After two strokes, Liydmyla Palazhchenko barely moves – and then only with the help of crutches. She is in her 70s and even going to a grocery store near her house is difficult. Palazhchenko’s only son doesn’t live with her and doesn’t help her.
At higher risk of dying from the coronavirus, Ukrainians older than 60 years old have to stay home. Those with no one to look after them can go shopping, but no farther than two kilometers from their home. But for pensioners like Palazhchenko – lonely and frail – even shopping is hard.
There are thousands of pensioners like that and they are in dire need of food during the national quarantine. Realizing that, on March 26, charity fund Zhyttelub (Lifelover) partnered with local businesses and started delivering food kits to pensioners who had pensions lower than $63.
Each kit consists of basic products like sunflower oil, buckwheat, rice, sugar, pasta, and a few more foods. The kit is supposed to be enough for two weeks. People who want to help order the kits on the website of online retailer Rozetka. The kits are then delivered by Nova Poshta to social service offices and handed out to pensioners across the country.
“The situation in which the elderly found themselves is simply critical,” said Vladislav Chechotkin, co-owner of Rozetka.
As of the end of April, social service workers and volunteers have delivered 48,000 of such food kits to pensioners living in 18 Ukrainian cities.
“For many people, it was unexpected even though they called to social service and asked for this help,” said Anastasiya Filonenko, head of the social service in the Desniansky District in Kyiv.
The Unified Coordination Center hotline of the Kyiv City State Administration receives more than 500 phone calls on a daily basis from people who need such a support and more than 33,000 food kits have been delivered in Ukrainian capital.
“Every day we face new challenges, so we continue to invite everyone to join our support network,” said Vilen Matveyev, chief coordinator of Kyiv’s Center.
While most active people are ordering kits in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv oblasts, it is only 33% of the country’s demand, according to Tina Mikhailovskaya, co-founder of Zhyttelub.
Watch a Kyiv Post video on Ukrainian businesses helping the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tired, but not broken
Liubov and Petro Orlenko are also among those pensioners in Kyiv who are waiting for social service workers to receive a food kit. They are lonely and both have poor health.
“It’s a good help,” said Liubov Orlenko. “We are not living a chic lifestyle, but somehow we are surviving,” the husband ironically adds.
Liubov and Petro Orlenko, wearing medical masks, receive a charity food kit from social workers in Kyiv’s Troyeshchyna district on April 23, 2020. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Petro Orlenko still believes that it’s very important to have this help for pensioners like him and his wife. After paying utility bills and buying monthly medication to treat his severely damaged by two heart attacks heart, food is question number one in the family.
“We have no money left to buy food (after paying bills),” said Orlenko the husband. “We are just trying to live somehow.”
Galyna Kanadska, 70, worked as a nurse in one of Kyiv’s hospitals for 50 years. But in the beginning of 2020, she was asked to leave the job as she couldn’t work with a computer. Now Kanadska receives only a modest pension of Hr 2,000 a month – less than $100.
Struggling from asthma and diabetes, the weak woman cannot rely on her only son because he is a drug addict. “I’m sitting at home because of the quarantine, asking neighbors to buy some bread,” she said. “I am really happy to receive some support.”
Galyna Kanadska receives a charity food kit in village Troyeshchyna in Kyiv Oblast on April 23, 2020. Struggling from asthma and diabetes, Kanadska cannot rely on her only son because he is a drug addict. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Oleksandr Yaroviy and Liydmila Yarova have been married for many years. In their late 60s, they live on the outskirts of Kyiv together with Liydmila’s mother, who is not able to move after a stroke.
Yaroviy the husband had been working as a bus driver for a private carrier before the quarantine, but he was forced to take unpaid leave and stay home. A couple’s daughter also can’t help, as she can’t work after surgeons had to remove her thyroid gland, which Yaroviy believes is the result of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
“We have to ask for help, because how can you live with $133 a month for two people,” he said. “We are spending around $37 alone on adult diapers for my mother-in-law.”
Oleksandr Yaroviy and his wife Liydmila Yarova receive charity food kits in village Troyeshchyna in Kyiv Oblast on April 23, 2020. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Yaroviy tries to stay positive and plans to start working as soon as the quarantine is over. “I can support my family, I just need to get back to work.”
Petro Chugai, 68, has two children, but they live separately and can’t help their father because both have lost their jobs after the quarantine was imposed and are struggling to feed their own families.
“With all these (food) prices and utility bills, how can we live?” said Chugai, who complains that his pension had to be much higher, as he used to work in northern Russia as a fisherman in the Soviet times. But it was not taken into account by the Pension Fund of Ukraine after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Pensioner Petro Chugai, wearing a medical mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic, receives a charity food kit from social workers on April 23, 2020 in Kyiv’s district Troyeshchyna. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Working pensioner Tetyana Bosak, 62, complains that it is very hard for many elderly to live on a single pension in Ukraine. Previously she worked for many years at a chemical plant, but her current pension barely matches the country’s minimal subsistence minimum.
Pensioner Tetyana Bosak (R) smiles as she receives a charity food kit from social workers in Kyiv’s district Troyeshchyna on April 23, 2020. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Before quarantine was imposed, she worked at a nearby kindergarten looking after children. At home, Bosak also has to take care after her own granddaughter with special needs.
“How can we live?” said Bosak, who was really surprised that her phone call to social service resulted in them bringing her a food kit.
“It is the first time in my life I have ever received any help,” said Bosak.
