A couple of months ago, I was visiting a friend in northern France. One day he took me to a charity organization where he worked as a volunteer, mentioning that there was a “Russian” man who showed up there now and then. That’s how I met Nikolai.
In his 30s and from a small town in Kirovohrad Oblast, Nikolai had been illegal in France for three months already. Six months earlier, he had left Ukraine for Italy, where he hoped to make money as an unskilled, illegal laborer. But no sooner had he made some money, than it was stolen, together with his passport. Nikolai set off wandering around southern Europe, surviving on casual work. Eventually, he reached Lille.
Generally, it is much harder to find illegal work in France than it is in Italy or Spain. After three months, Nikolai still hadn’t found anything. He spent the days looking for work. Often he didn’t know where he would spend the night. Sometimes he managed to sleep over in a night shelter, and occasionally, when he was really lucky – in a real house (some people in Europe help charity organizations by inviting homeless people to spend a night in their homes once in a while). Other nights, he would have to try to get some sleep at railway stations or under bridges, where he risked being picked up by the police.
For food, Nikolai relied on the charity organization where I met him. Apart from a bowl of soup and a cup of tea, though, the organization couldn’t help him in any way. Nikolai didn’t speak any French or English – just Ukrainian and Russian. He relied on his buddy, an illegal from Mongolia who spoke some Russian and some French, to get around in France.
When I asked him why he didn’t return to Ukraine, he said that was impossible. In order to get to Italy, he borrowed $1,000 from a friend, promising to return the money when he got home. And he had one final crushing argument. “How can I face my family now and admit I’m such a loser?”
He told me he hadn’t been in contact with his family for more than three months already. How could he tell them he had become a bum? However, he did express the hope they weren’t worrying too much. After talking with him for a while, I was able to persuade him to write a letter to his mother, which I promised to mail when I got back to Kyiv. In the letter, Nikolai wrote that he was in France, safe and in good health, with a roof over his head, but he admitted it was hard for him to find a good job. He ended by asking them to mail his internal passport, which he needed to join the Foreign Legion.
“It’s the only chance for me to make any decent money here,” he explained. The Foreign Legion accepts any ID. You sign a five‑year contract, and they provide clothes and food and pay a lot, or so Nikolai seemed to believe. And, he assured me, since France isn’t fighting any wars at the moment, you may never have to get in a real fight.
Nikolai’s elderly mother wasn’t having any of that.
“Over my dead body!” she declared, when she read about the Foreign Legion. The second part of this story is about Nikolai’s family in Ukraine.
Nikolai’s older sister, Oksana, rang me as soon as the family received the letter. Next morning she jumped on the bus and came to Kyiv, travelling 500 kilometers there and back in one day just to hear about her brother, whom their mother had already given up for dead after he stopped phoning home.
“We didn’t know what to think,” Oksana said. “He disappeared after New Year. Mother was crying, and father thought he had probably wound up in jail. But people write letters from jail …”
I told her what happened to Nikolai, asking her not to tell their parents. Oksana didn’t wait for Nikolai to come back – she sold her flat and paid her brother’s debt. “I beg you, if you ever talk to him, don’t tell him I sold the flat, or he will join the Legion forever. He knows how much I treasured that flat,” she told me.
Now Oksana, who is bringing up her 16‑year‑old son on her own, is going to work illegally in Europe herself, taking care of elderly people. Her brother’s bad experience does not put her off. “It may be dangerous for men – they live in dorms where even their own fellow workers can rob them,” she assured me. “Women who work and live with families are safe.”
Besides, Oksana is going to an old school classmate. She originally went to France as an illegal worker, but there she found a local boyfriend and eventually managed to bring her child to live with her.
Oksana explained how it’s done. You go to Europe as a tourist for two weeks. You find yourself a job. Women can earn up to $700 per month taking care of elderly people, cleaning, shopping and cooking for them. In Ukraine, Oksana works as a nurse earning Hr 120 per month.
You stay until you get caught and are deported. After a while, you can change your surname and come back again. Many of the families in her region survive in this way, Oksana said. “It’s hard of course, living with strange people, away from home, constantly afraid you’ll be caught. But then it’s all over, and you come back like a queen,” Oksana said.
Perhaps Nikolai’s luck will change. He’ll get into the Foreign Legion, make lots of money and return to his family. But that’s unlikely. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s unlikely that Oksana will return in a year or two “like a queen.” She will bring back presents for her family and enough money to pay for her son’s education. Maybe she’ll change her last name and go again after a while – this time to finance her son’s wedding or buy him a flat.
Why am I so sure? Because this is not just the story of one family. This is a story typical of the survival of an entire generation of Ukrainians. It is a tribute to the strength and perseverance of post‑Soviet women, who became the main breadwinners for their families during the ongoing economic crisis. Many of the men failed to adapt to the new realities of the market economy. They have started drinking or keep going to their old non‑paying jobs, all the time complaining how good life was before. But their wives – former engineers, nurses and teachers – have put aside their pride and begun trading at bazaars, gone to work illegally abroad, or found new foreign husbands for the sake of their children.
For me, pathetic Nikolai, who is hiding from his problems instead of solving them, and energetic Oksana, who took her brother’s problem on herself, are deeply representative of economic transition in independent Ukraine.
Anna Kozmina is a staff writer for the Kyiv Post.
