Ukrainian refugees in Carlow: ‘Volunteers here helped me find shoes’

Liliia Lisova (23) was working as a barista in Cherkasy in central Ukraine when the Russian invasion began. Though her city appeared to be safe, she decided to leave.

"The last goodbye, I was with my mother in a Polish airport. She hugged me and I went through the security. After that I flew to Ireland.

“Volunteers here helped me to find shoes because I arrived in hard winter shoes. I had some other things with me. Other people hadn’t a lot. Volunteers helped one lady who lost her phone under the shelling to find a phone, and those who were without clothes as well.

"Ballon is great. It's really lovely here, the community here, the people from Ballon are very kind and open, coming in to us just to talk and helping us with our problems. It's great even just having someone to talk to. They're just very kind."

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Liliia’s mother stayed in Ukraine with Liliia’s grandmother and stepfather. They talk every day, and Liliia’s mother is happy that her daughter is safe.

“I never wanted to leave my family but we decided that it would be better and my mother would feel easier, it’s better for her that I’m here, so we decided that I would go to Ireland.

“The main reason I left is, no one knows what will be next, and now Cherkasy is kind of quiet but what will be next? We don’t know, so I decided to leave altogether. I came on my own.”

This week, a trip to the cinema in Carlow to see The Lost City, a music session, and walks around the countryside and talks with volunteers and fellow refugees have been helping Liliia to feel at home.

“Being here, being among the people, speaking with a lot of new and different people is helping. You can think of something else, not the war.

“I hope to find a job as a barista. We just need to get accommodation, to leave Ballon and to get to houses and hotels in Carlow. Now we’re in the process. It will be soon.

“For now, the main thing for me is Ireland. On the whole, I just want the war to end, but that’s long term and I don’t know how long will it be. That’s why I’ll be seeking a job.”

Fluency

Meanwhile, Kseniia Zharova (29), a teacher from Donetsk who is fluent in Ukrainian, Chinese, Russian and Indonesian, hopes to improve her English while she’s in Ireland and to work as a teacher or a translator.

Kseniia was living in Donetsk during the 2014 revolution, and remembers running to bomb shelters, and hearing bombs and helicopters overhead.

“We had bombs and helicopters in the sky, we had information from the news saying you need to prepare for some situation, you need to go downstairs to the bomb shelter. We had information about what time you needed to go there. I remember all of that.

“For every person, it changes their life, no one can imagine a situation like this starting. If you have plans for the future, you need to change your plan.”

Kseniia arrived in Ireland after travelling from Donetsk into Russia and flying to Turkey.

“My mom stayed in Donetsk in Donbass, and my father stayed in Kyiv – two different, dangerous places. In the Donetsk region, now there is a lot of Russian information and now sometimes they have only one point of view – the TV information is different from what is translated into Russian and what is translated into Ukrainian. So it’s like people in Donetsk are living in different regions.”

Kseniia had been living in Kyiv but moved to visit her mother in Donetsk when the invasion started.

“For younger people, it’s easier to leave than for older people. For them, it’s a really strange situation. It’s harder for them to leave.

“Every time I contact my family and I hear about their feelings, I think they’re in a very stressful situation. It’s safe here in Ballon and it’s a very nice place and I think it will give some power to my family. If your family member is good, then you feel good.”

Volunteers have been offering to drive Kseniia and her friends wherever they want to go, and they’ve been getting to know the area.

“We’ve been walking around the district and speaking to local people and they’re so friendly and telling us some information about the country and giving us help with how to get a job. I visited some farm places, and it’s a lovely, silent place.

“We’ve had some activities here. A person made special art classes for us and it was lovely.

"It's a small village, so there isn't much public transport, and the people help to transfer us wherever we want to go. We visited Altamont gardens, and it was a very nice experience, walking and seeing the view."