Portugal

Two months after arriving in Portugal, Alina Levchenko and her sister Kateryna Skrebtsov are trying to stay busy. Despite their search for a new home and job, their minds are back to their home in Kyiv. Seva Skrebtsov, 6, with his mother, Kateryna Skrebtsov (left) and aunt Alina Levchenko (right) at their makeshift home near Lisbon. Photo: Gonçalo Fonseca “We thought it would be easier in a sunny country with so many people, but we still want to go home; although I do not think we will go soon.” The Ukrainian diaspora in Lisbon was an important source of community for them, says Levchenko, and through this network they were able to find Portuguese language courses, which occupy most of their mornings. “It’s a tough language, but it’s better than both of us,” says Levchenko, laughing. The family is looking forward to finding their own place to move after staying with a host, but finding a new home in Lisbon has not been easy. Many landlords cannot speak English, Levchenko explains, and many are reluctant to rent them due to their lack of work. They both spend their days looking for work and have started vocational courses online to broaden their job prospects. A recent offer from a family friend hosting them to rent a house on the outskirts of Lisbon at a discounted price offers a taste of hope for their future in Portugal. For now, Seva will remain in the online school with his class back in Ukraine, while waiting to settle in an apartment and then they can enroll him in a Portuguese school for next year. These months were especially difficult for Seva, who misses his father, his aunt explains. They have taken advantage of excursions organized by Ukrainians to Portugal that allow them to explore their new city on weekends. Seva’s favorite destination is the beach. “Sometimes he is a little moody and aggressive because he is very sensitive to this whole situation,” says Levchenko. “But by the sea it is comfortable and calm.”

The Czech Republic

If Maria Ustenko and her daughter Mila hoped for a smooth transition into life in the Czech Republic after escaping the Kharkiv bombing, fate had something different in store. Three-year-old Mila Ustenko plays on a phone at the Motol Hospital in Prague, where she has undergone neck surgery. Photo: Bjoern Steinz / The Guardian Days after they moved last month from their temporary host family near Prague to a converted refugee center in the northern Czech town of Litvinov, three-year-old Mila fell with an obvious throat infection that saw her with a temperature of 40 C +. Medication from a hospital in Most failed to heal and Mila was re-admitted – but only after local police intervened to transport her when the ambulance service refused on the grounds that the refugee facility was too far from the hospital. A number of tests for diseases including meningitis did not shed light on the cause. Only after Mila’s symptoms worsened further, preventing her from swallowing even her own saliva, an electromagnetic scan revealed an abscess in her throat. This led to the decision to transport mother and daughter to Motol Hospital in Prague, where a surgeon successfully operated to remove the abscess. Doctors suspect that Mila, already suffering from low immunity, became infected when the refugee center received families from the devastated port of Mariupol, which fell to Russia after a long siege forced thousands of people to live in unsanitary conditions. and disease spread. conditions. Mila is recovering now, but the experience has complicated her mother’s hopes for a job. Ustenko had two job offers – one as a hospital cleaner, another in a factory – but the proposed hours are a problem. He vacated the home of their original host, Liza Zinova, a Ukrainian business owner based in Prague, to free up space after Zinova’s sister and niece arrived as refugees from Kharkov via Austria. When Ustenko’s friend from Kharkov moved to the Litvinov facility with her son, Ustenko decided that she and Mila should join them, with the idea that the two mothers could work together, one working while the other another to take care of the children. This is still the plan, but the couple is now waiting for a special kindergarten service to open that will allow them to take on more flexible working hours. One thing that excludes Ustenko is that he will return to Kharkov soon. “I will stay here, at least until Kharkiv is rebuilt,” he said. “It has been badly damaged and the problem now is a lot of hidden mines, which are dangerous for children.” Despite the setbacks she and Mila have endured, she describes life in the Czech Republic as “wonderful, normal and calm”.

Poland

Katerina Shukh now has her job back and this occupies most of the waking hours. She is hired as a therapist by Human Doc, the same organization that helped her escape from Mariupol and find accommodation in Poland. She runs art therapy classes with refugee children from Ukraine and group sessions with their mothers. Psychologist Katerina Shukh with her grandparents, Kateryna Nemenushyaya and Viktor Nemeenushiy. Photo: Anna Liminowicz / The Guardian “The sessions are designed to help children adapt to these difficult conditions. “We make art and talk while we play and paint,” says Shukh. “It gives children a space to process their emotions. “Sometimes their parents are not able to talk about all this pain,” he says, pointing to the plans made by the toddlers, some pointing to tanks and flying rockets. This is not a new job for Shukh. Back in Mariupol, the psychologist held similar sessions for internally displaced refugees from the eastern areas occupied by Russian forces since 2014. When he does not deliver sessions, he arranges for the transfer of young refugees from eastern Ukraine. He welcomes them to the border and helps them settle in Poland. “I try to do what I can for my country, for the people of my country and I often forget myself and my situation,” says Shukh. While her grandparents miss their village, she is glad she can spend time with them, as well as her mother who travels between Ukraine and Poland in refugee transport. “When we are together, we keep talking about our situation and the news, but we try to find room for recovery.” Some of the refugees he worked with have returned to Ukraine, especially those from the western regions and Kyiv. “The lives of refugees are not easy. “They want to go back to their own apartment, to a familiar place,” says Shukh. “But I do not have the opportunity to return. “My city has been destroyed.”

France

In March, Liudmyla Abdo had left a war zone. Tired, dizzy and suffering from acute stress, she sat in the Buttes-Chaumont Park in Paris and recounted her experience of leaving Kyiv overnight. Liudmyla Abdo plays the piano in the Paris apartment she now shares with her son, Marsel. Photo: Sara Farid / The Guardian Three months later, Abdo looks like a young woman, welcoming me with a smile to the apartment she shares with her son, Marsel. “My heart is calm,” he says. In the corner, a Ukrainian flag hangs from a neighbor’s window, with the word solidarity. Abdo says she has received an outburst of support from the French she meets. “Whenever anyone hears that I am from Ukraine, they offer to help.” If the French people were helpful, the government was less helpful. Due to a mistake in her papers, Abdo has not yet received a single cent of the payments she is entitled to as a “temporary beneficiary” in France. In the absence of this, she has been supported by her two sons, although she was recently told that she would receive a refund for the lost benefits. Even though you already speak five languages, learning French has been a challenge. Early on, he was placed in a special language course for Ukrainians, but the courses were aimed at younger refugees who had to work. For 67-year-old Abdo the pace was very fast. At the moment, she teaches with prints from the internet and succeeds in English. Every time someone hears that I’m from Ukraine, they offer to help Liudmyla Abdo Accompanied by a new French friend, Abdo has seen the sights of Paris that are loved by millions of tourists every year: the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Musée Carnavalet. She is proud to have conquered the Métro. But the knowledge of what happens at home is always with her. While avoiding reading or watching news from Ukraine, he talks daily with friends in Kyiv. She feels guilty that she is safe in Paris while living under fire. But her friends tell her to live well, because she can. So he does what he can. “Paris is so full of life,” says Marsel. “Just go out on the streets and there are good vibrations – he feels it.”

Spain

Three months later, and despite what they had to leave behind, Olga Kuzminik and her family are still a little shocked by their reception in Spain, which has accepted more than 134,000 Ukrainian refugees. Olga Kuzminykh and her husband, Faig Budagov, with their daughter Alisa and Olga’s mother, Katerina Kuzminykh, at their temporary home in the small Spanish town of El Espinar. Photo: Denis Doyle / The Guardian “What really surprises us about Spain is the people,” said Kuzminykh, who arrived in Madrid on March 12 with her mother, Katerina, her husband, Faig Budagov, and their daughter, Alisa. “People here treat us like family, even though we have never met. “We had no idea they would be so friendly.” Life in the small town of El Espinar, an hour northwest of the Spanish capital, is comfortable –…