Displaced Ukrainians are finding family in Greece

Sunday 27 March, 9pm at the town hall in Athens. Gathered before a huge screen, the crowd takes up the chorus: “Long live Ukraine!” The national anthem rings out and the blue and yellow flags fly… It’s the end of a concert featuring international artists, broadcast live to cities around the world. “It’s important to come together. We have seen that we are not alone,” says Nadya Kolesnykova, a 44-year-old Ukrainian. Yet loneliness often gets the better of Nadya at the moment. She has been in Greece since 18 February, and what was to be a short holiday has become an exile with no end in sight.

“Barely a week after I arrived, Putin invaded Ukraine. There were no flights to go home. I’m trapped here.” Her mobile phone is now her only connection to her country and her family. Her parents and her brother are also trapped, in Zaporizhzhia, in the east of Ukraine, under the control of the Russian army. “They are living with the sound of sirens, with the threat of attacks,” she laments. She hopes to return home as soon as possible, and above all “that the conflict ends before my visa expires, on 20 May”.

According to the Greek authorities, 15,000 of the estimated 4 million Ukrainian refugees have already found shelter in this country of 10.8 million. “The buses arriving from Ukraine are full,” confirms Panayiotis Paparoidamis, the director of coach company Esperia Travel, which specialises in routes between Greece and Eastern Europe. “They are coming to be with their relatives,” he adds. In fact, when they step off the coaches in Metaxourgeio, these exiles from the east are not arriving in unfamiliar territory. Day and night, their loved ones that live in Greece are waiting for them.

“I’ve come to pick up my best friend,” says Larissa Karpeliouk, a 32-year-old Ukrainian. She explains her situation: “I’ve been in Greece for three weeks. When the war broke out, I left with my son, first to Romania, then to Greece. My husband had to stay in Ukraine. He’s part of the territorial defence force…” The catch in her voice reveals her emotion.

Her thoughts turn toward her homeland and her husband. “I manage to talk to him when he isn’t on duty,” she says. She takes up her story again. “My friend is coming to join us. She’s safe now, and we can help each other.” She smiles. “My mother remarried a Greek man and has lived here for 22 years.” Her friend steps off the bus, and they fall into each other’s arms. They disappear into the suburbs of Athens, where they will be hosted by friends of Larissa’s mother. 

A few moments later it is the turn of Michael Selivanov, 33, to rush towards the arriving coach, his wife by his side. When she sees her mother and her sister, she embraces them with tears in her eyes. “We arrived on 24 February. We came to see my mother, who has lived here for 20 years. When the Russian troops advanced, I felt that I had to bring my family to safety,” explains the computer engineer. 

As soon as the conflict broke out, the Ukrainian diaspora in Greece sprang into action. One of the capital’s two major football teams, Olympiacos F.C., has provided space in a sporting complex, where Ukrainian volunteers have set up a telephone helpline and collect clothing, medications and other basics. Donations of money and necessities are also collected at the Sunday mass at the Orthodox church, which brings dozens of worshippers together.

“Every day, Ukrainians and Greeks make donations. We send them to Ukraine,” explains Father Roman, 31, who has just performed the service. “During my sermon, I reminded them that we are collecting food, clothing, and money for the army… and called on them to welcome our own.” This piece of Europe between East and West has become a place of refuge, where networks of relatives and friends are an essential part of the social fabric.

Anatoliy Kuchirko understands these networks well. Along with his mother, the Ukrainian lawyer and Greek resident operates the “VASH Center”, an organisation providing services to the Ukrainian community. “Today, around 30,000 Ukrainians officially live here,” he says. They arrived in Greece as part of earlier waves of immigration, either fleeing the political instability of the 1990s or 2014, or seeking better economic prospects. For example, in Greece, many aged-care workers come from Ukraine or Georgia. “Many of them will bring their relatives here. What we’re seeing now are only the first arrivals,” says the lawyer. “Some are currently in Poland or Romania. They’ll come to Greece where they have family or friends.” 

In fact, the connections between Greece and Ukraine are consistent and longstanding. Yuriy Vishnevskyy, who is very involved in the diaspora, remembers that “in 2014, when war broke out in eastern Ukraine, wounded Ukrainians were treated in a hospital in Athens, as part of a NATO program. I know; I was there as an interpreter.” Halina Masliuk-Kakkou, who created the first newspaper for the Ukrainian community in Greece, agrees that “there is a closeness between our two countries”.

This Ukrainian, who has lived in Greece for 30 years, met her Greek husband when he was studying in Lviv. “Our two peoples are alike: they have a history of working in the same foreign countries. Both peoples are very religious, Orthodox. They also have historical links. For example, the 1821 revolution that freed Greece from the Ottoman Empire began in Odessa, in Ukraine,” she explains. “Some Ukrainians even have Greek roots.”

For centuries, a Greek minority has lived in the territory of present-day Ukraine. “In the Byzantine period, some 1,300 years ago, Vladimir Prince of Kyiv married a princess of the Byzantine aristocracy and was baptised as an Orthodox Christian,” explains Yuriy Vishnevskyy. In the 18th century, the Russian Empire reconquered the area around the Black Sea, which had been controlled for more than three centuries by the Ottomans. Empress Catherine II granted land to Greeks from Crimea in order to Christianise the region, resulting in the presence of a sizeable Greek minority in Mariupol and Odessa. According to the Greek authorities, more than 100,000 Greeks live in Ukraine.

“My whole family comes from Mariupol,” says 40-year-old Irina Bortnik. “The first members of our family moved there in 1786.” Their descendants live there to this day, except for her. In 2009, she moved to Greece with her husband and set up a business specialising in the sale and hire of sailboats. “I have Greek background but not Greek nationality. My parents speak an old Greek dialect. My husband is the first non-Greek Ukrainian to join the family,” she adds, smiling. But behind the smile, she is worried. “My mother’s cousin, her 45-year-old daughter and her 4-year-old grandson are still trapped in the city. We haven’t had any news since 3 March.”

At her side, her sister, Jane, bursts into tears. Jane’s husband is in Ukraine. She arrived in Athens two weeks ago with her mother and their two children, to stay with her sister. “We didn’t think we would have to migrate,” she murmurs. Jane considers herself Greek, but doesn’t intend to seek Greek nationality, even though she is eligible to apply for it through “blood rights”, or citizenship by descent. Irina Bortnik is thinking about it. “My mother has the pink passport that acknowledges her Greek nationality. I’m considering it so that my children can also benefit from it.” In myriad ways, the war will have revived the ties that bind Greeks and Ukrainians.

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