How Yana Lomovtseva (38) fled the war in Ukraine with her daughter and started a new life in South Limburg, The Netherlands.

Yana sits down opposite me. I am warmly welcomed in Bistro bie Jeanneke, in the hilly village of Schin op geul. Yana pours a typical Ukrainian soup for me. On the table there is already a bowl full of Ukrainian chocolates. I pour myself some sparkling water, while Yana tells me about the Ukrainian soup, “It’s like your tomato soup, but different.” After we’ve settled in, I look at her. She looks nervous. I try to put her at ease somewhat by saying that she should just indicate if she finds the questions too intense or does not want to answer them. Yana says that after a long time, she is going to recall a lot of memories of her home, which might cause emotion. For a long time, she has put a wall between the ‘now’ and the war, which she is taking down for me today. I am very grateful to her for that.

The first three weeks

‘Weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, commercials were broadcast on TV. Small warnings about having a backpack ready for emergencies. A backpack with your passport and other documents, water, something to eat. Then, on the night of February 25, 2022, Russia invaded my country. I woke up to the sound of bombs. The glass in my window shattered. I lived in an apartment in the town of Kharkiv. I ran down to the basement with my little daughter and our packed bags. Other residents were already there. It was -25 degrees and we were only wearing our pajamas. We put a blanket over the water pipes and sat against them to warm ourselves up a little. We couldn’t sleep for three weeks. Of course, you try, but you’re always on alert because something could happen at any moment. I never had a moment of rest.

There were volunteer groups who wanted to bring us food and drinks, but because it was so dangerous to walk outside on the streets, it was very difficult to come near us. I didn’t dare. Sometimes people would go out to get water and just never come back. At one point, my neighbor left the basement and went upstairs. She never came back. Later, I heard that she had died from glass shards that hit her during a bomb explosion. You never know when something might happen. It was all so unpredictable.’

‘I was about to ask him to leave his wife and child for me and my daughter’

‘It really became dangerous when it turned out that gas was spreading towards the basement. It was time to flee to another place. My colleague gave me the phone number of a man she knew.The man knew a place that was safe. From there, we could take a train. At first I didn’t want to call him. I was about to ask him to leave his wife and child behind, with the risk that he might never see them again, to help me and my daughter, people he didn’t know at all. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. My daughter eventually asked if we could try. She was so young, but she understood the situation. I told her that the train station was too far away, but she insisted that we had to try. We called and he wanted to help us. Together with him we found a route to the car and he dropped us of at the train station. We didn’t know each other and I don’t know where he is now, but to me he truly is my hero.’

 The journey

‘Information about what time the train would arrive was unclear. You had to pay close attention and listen to other people. There was also a lot of misinformation being spread. In the end, the train arrived at 6:00 in the morning. The journey took eight hours. We weren’t sitting comfortably in seats, no, we were all crouched on the floor with our heads bowed. You never knew when a bomb would fall and shatter the windows. So you had to watch out for glass shards. Sometimes the train would take a different route or come to a standstill, because the tracks were damaged further ahead. After the train journey, we took a bus to Warsaw, Poland. When we arrived, it was chaos; migrants and volunteer groups everywhere. I didn’t know where to go. I had nothing with me. My daughter and I were standing there in our pajamas. At a moment like that, you panic so much that you completely forget you have a phone you can use to look up everything.

Eventually, a volunteer helped us. We were given a bed and something to eat. We had soup, the same soup I gave you. The bus journey from Warsaw to the Netherlands was in total 36 hours long. In Germany, we had to wait for another bus that eventually took us and to Amsterdam. Amsterdam was a different world. It was busy, cold, and I couldn’t understand anyone. I didn’t speak English at the time either. I didn’t dare go outside.’

‘After a while, I felt brave enough to go outside. I loved walking among nature, the flowers, and the animals that were just roaming freely. It felt liberating after weeks of being on the run. I had to get used to the fact that everyone you passed on the street said ‘hello’ to you. We didn’t do that in Ukraine. Only if you knew each other, but otherwise not.’

New Life

‘I had to earn money as quickly as possible, because I had to buy everything again. The school system in the Netherlands is different from that in Ukraine. Here you have HAVO, VWO, etc., but in Ukraine we only have ‘middle school’ and ‘full school’. I had done full school, which is basically the highest level. I had studied and had diplomas. In Ukraine, I had a high position at a large company where I had been working for eight years. In the Netherlands, that was of no use to me. I couldn’t speak Dutch or English, so finding a job was quite difficult. There was a woman who helped me look for work. The only thing I could do was clean toilets for three hours a week. I was shocked. I wanted to work all day, every day. I wanted to work and earn much more. I came home from work crying every time. I felt like people thought I was stupid, even though I knew I could do much more and wanted to do much more.’

‘The woman who assisted me in finding work ultimately connected me with a brasserie in South Limburg. I met Eric, the owner of the brasserie. He said that I could start as a cleaner. It wasn’t necessarily the job I wanted to do, but at least I could work there for more hours. I started thinking about what I could do to improve this place. I cleaned the toilets thoroughly, so that every corner sparkled. I planted flowers and plants outside. In Ukraine, at my old job, I always brought flowers to work to brighten up the office. I did the same at the brasserie. I see flowers and plants as children. You take care of them, water them, and say nice things to them so they grow and bloom.

‘Eric and I eventually started to fall in love and now we run the brasserie together. You know, you have to be happy with what you have and you just have to forget what you had before. It’s possible to start again.’

‘Many people think of what they can’t do; think of what you can do. Give help to broke people. Choose light, give light.’