Ukrainian refugees in Krakow, Poland: ‘It is so reminiscent of Kyiv before the war’

Oksana Hordiienko (27) has been to Poland before, but she never expected to return as a refugee.

After crossing the border with her colleague Liuda Vishesha (25) on March 6th, they are now renting an apartment in Krakow with another friend from their job at a tech company.

They both left loved ones behind in Kyiv. Oksana’s husband is unable to join her, as all Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving the country, while Liuda’s family are so far refusing her pleas to leave their homeland.

Twice a day, every day, the women have been joining a protest in the main square.

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Poles have been “very welcoming”, Oksana says, adding that it’s “weird” to see how normal life is here. The city is “so reminiscent of Kyiv before the war” but it helps to distract her.

Krakow is teeming with post-lockdown tourism, while hundreds of refugees continue to arrive. It's a "very jarring contrast", Dublin man Dave Remond says.

“On one hand, you see a lot of young Ukrainian families arriving in the city, looking shell shocked and confused. The next street over you see a group of young European tourists on a walking tour,” he says.

“It’s not how we’d classically imagine these types of crises, but you can feel that more and more people are arriving on a daily basis.”

The signs that the population has swelled with thousands of refugees in the city are ubiquitous – posters everywhere in Ukrainian, and more Ukrainian voices in the streets. However, a lot of the refugees have been absorbed into the city, making the crisis somewhat less visible or obvious.

Redmond, who has lived in Krakow for three years with his fiancee, was helping friends renovate a venue in the city into a bar where he would DJ. When the war began, they bought mattresses and cots and turned the space into a temporary hostel for displaced families instead.

Some 30 families have passed through their doors so far, before going on to more permanent accommodation in the country or in Germany and Sweden.

On Saturday, three mothers, a newborn baby boy, a toddler and a young girl were living in the bar.

“It’s not suitable for day-to-day living. The challenge is to transition from this emergency relief kind of situation, to set up systems and a framework where you can help people in a long-term way with employment, with child care, with accommodation, to give these people back their independence, to build a life for themselves here,” Redmond says.

Remond is going through the process of setting up an official foundation through which he can use funds raised on GoFundMe in a “more sustainable” way.

His fear is that generosity will “dry up at some point”.

“Unfortunately, human nature dictates that it won’t last and eventually people will want to get back to their regular lives. And that’s where the real issues will start.”

Oksana and Liuda are already seeing evidence of that. Two weeks ago, the protests in Krakow were huge, Liuda says: “Many people were joining us. Now we still protest every day, but we are seeing less people joining.”

At the central railway station, dazed Ukrainian families queue outside reception offices and rest rooms.

Volunteer Vera Dabraliunova said 500 beds at the station would be full by night time.

Speaking in Polish, Dabraliunova says the people coming here have been “travelling with kids for maybe four days and just don’t have any more strength. So they rest here for a little bit, get something to eat, and then move on.”

Keith Byrne translates for the volunteers. Originally from Dublin, he has made Krakow his home of almost 20 years.

He has opened his own home to refugees and, like Redmond, is now trying to “ensure there is a long-term solution” to the influx. He hopes to set up a daycare centre for children which will be staffed by Ukrainian refugees who are qualified teachers.

“We’re talking about increasing the population of the city by 15 to 20 per cent in the space of a month. The increase is slowing down, but it’s still increasing. We’re moving from triage to contingency now.”