Spring 2022
After fleeing the war in Kyiv in March, I travelled with my wife and 10-year-old son to Bratislava, Slovakia. We spent a month there staying with friends. I’m a longtime Kyiv resident but hold a passport from a different country, so I was allowed to leave. At that stage, we were still in the wartime mindset. It’s like a fog in my brain to think of this time.
While we were in Bratislava, we were desperately trying to get my wife’s parents out of Chernihiv. Their house got hit by some kind of bomb, and they spent long days in the basement. Finally, they managed to leave.
In April we travelled to Warsaw to stay with friends. The plan was always to come to the UK, where my sister and nephews live, but we first met my wife’s parents in Poland. It was very emotional when we met. My wife thought she would never see them again.
Our car got stolen in Warsaw just before Easter. It was horrible; we had an emotional connection to that car. When the invasion started, we slept in the vehicle in an underground car park before fleeing Kyiv, and before the war we had taken holidays driving across Europe – to Italy, Germany, Bulgaria. We still miss it.
The war in Kyiv was a bit quieter so my wife and I decided to go back to collect her car, which we had left with friends in a quiet area. (Our son stayed with his grandparents.) The bus took 29 hours. I’m very tall, so it wasn’t comfortable. My parents-in-law had begged us not to go. But when we got to Kyiv I was really happy not to hear the sounds of jet fighters and gunshots again.
We stayed only two days – my wife’s parents and our son calling us every 30 to 40 minutes – got the car and left. Returning, we saw burnt-out tanks with the letter Z on them. Seeing ruins and smashed-out buildings of places you recognise makes you feel depressed. Police warned us: don’t stop on the side of the road, there are landmines. It was scary. We took turns and drove nonstop for 14 hours back to Warsaw.
Summer 2022
In May, we got approval to come to the UK via the family scheme. We were happy to be seeing my sister and nephews, and felt very thankful to the UK government. We still don’t feel like we’ve left Ukraine forever; it’s only a three-year visa. Ukraine is my home, I love that place. There were complications with registering the car with DVLA, so we flew into London and decided to sort the car later.
Landing in the UK, we didn’t immediately feel a sense of peace. You don’t feel comfortable when you’re still on the road. You keep looking forward until you stop. We got the coach to Coventry, where my sister lives. We stayed at hers until mid-June, staying in the rooms of her two grownup sons.
After the war began, my son started washing his hands all the time. The bombs and the drive out of Kyiv had caused psychological problems. A psychologist later said he was trying to retain control again. But when we arrived in Coventry he started to feel a bit more relaxed. With the help of my sister, we enrolled him in school straight away for the last few weeks of term. The teachers, staff and other children were really kind.
That summer we also managed to have a trip to London, my son’s first time. We went to the London Eye, Westminster, the Tower of London. It was good for him.
We tried to enrol my son in a great secondary school but they said it was full. A few days into the new term, the school called us and said they’d found a place. He was so happy. He loved wearing a school uniform for the first time, which he didn’t wear in Kyiv. He also got to see a school psychologist, which is helping, and a surprise birthday party for his 11th birthday.
By the end of summer, I felt like my head was starting to come back. My mind started to go back to normal things, like making money to provide for my family.
Autumn 2022
Much of my autumn was spent in meetings trying to launch my business, which is in wholesale food trading. It was tricky. I spent hours sitting on the phone to HMRC, listening to hold music. My wife was taking Esol [English as a second or foreign language] classes to improve her English, through the council, and decided to start volunteering in adult education.
We are in touch 24/7 with people back in Ukraine. If there’s a missile or a drone, we’re messaging about it. It can feel exhausting. I get push notifications from a CCTV camera on our Kyiv apartment. Every time it flashes I think: is it a bird or will our apartment be on fire?
Winter 2022-23
I’m still afraid of my family’s future – will we ever be able to return to normal life? Can I provide the life we enjoyed in Ukraine here? I feel threatened by these questions. But I think this experience has made us stronger in many ways as a family.
In January, I finally got my company fully registered with HMRC. I’m happy to finally be paying back to this country in taxes. We also send money each month back to Ukraine for the war effort, and I’ve tried to use my logistics experience to help manage supplies – like working out routes for batteries, humanitarian aid and more from the EU to Ukraine.
On 24 February, one year on from the Russian invasion, it’s also our wedding anniversary. This year will be 16 years. At first, my wife and I decided not to do anything. It felt wrong to celebrate on a sad day like this. But the other day we discussed it some more. We thought: we won’t give that present to Russia, not to celebrate.
We’re going to have some kind of family dinner, marking 16 years since our family was born. The war is still raging. But life should go on, too.
