A life uprooted: one Ukrainian woman's journey of displacement from Donetsk to Vienna

"I could have not known there was a war for two hours longer", Chernihiv, February 24

At 6:30 a.m. on February 24, 2022, the phone rang in an apartment on Myru Avenue in Chernihiv. The woman was woken up by her friend: "Halia, we are under attack. The war has started." 

Andreyeva remembers it well. On October 7, 2023, the аsituation repeated itself: a neighbor in Israel woke her up at 6:35 a.m.

"On February 24, I didn't need to get up early. I thought: why did you call me? I could have slept in until 10 in the morning and not known that we were at war. I could have stayed awake two hours longer and not known that there was a war. Because that was the last time I slept normally, without any worries."

She walked around her Chernihiv apartment and thought about what to do. Should she pack her go-bag? Her documents? Gold to take to the pawnshop in case of emergency? She decided to move in with the man she was in a relationship with at the time. She was living on the 8th floor of a panel building, and he was on the 2nd floor of a stone house. His "fortress" seemed safer.

"For the first few days, we ran out into the hallway. And then I slept on the couch and didn't go anywhere. I was tired. I was afraid. In the afternoon, when we went for a walk with the dogs, I made my boyfriend take the go-bag." 

Halyna stayed in Chernihiv until March 5. Then she packed her stuff in her car and drove off with her friends, not knowing where she was going.

"I was very lucky that I didn't witness the moment when there was no electricity, no water, and no heating in Chernihiv. Later, when we learned the news about Bucha, we realized that it was not an unfounded fear. What I feared the most was happening in Bucha. This is what I fear most in Israel. I was terrified that what you are afraid of has come somewhere, and it is very close by. This is not a movie."

Crying for two weeks after hearing that it was time to go to Poland

On March 8, 2022, Halyna was in Truskavets. From there, she soon left for Poland.

"The Poles gave Ukrainians a building near Krakow for free. But it was hard for me. There were no doors. I worked online. I had to sit only on the bed or on the floor. It depressed me. It was like being in a hospital, on a bed all day. And my Jewish friends found me a place to live in Krakow. The Jewish community was very supportive of Ukrainians. People came from all over the world to volunteer. My friend flew from the United States to volunteer at the Ukrainian border." 

Halyna stayed in Krakow until mid-May, and then flew to Israel. On the way, she learned that her father had died in Donetsk.

Parents. Donetsk before and after 2014

Halyna Andreyeva left her hometown of Donetsk in 2013. She got married and moved to Chernihiv.

"I still miss Donetsk. I had a happy, comfortable life there. I miss Mariupol. Every summer since I was a child, I went to the sea in Mariupol. My father is from Mariupol. So all these events did not pass me by. For me, the phrase about eight years is not some kind of meme (referring to a cliché of Russian propaganda - ed.) We have been at war since 2014, not since 2022. This is fundamental. Because my parents were in hiding. My sister was afraid when she was leaving work and the occupiers were running down the street. My parents' house in Donetsk is in the city center. When I came to visit them one day, I looked out the window in the morning and saw a lot of military equipment. I panicked," she recalls.

After 2014, Halyna convinced her parents to move to Chernihiv. But six months later, they returned to Donetsk.

"It was hard for my parents. They missed their home. Dad started to get sick."  

All these years, Halyna traveled to the occupied city at least once a year to see her relatives. Her elder sister took care of her parents. The last time Halyna visited her hometown was in September 2021.

"It took me 32 hours to get there from Chernihiv by bus. I went through Kharkiv to Belgorod, through Rostov. It was the only way to get there. I left Ukraine with a foreign passport and entered Russia with a Ukrainian passport. I still have a Donetsk registration."

Halyna says Donetsk ceased to be the city she remembered before 2014.

"Donetsk was thrown back 10 years. There are cafes and theaters – everything works. But it has become something like – well, it’s not the Donetsk. Donetsk was a city with a gloss. Big business brought big money. People earned good money, lived well, went out, and could afford a lot of things. Donetsk lost its gloss. Businesses closed. Everyone who was independent and those without children and not very attached to their parents left."

"Russians felt shame in my presence"

In Israel, Halyna rented a room. She has always identified herself as a Jew and had Israeli citizenship in addition to Ukrainian. She started learning Hebrew. Halyna was the only one from Ukraine in the group. But there were many Russians. Some were ashamed because Russia had attacked Ukraine.

"One man came up to me. He was a musician who taught at a conservatory. He had a Ukrainian flag on his balcony and was wearing a T-shirt about the Russian warship. He said: ‘The war will end and you will be able to return to Ukraine, because you have a normal country that you can respect. And we have nowhere to go back to. We have a s**thole. I sympathize with you, Halyna, but I'm a little jealous that you have a normal country’." 

Halyna admits that she wanted to hit some of the Russians several times.

"There were conversations: oh, we were leaving and didn't sell our apartment or car, we just took our stuff. It hurt me. When people were leaving Ukraine, no one sold anything. We took the cat, a backpack, and left. At worst, we left without the cat. When Russians said they didn't know how to solve the real estate problem, I was angry. I told them: ‘Pack the hell up and go back to sell your car'."  

On October 7, 2023, it was Halyna's birthday. In the evening, she decided to get a good night's sleep. But at 6:35 a.m., sirens sounded in the small Israeli town of Giv'atayim, near Tel Aviv. She had to go to the basement because the apartment where she lives does not have a safety room. The residents of the building were already in the basement. They were in their pajamas and with their cell phones.

"I was surprised. In Ukraine, we used to go to the shelter with backpacks like turtles. We had clothes and necessities in our go-bags. And in Israel, people go down to the basement in their pajamas, with a phone at most. They are calmer. I understand that the documents will be restored if something happens. But I couldn't do that. I packed my documents. I thought: if I end up on the street, I should know what I am going to do," says Halyna.

During the day, she went down to the basement several times. This was not how she planned to celebrate her 40th birthday. But she didn't worry too much. Since May 2022, Halyna has heard air raid alerts more than once.

"So it was hard to understand at first that this was a war, a war, and not some kind of Hamas prank. The realization that there was a full-scale war in Israel came in about 3-4 days.

Israel is a very small country. When people asked me what was happening and where, I answered: ‘In the south, it's far away’. But this ‘in the south, far away’ is 70 kilometers from me. Not even the distance between Chernihiv and Kyiv."

Fleeing the war once again 

On October 24, Halyna planned to attend a dance festival in Lisbon (she has been dancing professionally since she was four years old). So even before the Hamas attack, she bought a plane ticket. Before the flight, she packed and unpacked her suitcase five times.

"There were two important questions: should I take my favorite mug or my paint? It might sound ridiculous. But I know that feeling when you stand in someone else's kitchen and think 'I want my own mug’. It's not there, and you cry. I don't want that again. Because I don't know for how long I'll be leaving this apartment, and I want to take what I'm already holding on to. If I'm leaving forever, I need to clear everything out of the room. And hide a part of my life. I started to do this, and I felt sick. No, I don't want to. I can't hide anything. Because in 2022 I left my apartment in Chernihiv and never returned. My belongings were later collected and now they are in boxes with friends." 

Halyna was supposed to return to Tel Aviv on October 30. But she canceled her return ticket from Portugal and instead went to Vienna to visit a friend who had left Ukraine. In Vienna, Andreyeva seemed to be stuck. She was in no hurry to apply for refugee status. She didn't know what to do: stay or return to Ukraine or Israel.

"I don't know what a woman in a hijab thinks when she finds out that I am Jewish"

In Europe, Halyna says she is from Ukraine. She is sometimes afraid to admit that she is Jewish. Once, she thought that a woman in a hijab, hearing the word "Israel," began to treat her differently.

When she arrived in Vienna with her Israeli documents, she hid them at the airport so that no one would see them. Halyna claims that she understands that an Arab does not equal a terrorist, but she cannot do anything about her fear.

"There were several Arabs behind me in line. It scared me. This is history and the instinct of self-preservation. It scares me a lot when people don't think. They will be told not to go somewhere, then they will be told that someone is bad, then they will be told to throw stones. And they will do it. Someone might say that this is impossible in this century, but I will laugh in their face. I thought the war in Ukraine was impossible."

"I want to go home. What home? There is no home"

Halyna Andreyeva is now at a crossroads. She can't go to Donetsk as it's occupied. She is afraid to go to the Israeli town of Giv’atayim. She no longer sees a place for herself in Chernihiv. In Vienna, she sometimes feels déjà vu.

"I saw red loafers in a store. They were so beautiful. I remembered that I have some like them in a box in Chernihiv. I felt so sad. I guess I'm very materialistic. I have a lot of candles, wooden boxes. My life consists of all sorts of little things. It's hard for me to leave it behind. That's why I didn't buy anything for my apartment in Israel. For the past year and a half, I lived one day at a time. It often happened that somewhere in Europe I would be walking down the street and suddenly I would feel like going home. But what home? There is no home."

At the time of publication, Halyna Andreyeva returned to Israel. She does not know how long she will stay there.

"We'll see," she replied.

Author: Natalia Lazuka