Thomas

 

Thomas has been living in Ukraine for 14 years. First, he fell in love with the country, then with an Ukrainian. They have two children, great jobs, an apartment, friends, a life of freedom in a wild country.

„I crossed the border into Ukraine and immediately fell in love," says Thomas.

All that is vanishing.

 

The children have had no school since the invasion. It's war holidays. Mother Tevika works in the regional administration. Now all state employees help handling the influx of refugees swarming into the city, Uzhhorod.  

 

It's located at the border with Slovakia and relatively safe. Thomas is busy with the refugee flow to Western Europe – organising buses, lodging, translating from German to Russian and Ukrainian, in which he is fluent. Most of the time, he’s trooping between his native Germany, Switzerland, where he runs a consultancy firm, and Ukraine.

 

And he’s ready to get his own family out at an instance. They have already packed their bags. Big ones for the flight to Germany. Small ones for the air-raid shelter.

 

 

Vladimir & Vasil

 

Kramer's friends Vladimir and Vasil have moved in together. Vasil’s family has fled to Hungary, so there’s plenty of space for Vladimir in Vasil's flat. Vladimir is a marketing expert. His wife and children have fled to the Czech Republic. They live near Kyiv. Years ago, Vladimir installed a webcam on his house there to prevent burglaries. Now it has recorded the moment a rocket hit his neighbour’s house. No one was home fortunately. 

 

 

 

Vladimir is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian. In Ukrainian his name is Volodimir, he says during introduction. Vasil is Ukrainian with Hungarian roots. There is a large Hungarian minority in the Transcarpathia region where Uzhhgorod is located.

 

In peace time, Vasil is an engineer and an inventor. He started off with toys, artwork and 3D puzzles using small cutting machines and 3D-printing. Then he got into bigger stuff – interior design, building houses. His company has huge welding and cutting robots. Just before the war, he got into concrete printing. Within three days, you could print an entire house, he says. There may be much need for that after the war.

 

Now, Vasil and Vladimir spend a lot of time together. They sit at the kitchen table and stare at Telegram channels on their cell phones. Russian tanks destroyed. Civilians killed. Putin and Hitler memes. I ask about protests against the war in Russia. They’ve never heard of that.

 

Sometimes, Vasil sleeps in his smaller child's bunk bed, which he built himself. It’s a way of feeling close to his family, reckons Vladimir.

 

Vasil and Vladimir have asked their friends abroad to supply them with arms and armory. They are getting ready for war.