Donbass refugees in the USA: life from scratch and immunity to propaganda

The conflict in the east of Ukraine led to the fact that hundreds of thousands of residents of Donbass became refugees. September 5 is one year since the signing of the first Minsk Agreement, which provides for a cease-fire in the region, but is still far from a full-fledged truce and a solution to the territorial issue. Most of those who left the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, who today are almost entirely controlled by separatists from the DPR and the LPR, do not plan to return to their homelands. Someone moved to the neighboring cities of Ukraine or to Kiev, someone went to Russia, but there is also an equally impressive group of Ukrainian citizens who went in search of a new life in the United States. The “Forum” talked to some of them and learned their stories about the move.

Strangers among their

50-year-old entrepreneur from Donetsk, Alexander Frumin, tells how 26, last May, he and his wife returned from their holiday in Turkey, and at night they began to bomb the Donetsk airport. The flight, which returned Alexander and Alain, was the last. About ten days later, during the period of the most active actions, they left for Kiev.

“I was against the referendum and all these DNI, LC. I do not understand what it is. We lived in Ukraine, and here we are told that there will be some kind of Donetsk people's republic.

I saw what kind of people they were when they began to seize administrative buildings, ”says Frumin. - In Ukraine, they are called “titushki”, they are hired people of completely different origin. They show that they worked for money or on their bosses, but we all know about the Donetsk clans. Just for a while they were not visible, and they began to legalize when Yanukovych came to power. We did not want to return to Donetsk and live with them. ”

However, in Kiev, according to Alexander, they felt alien. Despite the fact that they first supported the Maidan, and then in a difficult situation in the Donbass made a choice in favor of Ukraine, the Frumins faced excessive negative in the capital.

“You seemed to be against all this and supported Ukraine, but in reality nobody cares about it:“ because of you the war began, our guys are dying, and in general you started all this, and now you are running ”and so on. Renting an apartment, if you are from Donetsk, is a problem. Business for Donetsk is a problem. Machines with Donetsk numbers are simply beaten or robbed. Kiev did not become our home. We did not think that there would be so much negativity, ”admits Alexander.

In Donetsk region, the head of the family was engaged in business in the field of agriculture. In the battle zone there remained an apartment, a summer house and a land on which he planned to develop his business. There is no access to real estate and, probably, it will not be. According to the concierge, they came to their apartment from the police of the so-called DNR. And then Kiev friends were summoned to the Security Service of Ukraine and interviewed on the topic of communication with friends from the anti-terrorist operation zone (ATO), accusing them of separatism.

Documents for political asylum in the US Alexander and Allen, who settled in Aventura (Florida), filed in July and are now waiting for an interview. There is no work permit, so for now the spouses are only making plans. Alexander intends to try himself in some business, and Alena, who has experience in cosmetology, plans to get a job in a beauty salon.

“To get a job here, you need to finish something, but I'm not very young anymore. I will try with business, although it is risky, but we are used to it, - says Alexander. - I just started to integrate, acquire friends among those people who live and work here. We communicate mainly with people who have moved, like us, and are also looking for themselves.

There are no disputes with either Russians or Ukrainians. Most of those who live here are immune to propaganda. From the outside, everything looks different. ”

Frumina say that when choosing a place of residence, they took into account the support that the United States provides to Ukraine in this situation.

“Many believe that the US and Europe have brewed the Maidan and paid for it, but this is unreasonable, because people simply stood up against Yanukovych and overthrew this regime. And the support in the form of sanctions and other things, not only in the USA and Europe, but also in the whole world, is large. For us it was an important point. Someday we may come back, but over the next few years it will be impossible, ”Alexander is convinced.

Asylum costs a lot of money

35-year-old Natalya Bobrysheva from Makeyevka (Donetsk region) went to visit the United States and could not return to Donetsk. By the time he returned home — in the summer of 2014 — the local airport had already been blown up, and Makeevka had come under the control of the DPR. Natalya and her four-year-old son decided to stay in America.

“My mother is still there, like my brother. Relatives do not understand what is happening. They do not have Ukrainian television, only Russian. Entered Russian money. Mom thinks Russia is helping her. They show that another humanitarian aid is arriving, but she did not receive anything, although she is 60 years old, ”says Natalia. - Brother is getting married.

To register a marriage, everyone goes to some Ukrainian city, signs and returns. They do not want to sign in the DPR, because they are Ukrainians.

What is DNR? We don't even know who we are. Our apartment does not cost anything, so you can not buy something in another city. I would transport my mother here, but she does not want to leave. ”

Natalia herself, who settled in Sunny Isles Beach, applied for political asylum in July 2014 and only a year later was able to get a work permit and a Social Security Number (US Social Security Number), although it usually takes about six months.

“For a year and a half I was sitting without documents. She informally worked as a nanny, a cleaner, and an instructor trainer in a fitness club, by profession, because she graduated from a physical education university in Donetsk. Now I work as a sales manager in a sports club. This is the first American company that gave me a job. Only now, when I got the documents, I can go to study, more precisely - to relearn, because I still have to get a local certificate. It will not be free, everything costs money. Any ways to stay here is a very good way to make money for America. Political asylum is big money. In my case, this is five thousand dollars, which I deposited immediately, after which we must wait for a work permit. In addition, housing must be rented independently, nothing is compensated. ”

Bobrysheva says that he wants a better life for his child and he does not doubt the correctness of the decision made. However, it was not so easy and simple to arrange her life in the United States as she imagined.

“First of all, you cannot see a doctor until you have insurance. In addition, I filed for various assistance, including the VPK (Voluntary Prekindergarten). This is a state program for children of preschool age who must be taught three hours a day for free. For some reason, they also refused me this, and I paid almost all my salary for the kindergarten. She applied to several services, but they all ask for a social security number and show their low incomes. And I had nothing to show, - explains Natalia. - America is being presented here in such a way that I thought: I will come and will be protected from all sides. But I had nothing, everything here is difficult and very slow. With our mentality it is very difficult to be in these chains. You have everything on contracts. If you don’t pay, you’ll go to jail. Everyone wants information about you, your address, cameras everywhere. It comes to insanity. I hung a towel on my balcony, for which I was fined one hundred dollars. ”

Adaptation to life in the United States, according to Natalia, contributed to the fact that she had an American boyfriend. “I did not know a single word in English when I came here, but now I don’t have a language barrier. In addition, I communicate a lot with my American colleagues at work, who help me a lot. They teach, pay an hourly wage, arrange practices and appreciate my Russian language very much, because Sunny Isles is a Russian district, and many Russian-speaking clients come to the club. I never wanted to work with Russians or Ukrainians, because I already worked for them in my own country, I wanted something new, ”says Bobrysheva.

“I intend to go to the end and will not retreat. I don’t know if I will stay here, but I’ve gone too far to stop.

The child will definitely get an education here. He is now five years old and he already speaks two languages ​​perfectly. He remembers that the houses at the swing are always broken, but here in the USA they are always intact. And misses the snow. Move to Ukraine in the future? Hardly. I would rather be engaged in some projects related to the residents of Ukraine and help from here, from America. ”

Social elevator and benefits living

37-year-old Natalia Osver from Donetsk arrived in the United States in August last year under a family reunification program. Her husband, Boris, has a father in America. According to Natalia, military actions in the Donbass markedly accelerated this process, and they literally jumped into the last car.

“When the hostilities began, we wrote a request to the US Embassy in Ukraine indicating the number of our immigration case. They asked to speed up the process, because our region was in a state of war.

We were sent an official response that the war is not declared, since it is the ATO. Because of this status, we cannot be refugees and claim anything.

We were advised to wait in a safe place, of which there are many in Ukraine. However, after that, everything went somehow quickly and smoothly. ”

Natalya recalled with horror how machine gunfire rang out one of the nights right under the windows of their house, and they began to collect things, highlighting with their phones not to turn on the lights.

“Since March 2014, Donetsk and Lugansk regions began to live in an atmosphere of parallel reality. Donetsk was actually captured, a very obvious Russian presence, although the Russian media say something completely different, Natalya complains. - When we had the last rally in support of Ukraine, the First Channel [of the Russian TV] showed that it was a rally for federalization, which Bandera dispersed. In fact, they were Russian guys from the Rostov and Belgorod regions with batons. They did not yet have weapons that appeared in April-May. ”

On the other hand, Natalia and Boris complain about the overly radical position of many defenders of Ukrainian identity.

“These massive embroideries hurt the eyes a little. My husband always wonders where these people were before, because there were always embroidered shirts. And these appeals of Ukraine to fence the occupied territory with barbed wire are also wrong. I was born in Russia, my father is Russian, but I lived all my life in Ukraine, we studied Ukrainian at the university and never had a threat to the Russian language. There is no civil confrontation; this is pure occupation of Ukraine by Russia, ”Natalia is convinced.

The spouses invested all the money earned in the elite real estate in Donetsk. In the new renovated apartment, which they planned to sell, the Osweres lived only a year. They did not have time to sell the apartment, so life in America had to start from scratch.

“When we arrived and my husband did not have a job, we were advised to apply for social security benefits,” says Natalia.

“At first, we were skeptical about this, because in Ukrainian life we ​​had a fairly good financial level, but they explained to us that we have this right until we find a job.

We arrived at the service, filled out the paper, we issued a card, and the next day we received about 900 dollars. It was amazing, because before that, no one in our life even gave us three kopecks. ”

A family with two children settled in the small town of Happy Valley in Oregon and on August 24 celebrated one year in the United States. Spouses are now working. Boris is in a jewelry company. Despite the fact that in Ukraine he held leadership positions in the same field and had 15-year experience, in America he still works as a salesman. Natalia, who has a pedagogical education, got a job as a teacher of the Russian language at school and a class teacher at the academy.

“I don’t know if adaptation is going on at all and how fast. It is hard to say that we have a circle of friends here. The first six months you are in a slow motion film. Events take place, and you are somewhere in the background. But life is arranged in such a way that you will acquire new acquaintances, ”says Natalia Osver. - The topic of Ukraine is constantly rising, being talked about among people, but I noticed that most of those who live in America for a long time support Ukraine in this situation, including very few Russian friends who share the ideas of Novorossia, the DPR, and so on. I do not know what time America is waiting for, but I want to build my life here. I hope that at home everything will be fine, and you can go to Donetsk to visit. ”

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