For Ayrie Adzhyosmanova, the Black Sea in Crimea used to be a friend. “All my problems, all my tiredness used to escape into that sea,” she says as her eyes fill with tears. Everything changed with the Russian occupation. With the arrival of camouflaged "little green men," later identified as Russian soldiers, both the land and the sea started to feel hostile, making life unbearable for people like Adzhyosmanova.
“It’s hard to understand. My Crimean Tatar friends are staying silent. They’re scared to even talk on the phone,” she says. A Crimean Tatar herself, born to a family in exile in Uzbekistan, she fled her new-found dream home on the peninsula last month to find a friendlier place.
That place – at least for now – is Mezhyhirya, the luxury former estate of fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych. This massive stretch of land just north of Kyiv has become home for 52 refugees from annexed Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
Mezhyhirya, which had been privatized from the state by Yanukovych through a number of shady schemes, was nationalized by the parliament on Feb. 23.
But the government has yet to appoint the official manager of the 140-hectare estate. In the meantime, the place has been run by volunteers from AutoMaidan group of activists, some of whom have been taking care of the place from Feb. 22, the day its guards ran and it opened up to the public.
Now the former servant headquarters have become a temporary home for refugees selected by Gayde Rizayeva, a member of the Coordination Center on Maidan who deals with migrants and refugees from Crimea and eastern Ukraine. She is also a Crimean Tatar and a refugee. More than 5,000 people have appealed to her for help, she says.
But Mezhyhirya gets a particular kind of guests.
“We prioritize mothers with children, and pregnant women,” she says.
While no space remains at present, a building which formerly housed members of the now-disbanded Berkut riot police force is currently being renovated and when ready will create at least 70 new places on the estate, Rizayeva adds.
The self-appointed commandant of Mezhyhirya, Denys Tarakhkotelyk, says his AutoMaidan group takes care of all the needs of the refugees. “Three meals a day, pampers for the kids. Everything they need, we supply,” says Tarakhkotelyk. “You can see the living conditions for yourself. People in surrounding villages don’t live as well as they do.”
Tarakhkotelyk and his team collect money from visitors to Mezhyhirya, which goes to maintain the grounds and support the workers, volunteers and refugees. AutoMaidan, the EuroMaidan Revolution’s protest-on-wheels part, charges $2 per person and has some 1,500 visitors a day in the summer. They employ 120 people full-time to mow massive lawns, maintain multiple buildings, care for the private zoo Yanukovych left behind and cook food for workers and refugees.
About half of the refugees are children and babies. Petr and Dasha Bereza ran away from their home in Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast on May 15, when the standoff between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists intensified. Dasha Bereza was heavily pregnant, and now their healthy baby boy lives with them in Mezhyhirya, sleeping in a large cot between beside his parents’ double bed.
The couple’s flat is small but well-equipped. A separate bathroom with a shower, a large wardrobe, a small stove and fridge. They do not need to cook for themselves, however, as meals are prepared and brought over daily from the workers’ canteen a few kilometers away inside the estate grounds.
They speak about home with a lot of sadness. “Eighty percent of Donetsk and Luhansk region inhabitants want Ukrainian unity, but that majority is staying silent. The remaining 20 percent want money – not Russia, not Ukraine, but money. They’re the people you see on Russian TV,” says Petr Bereza.
But the tragedy at home is not the only grievance the refugees have. Yelena Peretyatko, a 33-year-old single mother from Donetsk who moved to Mezhyhirya with her two children, found that she cannot expect any help from the government. She had to travel to Kharkiv first because traffic in east of Ukraine is disrupted, before making it over to Kyiv. A policeman in the capital hooked her up with the Maidan Coordination Center, run by volunteers.
“There is no government help for people like us. The government does not grant refugee status,” she says. Tatyana Lupova, advisor to Ukraine’s Minister for Social Policy admitted that the government needs to change its policy on granting refugee status. “Refugees are currently defined as those who have fled from one country to another. Those internally displaced in Ukraine are not refugees under law – there has been no need for such status so far,” she says.
Lupova, however, insists that the government cannot help the refugees if they fail to inform the relevant agencies. “How can we help these people if they are not known to us? We have put up posters at railway stations and adverts on TV. We have set up free hotlines for those seeking a place to stay,” she says.
But Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk admitted on June 11 that many of the government hotlines set up for refugees are silent and that the government needs a long-term strategy for those who have fled their homes.
Like many of them, Adzhyosmanova wants to return one day. “I don’t just hope, I believe we will return. But not to that Crimea – in that Crimea I do not want to live. I can’t explain in words how painful that feeling is,” she says.
In the meantime, she will stay in Mezhyhirya.
