Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, I have not been in the mood of writing any cultural or historical columns – nor have I thought it is the right time to do it. But now I would like to share with you some personal impressions from my meeting with Ukrainian refugees at the Keleti Railway Terminal in Budapest, where I worked as a volunteer translator/interpreter.
The continued war in Ukraine has a great many different facets, but apart from its global manifestations such as war crimes and genocide, it involves millions of individual fates – stories of personal tragedies, despairs, and calamities, but also of heroism, faith, valor and strength of spirit… This war affects dozens of millions of people in and far beyond Ukraine – the entire European continent, especially the countries bordering Ukraine where Ukrainians have been transiting or where they have arrived in search of (temporary) shelter.
When I heard about thousands of Ukrainian refugees coming to or transiting the Keleti Terminal in Budapest, I went there to see if and how I could be of any help to them. The large hall in the center of the solemn building was fully dedicated to the refugees who – mainly women with small kids and elderly people, many of them with pets – filled the hall, the railway platform, and the square in front of the terminal building. Then there were volunteers – two tents of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, a tent of the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party (however funny this name may sound) offering food, drinks, medicines, personal care products, and clothing to the refugees, a tent of pet protection society helping with pet food, dishes, accessories and rendering vet aid, a stand of a Jewish organization, a row of volunteers offering accommodation and a corner where drivers were standing ready to take people to their lodgings, a stand where Hungarian mobile communications operators offered free SIM-cards to refugees… Work announcements for Ukrainians on information boards. Men that drove minibusses from Italy, Germany, and other countries offered a lift to their countries free of charge – a young man told me they had been driving all night with his friend from Italy to take seven persons heading to that country; if they would not find anybody here, in Budapest, they would leave at night for Poland – “for sure, there we will be able to find people who will want to go to Italy.”
Everything and everyone seemed very busy but very well-ordered, friendly, and wishing to help. People with signs “Information in Ukrainian/Russian,” “Interpreter” and alike were explaining, carrying suitcases; others carrying trays with sandwiches and sweets were mingling about. I did not know whom I should address to be admitted and registered (and preferably taught what to do) as an interpreter – and after I studied some FB posts written by those who had been volunteering there for quite a while I went to the ‘Maltese’ and asked them for some sign – and they gave me an “Information in Ukrainian” one. They also said that the terminal was in a big need of people knowing Ukrainian and Russian – but no other briefing was provided.
So I dived into the crowd of Ukrainians that were arriving in hundreds all through the day by trains coming from Záhony, the Hungarian town bordering Ukraine, or from Bucharest (most of the refugees coming from Mykolaiv and Odesa came to Hungary via Moldova and Romania).
During these days of my work at the Keleti Terminal, I heard many personal stories. There was a young woman with a less than two-year-old son and a cat in the travel carrier (that had been silent all the long way in the train) who said that her husband remained in Kyiv’s territorial defense force and that she had not heard anything for about a week about her parents living in a village in Chernihiv oblast by then occupied by Russian troops – she was repeating that she would not be staying abroad for a long time, that she was sure she would very soon return back to her husband and to her beloved city. I heard this resolution from many Ukrainian women heading from Budapest to Vienna, Munich, or Zurich – “we need to return home to Ukraine, to our families, to our work.” The people proved the reputation of Ukrainians as industrious and assiduous workers. Say, an MD from Central Ukraine asked how she could immediately start working as a doctor here – “for Ukrainians do need a lot of medical help.” Another woman insisted that we, volunteers, must give her some work – “here and now,” because she cannot stay here idly, not working. I should admit that many people were seen as very uncomfortable with accepting help – be it food or children’s toys: they would shyly take one sandwich and repeat ‘thank you, we are not hungry, that’s enough at being offered to take more.
One of the important things for the interpreters was to help buy tickets for a further journey. Again, a big thank-you to the governments of Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary for making train tickets in their countries free for Ukrainian refugees. For instance, in Hungary, the so-called ‘Solidarity’ ticket which is free of charge is valid for all second-class carriages within the country. Besides, holders of Ukrainian passports can use public city transport in Hungary free of charge until April 30. Similar privileges have been granted to refugees from Ukraine in other European countries.
The team of interpreters included local Hungarians – teachers of Russian and professional translators; several Russians and Ukrainians that lived and worked in Budapest; and natives of Subcarpathia: several women from Uzhhorod, a Hungarian police officer born in Rakhiv, a very enthusiastic young man from Sevliush/Vynohradovo – a plain factory worker who had taken a non-paid leave to be able to help his fellow-citizens, and a man from Uzhhorod who when I first met him had been helping at the railway station for 26 hours without any rest.
Although the international tickets were free, the refugees had to pay 3 euros for a seat – and not all could afford that. The payments were possible in Hungarian forints, euros, or with a bank card, but not in hryvnias or US dollars. One day, an elderly lady came weeping from the booking office and said that the only money she had was on her bank card but for some reason, the payment was not accepted – she had to go to Germany, just with two plastic bags and the telephone contact of her relatives who remained in Ukraine. So she did not buy the ticket and did not know what to do – in a foreign country, alone and without money. Seeing her cry, a Maltese volunteer simply took her passport, went to the booking office, and in a while came back with the ticket. And such cases were numerous.
Meanwhile, every night Budapest residents were coming to the terminal offering accommodation for the refugees. Others would bring food, clothing, and other necessities and leave them in the volunteers’ tents. Car owners were on duty ready to take the refugees to their night destinations – nobody had asked them to do so, nobody would compensate them for the petrol; the only answer why they were doing it was ‘I do not know how else I can help these people; so I have to do this little that I can do for them.’
The plainest medicines were available at the Maltese’s tent; in graver cases (for instance, there was a man who had just had an epileptic attack) the patients were examined and prescriptions issued at the doctor’s office.
In front of the building, there were a couple of what were called ‘warming buses’ where the refugees could have a nap and get a cup of coffee or tea while waiting for their trains onward. Every quarter of an hour, free buses plied between the two main terminals of the city: the Keleti (Eastern) and the Nyugati (Western), and once an hour a shuttle left the terminal for the airport.
A neighboring hall of the terminal building was fully devoted to little kids: it became a bustling kindergarten where ‘Maltese volunteers’ helped mums entertain their kids with drawing and other activities.
One day, a middle-aged man came to me saying that he had just seen off his female relatives and now he was about to go back to Ukraine, but before that, he had to find a military shop because he had promised to bring armor vests and other accouterments.
The volunteer interpreters got used to the train arrivals schedule, knowing that when a train from Bucharest or Záhony was arriving it meant lots of what could have seemed very plain questions but which were very important for the dismayed and disoriented people: How can we buy a ticket to Germany? Where is a WC? Where is the platform my train will depart from? Where can we stop for a night – there are 26 of us, we are a big family (a Romany clan from Donetsk)?..
I remember a family from Kramatorsk, Donetsk oblast: a father, three little kids of whom two babies were sleeping in prams, his pregnant wife and his mother-in-law – and several suitcases. At first, they stopped distractedly in the draught in the middle of the hall – but when the accommodation and the free taxi were arranged for them, several police officers eagerly volunteered to see them off to the cabs (one was not enough for them), and made sure that the pram which would not fit in would be left safe in the terminal until the following day when they would be able to collect it before leaving for Germany.
The pet protectors are another group worth special thanks. They were doing much more than merely dispensing food, water, dog muzzles, and leashes – they summoned vets to do vaccination (the countries directly bordering Ukraine allowed pets without any documents, but if they were heading further, the vaccine and the documents were needed – and they were issued here, on the spot), found travel carriers in unusual cases (for a 26-kilo but very chicken-hearted German shepherd), and took care of a breed of six Egyptian bald cats trembling of mid-March Hungarian cold).
Saying about the refugees, I should note that most of them were determined to return home as soon as it was possible, that most of them were bearing with fortitude their current miseries, and all were looking forward to the victory of the just cause.
For several days, our gang consisted of interpreters, Maltese volunteers (I should remember here an ethnic Hungarian from a border-town in Slovakia who was traveling every day to Budapest and quite successfully used his command of the Slovak language to communicate with Ukrainian and Russian-speaking refugees), representatives of the Jewish community, pet protectors, police and emergency situations officers were on friendly terms with one another. But the most important thing I want to say here is that despite all political misunderstandings, I met very many kind-hearted Hungarians who took close to their hearts the needs of the many thousands of people whom they did not know and who were fleeing from the war.