The row of cars is infinite and, as the snow falls, it winds through the back roads which from Bila Tserkva pass through Kazatin, in the direction of Vinnitsa, in the Ukraine. those who carry sons on board they have even taped cardboard signs to the windows with the word dytyny in Ukrainian and detka in russian, what does it mean child, in the hope that it will be a deterrent in the event of a Russian attack. The goal is to safely reach cities like Lviv, Thermopolis and Rivne, in the west of the country. They believe that it is here, where many have friends and family, that they can wait for the war rage to subside.
They don’t want to leave Ukraine. Or they can’t. Many are well-dressed displaced families with small children, the elderly and women, who are accompanied by one or two men of working age. The latter, however, are prohibited from leaving the country, as established by the ukrainian government shortly after the war broke out ten days ago. For this reason, some do not even know what to do, where to go. They are disoriented, and have not yet fully assimilated what has happened in the blink of an eye. As Elena’s husband, the only weapon he has ever wielded is a computer keyboard.
“My husband wanted to stay in Kiev, but I forced him to accompany me to the west. What can he do? He’s a computer scientist!” She says, with emphasis and, at the same time, with disarming logic. “I don’t know what we will do once we arrive. He says that he wants to return to Kiev and help. But I don’t know if I’ll let him go, he scares me a lot & rdquor ;, says the woman, speaking with the Spanish that she learned studying in the Spanish city of Santander. “Maybe we will go to Spain. Do they want us there?” she adds.
the journey is not easy. Hour-long traffic jams surround major cities and rural villages along the way; to get around the time, they talk on the phone and look for the last hour in instant messaging groups and in the media. And when moving at a snail’s pace, someone advances in the lane that goes in the other direction to go faster and, in a checkpoint, a militiaman begins to shout. The tension rises, the confusion, too.
Only 20 euros of gasoline
The most impatient ones get out of the cars and smoke their electronic cigarettes. A mother hugs a girl in ski clothes, another woman, a blonde of no more than 50 years old, walks her pet, a playful dog that makes her scare by getting too close to the lane in which other vehicles are driving. reverse sense. An elderly woman, who supports herself with a cane, asks for the key to the bathroom of a service station that she leaves to load alone 20 euros of gasoline. Another reads the news that, in Bila Tserkva, where he slept the night before, he has just come under Russian artillery fire. And that Zhitómir, where there is an airport, has also touched him.
the eventual opening of humanitarian corridors to allow the evacuation of civilians, is what has put on track much of this human tide of hundreds of thousands of unlucky. They have not even waited for a definitive announcement, they have set out as soon as it became known that the negotiations between Kiev and Moscow had resumed, without knowing how far they could go or how long it would take, or where these avenues of safe exit.
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“The trip is leaving us exhausted. The trip has been very long for us & rdquor ;, says Mariia, originally from the bombed Chernigov and mother of two infant-age children. “We have money. The problem is that it does not always work in these cases & rdquor ;, she reflects.
When it’s just a few hours before nightfall and curfew goes into effect, finding a hotel it is also an odyssey. Most of the rooms are already taken, and only the most expensive ones remain, for those who can afford them. “How do we get it? We look at Google Maps & rdquor ;, explains Sergei, Tatiana’s husband, pointing to a luxury hotel located near the picturesque village of Holovchyntsi. “We will spend the night there. Tomorrow the day will be very long again,” he concludes.