Villa Villekulla in Lviv and its residents. How a young couple helps IDPs feel at home again
Hallway
Girls are competing on who would be the first to run up to a lady with delicate features and wheaten hair. They pretend to have a dispute, “This is my Mom,” “No, Mom is mine.” Then, they both find their nests on their mother’s lap. Their laughter intermingles with other people’s voices, having breakfast together in the living room filled with sunshine.
Since the second day of the war, Uliana, Mykhaylo and their two daughters have been sharing their home with internally displaced persons. They can’t say precisely how many people have found a refuge in their house because they have stopped counting.
Uliana says they often had guests in their house before the war but not so many.
“People tell us that they intend to stay for one day and go further. However, they actually need more time to have normal meals, get some sleep, have a bath, do their laundry, and stay in a warm and quiet place. Our house is safe, and we support longer stays of our IDPs for them to find enough strength to go farther”.
People from Kyiv, Izium, Sumy, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and other Ukrainian cities stayed at their house. Uliana and Mykhaylo didn’t ask them much about their trip and the reasons for fleeing, not to cause them any additional pain.
“At first, I didn’t know a proper way of communicating with people who have suffered a trauma. People who wanted to talk it out were usually the first to start this conversation”.
She recollected one day when the children of the IDPs were playing in the street. When the air-raid alert was on, they started screaming in fear and ran to the house to hide. It is hard to imagine what they had to endure at home. Now Uliana joined the Euromaidan SOS initiative to record human rights violations.
“The organization spreads its specially developed postcards among the shelters. The IDPs can write their testimonies on their own and send them to the specified addresses. However, not many people want to do it. We should come to people, talk to them, and record their statements”.
Uliana. Copyright: Katia Moskaliuk
During the first weeks of the war, Uliana was mainly the one to cook meals. She wanted to create maximally comfortable conditions and let them rest after the trip. The refrigerator was always filled with food because everyone brought something and left it with the hosts.
Now, two families are living in the house of Uliana and Mykhaylo. They have a schedule and take turns to do kitchen work. Uliana says that one of the lodgers, Dmytro, insisted on cooking meals “to keep busy and not think about the war and losses all the time”. Now there is homemade marshmallow and chocolate on the table.
At the beginning of the full-scale war, Mykhaylo decided to help the military. He went to his friend’s brigade as a volunteer. Later, only soldiers with previous combat experience stayed in service. Mykhaylo came back to his home and work.
“The city is gradually returning to its normal life. And so am I,” – says Mykhaylo with a smile.
Uliana is a postgraduate at the History Department of the Ukrainian Catholic University. She says she can’t read specialized literature now, especially about Holocaust, which she studies in detail.
“Many of my friends and postgraduates have joined the army. There is even a story about one postgraduate who met his research advisor in the territorial defense troops. I hope they all will come home alive”.
She adds that the international scientific community writes support letters to Ukraine and suggests our students have their internship abroad. However, Uliana and Mykhaylo stay in Ukraine because here they can provide people with the comforts of home. At least for a few days.
The couple tries to provide the comforts of home. Copyright: Katia Moskaliuk
Kitchen
Tymur is resting in the armchair, covered with a colorful plaid blanket. He came to Lviv from Severodonetsk on March 4 and spent the first night in “A Hiding Place”, with his friends Uliana and Mykhaylo. He remembers that the explosions in the demarcation line area were heard a week before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the morning of February 24, he and his friend left their native city. He packed all his things into a large backpack and his documents – into a smaller one.
“I am joking that one bag contained my entire life: my birth certificate, school certificates, and medical records. I am sorry for not pulling out a hard drive with all the pictures. As for my cultural property, I managed to take only a comics book, presented by my friends from Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”
Tymur
In Severodonetsk, Tymur was an activist in the cultural sphere. He conducted tours and had co-projects with artists. He worked for a company that specialized in silk printing. Tymur hopes to return to his native city one day.
“A shell hit the neighboring block of apartments, several balconies were destroyed. The windows in our block were broken, but my apartment was still intact. The game is still on”.
The boy adds that he was deeply attached to his home and didn’t want to leave. However, many of his friends have already left, and there are fewer and fewer acquaintances staying in Severodonetsk.
Tymur stayed with his relatives in Ternopil. He failed to find anything to do there. When his friends forwarded him an announcement about the need for a volunteer at the warehouse near Lviv, he bought a ticket within one hour and went there. The boy says that he lives in a complex of hotels and restaurants, where he sleeps on a mattress.
“We have had a pile of boxes with humanitarian aid, so I have made a house out of them – walls and shelves. However, my boxes were taken away soon, and I was deprived of my personal space again”.
He says he likes joking and keeps his spirits up. The feeling of a perspective helps him keep afloat.
Dmytro and Ania
As for Dmytro and Anna, who came from Sumy, they have plans for their nearest future. Dmytro has been teaching the subject of Food Products at the Sumy university. He was developing biodegradable dishware. In addition to his university work, he and Anna worked in the laboratory, elaborating new products from secondary raw materials. For instance, they made tasty chocolate using coffee grounds.
“I am trying to evacuate the laboratory from Sumy to Lviv. I want to install it here and continue my research. My partner and I are working on launching the food direction. I want to resume my work, to earn money because now we live on loans,” – Dmytro shares with us.
Dmytro and Ania recollect that they packed their to-go bags in the morning of February 24. They couldn’t imagine that such a cruel war was possible in the 21st century. The first day was spent watching the news.
“I was born in Kharkiv; I moved to Sumy about seven years ago,” – says Dmytro. “My parents and my sister are staying in the Kharkiv region. Every day, I call them several times to ask how everyone is.”
Ania and Dmytro didn’t plan on leaving. But then a line of enemy tanks passed through the city. Then armored combat vehicles drove through at high speed. Ania remembers that the roar from their movement was just unbelievable, though the vehicles moved about a kilometer away from their house. With time, shops started closing down in the city; people stocked up on food.
“One day, an airplane flew above us, and a second later, we heard an explosion. The walls of the house were shaken, and the plaster fell. It was a bomber which flew low not to be detected by the radars, and dropped a bomb on the residential areas,” – says Dmytro. This event and the relatives’ recommendations forced Dmytro and Ania to evacuate.
They didn’t pack much – just the documents and phone chargers. They wanted to be mobile to facilitate moving from one place to another. The places for evacuation were organized in Sumy. The first corridor was intended for international students studying at Sumy higher educational institutions, and the second was for the locals.
“There were very many people, and it was really tight. We managed to get on a bus because the door opened next to us,” – remembers Ania. They took a bus to Poltava and then a train to Lviv. They were sitting on the train but had neither food nor water. However, the volunteers came in at train stations and distributed drinks and sandwiches. When they arrived at the Lviv train station, they were surprised by the hospitality. Dmytro knew Mykhaylo; they had had a business trip to Germany together. Before the trip, we called them and then came to stay at Villa “A Hiding Place”.
“I dream that all our relatives will stay alive and healthy, and our houses will remain intact. I hope my parents will not have to leave because it is always so hard for the elderly. We are planning to develop our laboratory in Lviv. I want to see Russia fail in all the respects,” says Dmytro. Ania is afraid of another advance of the Russian troops in Sumy. “I believe in our victory and want the war to end as soon as possible,” – she says. “I dream about settling in Lviv and starting a new life.”
Living room
“Our son Matviy is ten. That’s precisely how long we have been living in Kyiv – it’s easy to remember,” says Nikita with a smile. Nikita, his wife Tetiana, and their son have been living in the house of Uliana and Mykhaylo for over a month. They left Kyiv on February 25 by train, and their acquaintances advised them to stay at Villa “A Hiding Place”.
Tetiana and Nikita
“On the first day of the war, we woke up with the explosions and started packing our to-go bags. When we looked in the window, we saw some people packing their cars, taking even some kitchen equipment, and some were having a stroll with their dogs or their kids in prams. We decided to calm down a bit, go shopping for food and wait,” says Nikita.
He remembers seeing the bombers flying with horrible sounds. They watched the news for the entire day and decided to spend the night at the Metro station, “We live on the twelfth floor, so it was dangerous to stay at home for the night. There are no special bomb shelters in the house, and the basements were closed. The person, responsible for them, had already left the city and taken the keys with her. Finally, the locks were removed. However, these were ordinary basements with one way out, so they would be a trap for the people if covered with the rubble,” – says Tetiana.
Tetiana and Nikita
Nikita and Tetiana took two camping mats, a backpack with essential things, and documents and went to the Metro station. “There were very many people in the Metro. This situation reminded me of an overcrowded beach with no place to place your towel. We found a place in the hallway,” – remembers Nikita. Matviy fell asleep fast, while Nikita and Tetiana took turns to sleep and watched the news. They were all woken up by a loud explosion at half-past four. Something hit the house near the Metro station. The couple decided not to return home but went immediately to the train station.
Nikita remembers that they even managed to buy two tickets – they didn’t know that there would be free evacuation trains. There were too many people; the platform was terribly overcrowded. People lost their shoes; the handles got torn off large suitcases. The police had to control the people’s getting on board. Tetiana and Matviy got on one train, and Nikita squeezed his way into the next one.
“Matviy and I occupied half of the lower berth in the compartment. Many women and children were there with us. There was a mother of two children who had almost lost one child on the platform. She was crying the entire way, and other passengers tried to entertain her children. I sang songs to Matviy, told fairy tales in his ear to calm both him and myself down,” – recollects Tetiana. Nikita had the phone charger, so they found each other at the Lviv train station by miracle.
Tetiana and Nikita are musicians. Their son Matviy goes to the fourth grade of a secondary school and the third grade of the musical school. As it happens, the house of Uliana and Mykhaylo has a piano, and their friends have brought a guitar for Nikita. The man resumes his work in Kyiv, working remotely at the time.
“It is not always convenient to practice at home because other people need silence and rest,” explains Tetiana. “We went to the musical college, and they allowed us to practice there. Every day, Matviy and I go to the college to play the piano. It gives us some schedule and an illusion of normal life.”
Tetiana and Nikita intend to go back home to Kyiv, “When we were at home, I used to complain about not going anywhere, as we had to solve some issues all the time. Yet now this is what I want the most – just stay in Kyiv and do some routine housework,” says Tetiana.
The house, which welcomed dozens of people. Copyright: Katia Moskaliuk
Nikita adds that in Lviv, he has got acquainted with many marvelous people and feels the unity of everyone and their willingness to help each other, “I want our unity to stay for a long time very much, I don’t want the people of Ukraine to have any disputes or misunderstanding.”
