This story is also available in Slovak and Ukrainian.
For Olena Kulish’s small family from eastern Ukraine, a simple room in dormitory accommodation in Bratislava has become a place where she and her children can exist, safely, and can laugh as much as their lives allow them to.
Their lodgings are modest, but Kulish doesn’t complain, saying that she is well aware how much worse off many fellow Ukranians, whether in their home country or scattered across the world, are. She says that she and her children, 20-year-old Diana and eight-year-old Danylo, have found everything they need in the Slovak capital.
They were forced to leave their hometown, Pokrovsk, Donetsk Region, because it was no longer safe following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In the first days of the invasion, Kulish lost her ex-partner and the father of one of her children in one of many bomb and rocket attacks. After several days of hiding in shelters, watching Russian bombs destroy their country, they decided to leave in early March 2022.
“The railway was shelled, people hid in basements, risking their lives every minute,” Kulish recalls the early days of the war, two years ago.
Pokrovsk remains in Ukrainian hands but is less than 50 kilometres from the front line. A nearby town, Avdiivka, was recently occupied by Russian forces after a months-long battle.
After eventually getting away via an evacuation train, their journey led to Slovakia, where they began to build their new life, and possibly their new home. Life in dormitory accommodation may not be the ideal long-term solution for them, but it has its consolations. Kulish says that she meets other Ukrainian refugees there, people who share comparable experiences.
In the kitchen, they sometimes cook together. There’s a laundry room where, in addition to doing the laundry, they can talk about what makes them happy or what, by contrast, bothers them. And there are also many houseplants in the corridors, making the place more welcoming.
“We live here like one big family,” the Kulish notes.
‘Sent by God’
The dormitory, which is in Bratislava’s Karlova Ves borough, is run by Eva Bubelíniová, who quickly befriended the Ukrainian. Kulish describes her as a big help to all the refugees.
“She’s a person with a big, kind and sincere heart. She’s helped us a lot,” Kulish says, calling the director a person ‘sent by God’.
She adds that Bubelíniová cares in particular about refugee children, including her son Danylo. But Kulish also appreciates that Bubelíniová takes the time to listen to what she, as a mother, is going through.
Many volunteers and Slovaks have helped them since their arrival, Kulish stresses.
“When we arrived in Slovakia, it was difficult because of the language barrier. We did not understand what to do and where to go,” Kulish says.
Despite this, she and her daughter first managed to get a job as cleaners. This was, at first, a convenient solution: when the mother was working her shift, Diana looked after her brother, cooked, and shared all the housework. Later, they swapped. But after some time, Diana found a better job at a shopping mall in the suburbs of Bratislava. She now works as a receptionist, spending 12 hours a day at work, and says that she’s glad that she can help her family with a little bit of money.
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Back in Ukraine, Diana had studied to become a nurse. Her mother worked as a teacher in a kindergarten for children with special needs.
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An absent rite of passage
Although Diana and Danylo have both adapted to life in Slovakia and made new friends, it’s not always been easy, especially for Danylo.
At first, after their arrival in Slovakia, he was scared and didn’t speak, shuddered every time he heard a sound, and couldn’t sleep at night. With the help of psychologists and volunteers Danylo has overcome these challenges, Kulish says, adding that he’s now a vibrant boy who is open to new friendships. Still, he misses his home and his kindergarten, according to his mother.
“He’s never finished it, and I’m sorry that he couldn’t celebrate his September 1,” she says. In Ukraine, children traditionally go to school for the first time on September 1, which is seen as a very important moment in their lives.
Danylo, already a second-grader, studies online at a Ukrainian primary school.
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Finding new love
Even if life has been hard for the three-member family, each of them has found their own ways of relaxing or giving back to the community. Diana makes pictures from rhinestones, if she’s not working or spending time with Danylo, while Danylo plays football or makes figures out of paper for friends, and Olena helps in the dormitory in her spare time, assisting Ukrainian refugees who’ve just arrived in Slovakia.
“This is very important for [newly arrived refugees] now, as it was for us when we first came,” says Kulish.
Over the past two years, Bubelíniová says, she has noticed a change in Kulish’s character, as well as her appearance. She says that the Ukrainian mother is happier and more open. Moreover, she reveals that she has fallen in love again. She refuses to say who the new man in her life is, but she says that she feels happy with him.
“When I’m with him, I forget all the horrors I had to go through,” she says, adding that he also gets along with her children. “This is the most important thing for a single mother.”
Kulish concludes that she’s happy to be in Slovakia, which she describes as “wonderful”.
“It’s become a second home for us.”
