ReportSurprised by the Russian attack, more than 4 million Ukrainians have already fled their country. The hastily prepared luggage of the refugees crossed in Poland tell of the life before, the amazement, the regrets. They also recount, in their own way, the largest European exodus since the Second World War.
Her red bag first stayed ten days in the corner of her room at home in Ukraine. Far from his eyes. Inside, his diplomas, a school report, a passport photo of his mother, a T-shirt and a size 70 bra, plus a fleece, a towel and a pair of socks still married by the label yarn. “A small bag for two days”, comments Anna Furman, 52, professor of Romance philology at the National University of Dnipro, a large Russian-speaking city in central Ukraine, on the banks of the Dnieper. A travel bag, not an exile bag.
“I didn’t want to leave. » Anna Furman procrastinated at home watching United News, a single television channel that has brought together all Ukrainian news channels since February 26, two days after the Russian offensive. Ruins of kyiv or Mykolaiv, siege of Mariupol, capture of Kherson, before, today, the mass graves of Boutcha, it was like a continuous all-horror television.
From her ninth floor, the top of the building, she began to watch for clouds of black smoke or the hum of a Russian plane. Ten times, she took her bag, she says in the old theater where volunteers from associations accommodate her, in Warsaw. “Ten times I put it down. This building, my neighborhood, my city of Dnipro, is my life. My apartment is my homeland,” a homeland of 37 square meters from which she rarely strayed.
Dnipro, Jewish city of a million inhabitants, sheltered some famous figures. It is the birthplace of Ihor Kolomoisky, the wealthy businessman who put Volodymyr Zelensky into orbit on his TV channel, 1+1, at a time when European leaders considered the future president to be a Slavic copy of Europe. Italian Beppe Grillo. Previously, the city was the birthplace of Leonid Brezhnev’s mother.
Anna Furman remembers the Soviet era well. “I was born in 1969, and outside Ukraine I only know Russia. I love his poets, Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov [un Caucasien mort à 26 ans] and, of course, my favorite to death, Vladimir Vysotsky » – her guitar, her raucous songs and her untimely death in 1980. She traveled to Moscow to pray at their graves. “Now ‘Russian’ has become a dirty word. »
A few addresses jotted down on papers and wrapped with rubber bands around her wallet: lost on a Warsaw sidewalk, a kerchief on her head, this old lady who arrived alone from the Ukraine doesn’t have a phone, it’s rare. WhatsApps is indeed the guide for all Ukrainians crossing the border. Ariane Path
Daria took her school bag and a doll with her. She has left the Belarusian border and is transiting through the central station in Warsaw with her older sister, her mother and her sick grandmother, who is watching her sitting on a suitcase. Ariane Path
“Women are very neat in Ukraine, very made up. No question for a saleswoman like me not to have her nails done. “Arriving from Zaporizhia with her family, Oksana found refuge in a former theater in Warsaw set up for Ukrainian arrivals, on Kasprzaka Street. She has no intention of leaving: she wants to “return quickly to rebuild the country”. Ariane Path
Many Ukrainians left with their pets, dogs, cats, hamsters or this parrot. Ariane Path
Her passport is proof: Lina left Ukraine on March 7th. A student of international relations in kyiv, she would like to go to London but does not yet have a visa, and is patient in the center for refugees open on the ground floor of the Warsaw ice rink. Ariane Path
Lina left kyiv without too many belongings or jewels, apart from her Orthodox baptismal cross, which she always carries with her, and which she took out of her turtleneck that day. Ariane Path
On the bags of kibble for dogs, the children smile. Ariane Path
A little Ukrainian and his cuddly toy leaving for Brussels, in one of the two buses chartered by the Belgian association BEforUkraine in the Wola district of Warsaw. Ariane Path
All crossover dolls have blonde braids. Ariane Path
Children mainly play on their laptops, but sometimes you find a puzzle on the luggage. Ariane Path
Plenty of cat and dog cages have been provided to those arriving from Ukraine to enable them to continue their journey. Ariane Path
A Ukrainian children’s bible forgotten in a small coffee and pierogi (doughnut) snack in Medyka, one of the eight crossing points between Ukraine and Poland. Ariane Path
A soft toy placed on a bag as a bus carrying Ukrainians leaves in the Wola district of Warsaw. Ariane Path
In the flood of backpacks that cross the border of Medyka, to the west of Ukraine and to the south of Poland. Ariane Path
A tired teddy bear on a backpack at Warsaw Central Station. Ariane Path
The randomness of exile
For a week, mid-March, the sirens howled around her. Still not a look at the bag. But the day she learns that “Russian strikes liquidated a shoe factory” very close to her building, she buys a ticket online for Warsaw. “Since my mother died, I am only responsible for myself. » Then change your mind. Attempt refund. Calls the station, where a hoarse voice explains to him that the ticket is not exchangeable. Grab her bag, throw in her phone charger and her two passports, “one for Ukraine, the other for elsewhere”.
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