Dima began looking at mortgages again. He had a good job, she was selling baked goods from home. But as last winter moved on, Dima began to grow more and more anxious.
Masha refers to Dima as a natural born “analyst”. He saw all the signs around him which others didn’t want to believe. Kharkiv is only 40 kilometres from the Russian border. He was worried in January already. When Russia “accepted” the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk republics, Dima said that is a very bad sign. Four days before the war started, Dima ordered Masha to pack bags, take out cash, get their daughter’s medical file (Anna has a serious endocrinological condition which requires an expensive medication to be injected by a trained doctor once every three months). The packed bags stood by the apartment door, waiting.
On February 23, Dima filled up the family car with gas, an old Lada they had bought to use for trips outside the city to the countryside. It was never intended to cover long distances. Dima was nervous. He suggested putting notes in Anna’s coat pockets, saying who her parents are, in case something might happen, in case they might be separated. Masha was shocked, but followed along. Dima bought extra food, water, flashlights. He examined the cellar in their five-story Khryushev-era apartment building even though it was padlocked.
The family was awakened on February 24 in the early hours with the sounds of war launched. Masha saw a missed call from a friend in Kyiv, who had called to warn at 4:30am. The family could see the area of Severnaya Saltovka from their building. Their windows shook as explosions hit. Masha says it is impossible to describe in words what they felt then. The family cat hid under the sofa. They took cover in the cooridor. She told Anna to watch cartoons. Dima went outside and ripped the padlock off the cellar. He met the neighbours packing the car to leave at 5:20am. Dima had calculated: tanks move at 40 kph, the family would have 40 minutes to leave. No one knew what would come next. Dima had even prepared a packing list ahead of time, so nothing would be forgotten in panic: phones, laptop, charger, passports, cat. The family packed the car, and left. He called his work colleagues. They let their parents know they would try to get out of Kharkiv. Masha called her sister who is studying in Kaliningrad, in Russia.
The family headed to Poltava where their godfather lived. It took the whole day. Four or five hours just to get out of Kharkiv. They saw missiles and rockets being moved into the city. There were horrific traffic jams. People were lining up to buy gas. People were walking on the sides of the road, with kids, backpacks, trying to get out of the city, on foot even. When they reached Poltava, they had a rest, and decided to keep going. They travelled west the entire next day, sleeping in the car, stopping in villages along the way, trying to buy gas, get some food. At some point both Masha and Dima were crying together as they drove. Near Cherkassy they saw missiles hit, smoke in the distance. It was very scary. They got close to the Ukraine border and a family from Kharkiv told them this border is closed, you need to try another one. They approached the border with Moldova. The line was nearly 24 hours long to cross.
The family drove to the town square and as air raid sirens wailed they started searching Facebook groups for accommodation. Masha sent a message to a local man who offered a place to stay. He responded ten minutes later. He worked for emergency services, and had already sent his own family to safety to Moldova. He showed Masha, Dima and Anna into his own home, then went to work a 24 hour shift, telling them to make themselves comfortable, eat, use the banya. Masha could not believe it. The family slept in the cellar that evening, as the air raid sirens continued. The next day, they decided to keep going, but they left the car behind, walking across the border instead. Their relatives met them on the Moldovan side.
The family didn’t know if Dima would be let out. Masha wanted the family to stay together. Anna’s medical condition meant that under Ukrainian law Dima should be allowed to accompany his wife and child. Luckily, no one gave him any trouble on the border.
Masha began searching for Anna’s medicine. A friend of a friend helped them locate a dose in Chisinau, the capital. Masha took Anna there to a hospital to receive her injection. Three weeks later, Masha went back into Ukraine to drive over the family car, once the border lines had gone down. There had been explosions even in Tiraspol. Masha wanted to go further. She had friend in Germany, but knew she didn’t want to live in a refugee camp. Dima suggested Austria. They both began searching online groups for information. Masha scoured Facebook, Instagram, using Google translate. In May, she found a message about a room available in a small town in Lower Austria. The only criteria Masha had was that the town be no more than 200km from Vienna (for hospital visits) and the family be allowed to bring their cat.
The next day, Masha received a message from a Ukrainian who was married to an Austrian and offered the family accommodation. Masha and Dima agreed. They started driving towards Austria. 200 kilometres before they reached the town, their car had trouble. Dima began tinkering on the side of the motorway. Eventually, they arrived. It was a separate small apartment with its own kitchen — fully furnished, the kitchen was stocked with everything you might need. The Austrian hosts had even brought a kitty litter box. It was an older lady who has years of experience helping refugees of all different nationalities in Austria. She helped the family with registration, and they would hand over the €300 rent compensation they would receive from the state to their Austrian landlords. As they did not have €700 for a deposit, they would pay €50 each month until it was paid off. The landlord did not collect money for May, only for June, once they had received money from the state. All registration was down in the local town mayor’s office. They travelled 40 kilometres to make fingerprints at the police station. They were the only Ukrainians in the whole town.
Anna was immediately enrolled in the local school. The family car broke down. The repairs would cost €600 they didn’t have. The Austrian loaned them the money. In the summer, Masha secured an appointment to take Anna to see a specialist doctor in the AKH, Europe’s largest hospital, in Vienna. A local doctor, an ethnic Serb, helped them with the paperwork. The medicine was approved. Masha travels every three months to the AKH with Anna. She had all of Anna’s medical records meticulously translated into German. But now train travel is no longer free, and Masha calculates the next visit in December will cost them between €80 and €100 round trip on the train, for her and Anna. I encourage her to ask the AKH about reimbursement. Masha hesitates. I explain: it is a lot of money for anyone, please ask what might be possible.
Dima was determined to find a job as soon as possible. He realized without German he would likely not find a job in his engineering profession. He began searching for anything and everything locally, but it was not easy. He went to AMS, he walked onto every factory in the area, he searched and knocked on doors for months. They took online German classes as there was nothing locally. They paid for this out of their own pocket. It was very stressful. Dima was not used to not working. He was used to providing for his family. He was determined to find a way out.
The after-care program at school (Austrian elementary school is only until noon) costs money. Money the family does not have. At the moment, Anna attends one day per week in the afternoons. Masha hopes to pay for a second day from January. It costs €100 per month without lunch to stay longer, and lunch costs €4.80 per day. The local mayor’s office did not agree to cover the afternoon program and lunch costs for Anna.
Dima’s phone just died. They calculated it will cost around €200 to replace his Android. He needs his phone for everything and yet it is an expense they cannot afford now. Dima finally got a job, all on his own, packing in a pet food factory. As soon as he was employed, the family immediately lost their social payments and their health insurance. Luckily, the family doctor (the Serb) helped them reinstate their insurance in a matter of weeks via Dima’s new employer. This was critical so that Anna does not lose out on her medication she needs every three months.
Dima managed to find a job but not through any help of the state. AMS didn’t help. In fact, AMS even sent Ukrainians to apply for jobs where the employers then said they never had any intention to hire Ukrainians for these roles. Dima knocked on doors across the entire region. A friend from Kharkiv helped him write his resume in German. Masha’s sister helped him write an English version. As Masha says, “there are men who solve problems, and men who cause problems. My husband is one of the former.”
At the local swimming pool in summer, the family met a Czech man, who introduced them to a family from Slovakia. They have three girls, the dad works in a local factory. The families became friends. They invited the Ukrainians to house-sit while they were on summer holiday at the seaside. The Slovakian dad gave Dima tips on how to apply to the various factories around. Dima opened the map and applied everywhere. He opened a local Facebook group and saw a message about a pet food factory looking for packers. The Austrian man answered him, and asked for his resume. Two days later, Dima was called for an interview.
He went in, spoke a mix of German and English, they invited him for a trial day. A Georgian lady who speaks Russian was there to teach him. He was given a trial month. AMS approval for his employment arrived a few days later. The social payments were immediately removed from the family. The first week of work was hard — it was long hours working with your hands. There are night and day shifts. It is a 25 kilometer drive. Gas costs them €25 per week. Dima fills up the car in Czech Republic where it is cheaper. It is hard work on the conveyer but Dima is grateful. Many Czechs work there. They are offered German lessons via the company. A week ago, Dima was told he has been moved to a permanent contract. When they work weekends or nights, they receive extra €30 vouchers they can use at a local mall. On a full-time contract, Dima earns around €1,400 after tax, €300 of which he pays in rent, and they are still paying down their deposit and car repair loan.
In the summer, Dima also cleaned fish for a few weeks to earn some extra money at a local restaurant. Masha would also like to do some odd jobs, but it isn’t easy to find in a small town.
Masha tells me she knows many Ukrainians resent those, like her, who can be here together with their husbands. She wants them to know they help in any way they can, also gathering humanitarian aid to be sent to Ukraine, helping those in need to the extent they can.
Masha talks very rationally about budgeting and what is and isn’t possible, with very much a “can do” attitude. It is this can do attitude that probably helped her family get through what was surely not an easy period. She says it was very hard with Dima looking for work, feeling discouraged at times, very much wanting to provide for his family as he always had done, and not finding opportunities easily. But he persevered, and he did it.
As we talk I hear Masha chat in the background in German. She has popped out to buy bread and sour cream. She greets the older lady by name who helped them with the apartment. I imagine how this young Ukrainian family has now become part of the small town’s fabric. I find it particularly interesting how they have received real help from other nationalities — not just Austrians. Masha says they and their new Slovak friends nearly understand each other when they speak their own Slavic languages. The older immigrants helping newer immigrants very much reminds me of Canada.
I thank Masha for her time and her cantor, and wish them the best of luck.
The names of this family have been changed per their request. Masha did not ask for any help, but a smartphone is clearly really needed for Dima, who now goes to work without any means of communication, and perhaps help towards Anna’s after-school fees. Masha did write me she doesn’t know if they will have a tree this year…”probably not if it weren’t for Anna”, she wrote. If you would like to get in touch with the family directly, please let me know.