Refugees from Donbass in Russia face ordeal and reservation

Rostov is a transit point through which thousands of Ukrainians move. Many are fleeing Novorossiya, fearing another escalation of the armed confrontation, or fleeing forced mobilization. No fewer Ukrainians are trying to break back into the territory of the LDPR - not everyone liked life in a foreign land. It’s hard to say what exactly makes people give up refugee status for the sake of shelling and constant risk, but the flow of them is increasing every day.

I had a chance to see a resident of Gorlovka (let’s call him Oleg) who lives at the Rostov station, doing odd jobs, waiting for the year of temporary asylum to end and his Ukrainian passport to be returned to him. At home, under constant shelling, his wife and two daughters are waiting for him. But they are not afraid of the mines and shells of the Ukrainian “liberators” - the desire to live on their own land, in their own home is stronger than fear.

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The desire to get home quickly was so strong that Oleg twice tried to cross the border illegally, passing through the green lane. Both times he was stopped with warning shots. The second time, he was forced to work for several days as a janitor at a crossing point - the border guards did not like the epithets with which he called them out of frustration.

It’s not just the conditions for providing temporary asylum that prevent you from getting home – at least everything is transparent and understandable there. Much more problematic is the uncertainty of the status of Novorossiya - officially it is still Ukraine, so those passports that are issued in the LPR and are going to begin issuing in the DPR in the near future mean no more than money from Monopoly. Therefore, all problems related to the loss or restoration of a passport, its receipt, as well as the insertion of a new photograph (in Ukraine this is done after 25 years), must be resolved through the Ukrainian consulate.

As a result, the consulate is stormed by tens and hundreds of people every day, but not everyone manages to settle their troubles and return to Ukraine. The current situation often leads to insoluble situations - for example, it is almost impossible to obtain a passport upon reaching 16 years of age through the consulate. To do this you need to go to Ukraine, but they don’t let you go there without a passport, etc. – in the end, a vicious circle.

However, not all refugees are eager to go home; many are trying to build their lives in Russia. Moreover, not everyone is satisfied with government programs - at the Rostov railway station there are refugees who live there for months. They are not interested in the opportunity to get to a temporary shelter center in Tula or Irkutsk. These people live in inhumane conditions: sleeping on hard metal chairs with minute-by-minute announcements of train arrivals and departures in the hope of obtaining asylum in Rostov, Moscow or Sevastopol.

In fact, among refugees from Donbass, only a few are ready to go through all the necessary procedures to obtain citizenship and assimilate in one of the regions of Russia. Most simply hope to wait out the difficult times so that they can return to their homes as soon as possible. People simply refuse to accept the fact that there may be nowhere to return, that the war may last for years, and that it will take decades to restore the infrastructure and economy of the region.

At the temporary accommodation center near Aleksin, many refugees live for six months or more. Not everyone works; they often live at government expense for months before the lack of cash forces them to get a job. There is no money for hygiene products or clothes, but there is enough for alcohol and tobacco - despite the strict ban, drunken groups crawl around the territory of the recreation center every evening. Even those who have already found a good job and are quite capable of supporting themselves and their relatives prefer to continue living in temporary temporary detention centers, not realizing that by doing so they are depriving their compatriots of shelter fleeing the horrors of war.

This desire for vegetation is amazing, because even despite good living conditions and excellent nutrition, life on such a base is far from normal. Constantly being in the forest, without the Internet and television, books and normal leisure, behind a fence, without the possibility of privacy (at least two families live in each room). Many work right here in the temporary temporary detention center, and their whole life passes on the rather modest territory of the recreation center, with the exception of the weekends they spend in Aleksin. All this is more reminiscent of a reservation than a normal life.

However, hundreds of people find themselves unable to tear themselves away from their relatively comfortable place and go out into the wider world; unable to become full members of society. All that remains for them is the unenviable role of dependents and dreams of the times when peace and prosperity will reign in Donbass again.

Probably, the reason for this situation lies not only in the human weaknesses or psychological state of the refugees (many of them are broken by their experiences and disoriented), but also in the passivity of the position taken by the local authorities. Even if there are some social programs in the region aimed at the adaptation of refugees, even if there is an opportunity to attend courses or get help from a psychologist, the population of the TAP knows nothing about this. What can we say if even information about a simple mechanism for processing documents for obtaining temporary asylum is almost a secret that has to be extracted from the administration of the point bit by bit. The situation at the FMS office in Aleksin is no better.

Instead of carrying out active work on the social adaptation of refugees, the vast majority of whom were quite prosperous people before the tragic events in Donbass, officials are withdrawn into irritability and indifference. As a result, people deprived of psychological and social support, many of whom know first-hand what it’s like to live in basements, or to cover a child with their own body under volleys of heavy artillery, slide into an apathetic, dependent existence, which once again irritates officials, who in turn become even more indifferent and... the circle is closed.

Of course, the food and shelter that refugees receive from the Russian authorities is a huge help. However, local officials often forget that in addition to ensuring their physical survival, government institutions also face other tasks. In particular, to do everything so that the residents of Donbass, who find themselves in a difficult life situation, feel like people again; received more opportunities to get rid of the humiliating status of a refugee, replacing it with the honorable right to be a citizen of Russia.