Charlotte Hobson, heads to the border of Ukraine and Poland to be a translator to the refugees..
Charlotte Hobson was born in Wiltshire in 1970. Her first book, Black Earth City, is based on the year that she spent in a provincial town in Russia, studying Russian as the Soviet Union collapsed. Afterwards she returned to Edinburgh University and graduated with a first in Russian. With no very clear career plans, she took a bus back to Russia and found herself first teaching, then – to her surprise – working on the Milky Way account for the Saatchi’s new agency in Moscow. She travelled widely in the former Soviet Union, working as an interpreter in the Caucasus, a translated, and dabbling in civil rights. Finally, back in London, she took a job at a publishing house. Charlotte had always written, but it was there, whilst writing breathless copy for the backs of thrillers, that she began to try seriously to describe something of contemporary Russia. Her first attempt, Peter Truth, was published in Granta magazine in December 1998. Black Earth City (2002) went on to win a Somerset Maugham Award and be shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award 2002. The Vanishing Futurist was published by Faber & Faber in 2016. Charlotte Hobson lives in Cornwall with her family. She divides her time between writing and translation.
Charlotte went to St Mary’s Calne, Wiltshire and left in 1988 - we have a WhatsApp group for our year and this is where Charlotte is sharing her experience.. HER GOFUND ME PAGE IS HERE
9th March
First day at Hrebenne was really two days. We arrived in late morning to find Wesley and Valera, Gavin’s friends from BBC days, in the midst of a vast crowd . At first it was incredibly hard to understand what was going on but after a briefing from the amazing Sasha ( Ukrainian builder fluent in five languages who got here as soon as war broke out) it began to make more sense. A constant stream of people, on foot, in cars, in buses appear over the border. Some are calm, business like ; they refuse all help, saying no, no, my relation/ friend/ colleague is coming to pick me up. Others are clearly distraught, in tears, shaky. Our first task is to persuade them to sit, eat some hot soup, drink tea. The children’s faces light up to be allowed to choose a biscuit, sweeties, juice , bubble mixture. An amazing team of young Polish volunteers run 24- hour stalls with delicious hot goulash, tea, coffee; there are nappies, warm clothes and blankets; but many are too proud or in too much shock to accept anything… Then we ask them if they have any idea where they want to go next. This is the main part of our job here- as Gavin says, it’s part social worker and part running a mini cab rank. Volunteer drivers come in a stream to offer lifts to the 2 local refugee centres, to train stations, or further afield- to Warsaw, Berlin or even Finland. They speak a variety of languages but almost never Russian; the refugees speak Russian or Ukrainian, sometimes English. We attempt to match the two…
The idea was that Gavin and I would learn the ropes, then come back to the hotel to sleep before taking on the night shift as Wes, Valera and others are worn completely ragged by over a week of 20 hour days. However it’s hard not not to get involved with some of the stories and after a long saga with a lovely woman from Donbas with her two daughters and their cat Pushch ( Fluff) we finally make it to our hotel at 7.30. We try to sleep for two hours, then set off back to the border( an hours drive). I am handed the clipboard, which means I am in charge of logging drivers’ details and passenger details. Thank goodness it is quite a quiet night; they are always fewer drivers at night so we persuade most people to go to the local refugee centres, a school hall 9 km away and a sports centre 20 k away, to rest before setting off on the next leg of their journey. However we have some wonderful successes. Four Zambian girls who have come from Sumy are whisked away to Warsaw almost immediately. A group of seven women and children are taken by an off- duty fire engine; they hug us and weep. An Azerbaijani couple who refuse to go to the refugee centre and sit looking despairing are finally taken to Warsaw. And on it goes, through the night. A group of fifty two Ukrainians have lost contact with the bus they had hired- is it at another border crossing, have they been cheated, or misunderstood? At last Karina, a Ukrainian studying in Poland , solves it- the relief as this huge group of women and tiny children finally depart. All the volunteers here- Polish priests and nuns, students, workers, people from all over Europe- are unfailingly kind, gentle, and calm. There is such distress; the worst stories come from Sumy and particularly Mariupol, where people speak of outright terrorisation by the soldiers who steal food and throw them out of their houses and the point of a Kalashnikov. And yet there is also warmth, love, compassion, jokes- the sense that a whole continent is coming together at this chaotic border post to offer whatever they can . At 3.30 Gavin and I drive back to the hotel, exhausted but half- euphoric. We are so relieved to have got through the our first shift … xxxxxx
11th March
Another instalment- thank you so much girls for your messages xxxx
Day 2
‘ I sing of arms and the man exiled by fate …hurled about endlessly by land and sea… ‘
Virgil writing two thousand years ago about events a thousand years earlier- and yet here we are at Hrebenne in 2022, in the midst of yet another exodus, yet more people exiled by war, hurled about endlessly. This war seems as though it were started on a whim, almost an idle decision. All the refugees express blind shock- ‘out of nowhere’, they say ‘they began bombing and killing us! I have a house, I run a business, my daughter is in medical school…’
Yesterday afternoon Gavin and I visited our two nearby refugee centres to drop people off there and to see if we could help. It’s sobering to be reminded that when we have our tiny successes, helping people who have crossed the border to take the next step of their journey, it’s only the beginning of their wanderings.
Gavin and I were again on night shift so we ate a large plate of chicken and potatoes- very soothing and delicious- at our hotel and set off at 9 pm. We find Wes, Natia, Valera and Denny reeling after the last arrival - a woman with her tiny, premature baby; he was in an incubator when the bombs started falling , when his mother had to snatch him up and run. She is half - frozen ( the temperature has fallen and it’s minus ten before the end of the night), has only just had a Caesarean. They got them both to hospital and the prognosis, says Wes, is good. But the horror of it.
It’s a quiet night; we don’t know why but many fewer people cross the border on foot. Some say it’s because the huge queue of afewdays ago has been processed; others because people aren’t being allowed to leave, the failure of the humanitarian corridors.
A young woman called Tanya appears, distraught; she’s been waiting already for 6 hours, she’s here to meet her 14 year-old son who is travelling alone to the border, but the information is confusing- first he’s four hours away, then two, then four again, and she can’t bear the stress. We decide she needs to be busy and take her with us, give her jobs. A giant of a man from London, stars tattooed on his face, arrives with a huge van of supplies- but we are overwhelmed by supplies on this quiet night. The problem of stuff is huge here- generous people give blankets , food, medicines- all vitally needed somewhere, but where, and in the wrong place they are just an encumbrance… After talking to one of a forest guards, we (with Tanya) unload it all into an empty tent, hoping that somehow we can send it into Ukraine. Sure enough, some hours later, one of the nuns rushes up to me, Alina, about 5 foot tall and always smiling: ‘This superman is going to take some of the supplies!’ A bearded man in a beaten up mini van which we race to load up; he whizzes off towards the border.
‘They are living in cellars there,’ says an older man furiously , ‘ no food and no water, and if they come out they are shot.’ He is determined to go back to his house and collect his money - he has lots of savings there, he insists, he can’t live on charity. ‘Ive travelled, you know, I’ve lived in the Baltics. I didn’t like it there- so grey and boring. If I’m killed, I’m killed .’ Karina and I try to dissuade him but he is adamant, and later , he’s disappeared.
A bus arrives full of disabled children and their mothers, plus a barely mobile older couple. We help them to a warm tent, bring them soup… the mothers are outwardly calm , incredibly strong, but the stress shows in their pallor . The firemen manage to rustle up two minivans to take them onwards and we hurry to carry their luggage, to try to install them comfortably. Afterwards one of nuns is enraged, clenching her fists. She tells me the angriest joke she knows. ‘The Pope and Putin are talking, he is hearing his confession. The Pope whispers to Putin, listen, if you commit suicide, God has told me he’s willing not to count it as a sin…’
We hand out warm clothes wherever we can- Gavin and I are particularly pleased to provide a Chilean medic ( studying in Warsaw) with a warm jumper, scarf and waterproof trousers. He grins at us. ‘Somehow I’m not acclimatising to this Polish winter!’ Another van arrives full of children with just two or three mothers. Their tired little faces perk up to be offered sweets, fluffy toys, colouring books. One boy refuses the toy cat he is offered and it’s only half an hour later that he plucks up courage to ask for a large, soft monkey. He hugs it and closes his eyes… Meanwhile the van they came in is being loaded up with food and goods for Ukrainians- the driver is going in again for another van load of children, he will make three trips, he says. So brave, so cheerful and calm- perhaps the sheer volume of goodness here will overcome?
Gavin and I leave at 4am, dropping two more people at the refugee centre, and drive back through a frosty pink Polish dawn.
12th March
Day 4: Every day is so different. Today Gavin and I drove down at about 12 in bright sunshine. Hrebenne was thronging with people, but few of them needed transport- they all had relations or friends driving down to meet them. A pretty young mother in a yellow coat is waiting for her friends to pick her up and take her to Berlin. ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to travel and work abroad, explore Europe, and now all Europe is throwing its arms open to us, saying come, stay, no need for visas… and all I want to do is go home.’
Our mission is to try and feed all the new arrivals, because that always raises their mood and calms the children just a little. Even before food, the first task is to show them where to get Polish SIM cards with free calls and data for a month - yet another fantastic, imaginative bit of generosity from Poland. Wes, who’s been here since the beginning, calls Poland ‘a hero nation’ for how they have risen to this challenge. Local grannies cook goulash and cakes, raising money from their neighbours. Students abandon their studies to work here, some sleeping in tents on the sites. Today I met the head of the Polish department of Providential who now spends his weekends shuttling refugees from the border to wherever they need to go, and a woman who works for Amazon in AI, translating Alexa into French, who is volunteering at the border. And of course it’s not just the Poles. Today 3 huge vans arrived full of medical supplies from Naples, 2 more from Staffordshire, 2 from Germany. The border point is slowly becoming more organised- there’s a cash machine and printed leaflets with information about refugee centres- but the amount of supplies on the site feels quite overwhelming. Still, astonishingly, drivers turn up willing to take them into Ukraine. As my friend, the lovely nun Alina says, beaming , ‘Here every day is full of miracles.’
The news from inside Ukraine is almost unbearable, and although it has been a reasonably quiet day, we are braced for a huge new surge of arrivals soon. In the afternoon a group of about 300 mothers and children arrive, the families of Ukrainian armed forces members. They fill the tents and spill out onto the road, waiting for the coaches that are to take them to the Netherlands- an initiative by the Dutch police and the smiley, powerful Ola, who’s the head of the Committee for Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Familiies. ‘The best way we can support our forces is to make sure their families are safe,’ she says. The coaches are six hours late, and the poor women grow increasingly frazzled, the small children fractious, the babies despairing. A mother holds her severely autistic teenage daughter, tries to soothe her, but it’s all too much and she wails inconsolably.
At last, after dark, the coaches arrive and for some reason park the wrong side of a high, wide metal barrier. Perhaps they are frazzled by being so late, but the Dutch helpers are gruff and peremptory. For some reason they insist on calling each passenger by name, bossing them all about and making them get on and off the buses. We carry the Ukrainians’ luggage, rock babies and guard their belongings while they dash to the loo. It’s all so stressful that when they finally depart we all feel like crying, so I can’t imagine how horrendous it is for them.
And all the time, in the back of my mind, lurks the thought of their husbands, the fathers of all these little ones. Today Zelensky announced that Kyiv will hold out until it is ‘razed to the ground.’ How many will survive to collect their families from Holland?
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Gavin and I are collecting information about local NGOs and initiatives here to receive your generous donations . More news on this tomorrow ❤️🇺🇦❤️🇺🇦❤️
Lots of love girls and Happy birthday Lulu! Xxx
Day 6
At around four in the morning on Sunday, the Russians bombed Yavoriv, a military airfield about thirty miles from the border at Hrebenne. Karolina was in the café at the border post and saw the rockets. ‘Like fireworks, fire falling, falling.’ The sky lit up and there was a dull booming. Nine people died and 35 were wounded. It was a military target, yet the objective was surely also pure terror - half of Ukraine, it seems, have decamped to the west of the country, which still feels safe – or did until four this morning. They are staying with friends, in country houses, in hotels. The general feeling is that they are waiting to go home. ‘Surely we’ll be home in a month,’ is something I hear often at Hrebenne. I have an incredibly simplistic calculation based on almost no information at all: we are told the war is costing Russia $20 billion a day, and that he has a war chest of $600 billion. So it’ll be over in a month, no? Two more weeks to go. Occasionally people want to talk about politics, Putin’s aims, this kind of thing and a couple of times I’ve admitted to this idea with them. It turns out they’ve all done the same maths.
Today was a long day, satisfying. Part of me feels I have found my calling in life. At Hrebenne, I am ‘the transport girl’. ‘Go and see Charlotte, she’s the transport girl,’ people say, and I burst with pride. My badge of office is my clipboard, with its scrappy pieces of paper with two columns – drivers and passengers. Today I had drivers willing to take people to Gdansk, Warsaw, Krakow and Berlin, and miraculously, each time, the right passengers appeared. The buzz of slotting an exhausted, strung-out family of three into a Swedish minibus driving to Warsaw, loading them up with sandwiches and snacks and hugging them all goodbye – there’s nothing like it! One group of eleven – three grown-ups and eleven children – had been waiting here since noon; six of them had crossed on foot, while the other five waited in the queue of cars to be let across. When they were finally reunited, the young daughter-in-law, a women of amazing strength of character, said they needed a lift to Krakow. It was already late and the likelihood of a lift turning up at that time of night seemed unlikely, so we tried to persuade them to spend the night at the refugee centre, but they weren’t having any of that. ‘No. We are going to Krakow.’ By eight o’clock the mother-in-law burst into tears and her legs buckled. ‘I can’t bear it… they were bombing us… it’s too much.’ We rushed to get her a chair and swathe her in blankets and suddenly I remembered that some people from the PAH tent (Polish Humanitarian Action) were driving to Krakow and had said they had room for one person. Maybe they could squeeze in a few more? Amazing! Their plans had changed, they had room for five. The whole motley group hugged and kissed us and departed. At least they would be with their friends that same night.
Sometimes people come with requests that completely floor me with both their wild over-estimation of my capabilities and their gravity. An ancient Renault with a screaming clutch drove in at about ten pm and three small, wiry Georgians in full camo climbed out. ‘We’re fighting in Ukraine, we’ve come from Yavoriv, where the rockets fell last night. We need you to hire a bus to drive to Lviv, to evacuate women and children to Georgia.’ My mind boggled. ‘Do you mean… to drive all the way round through Turkey? Or perhaps to take them to the airport?’ He waved the details away. ‘I don’t know! And we need medicine for the wounded from last night. I have a list.’ I took him to find the Canadian doctor here, Julian, who loaded him up with supplies, although they didn’t have all that he needed – serious trauma packs and so on. ‘We’ll come back. Let us know about the bus.’ They drove off, backfiring and crunching gears, towards the border. Thank god our wonderful translator Natia, who is Georgian herself, and unflappably glamorous and capable (think Angelina Jolie as Mrs Smith), knew the person whose number they’d given me and promised to find out what they meant.
Sometimes the requests are less grave. Yesterday was punctuated by conversations with a Finn called Aino, who wears a rope tied diagonally across his anorak for some reason and is single-handedly setting up a barter economy at Hrebenne. ‘I am free agent here,’ he says. First he came to me with the request, communicated at length after some interesting misunderstandings, for help with borrowing a wheelbarrow from the farm that is just behind our newly-created border settlement. ‘I will pay but not million euros.’ I found a Polish volunteer, and soon he returned, beaming, with a heavy-duty barrow. ‘Now I carry this-’ (a vast mound of donated goods that had been just dumped on pallets in the field behind our tents, for lack of storage space) ‘-to there.’ (A barn, a couple of hundred yards away.) ‘But old lady not want money. She want dog food for pay You got dog food?’ So we trotted down to the storage yard where in fact we do have huge amounts of donated dog food. Much later in the day I saw him trundling the sack of kibble up to the farm. He returned soon after with a report. ‘Is good! Old lady happy. But she now want children’s clotheses. Tomorrow I go with volunteer and get list, take barrow again for pay with clotheses.’
Our team of translators is a constantly emerging entity. Wes, Valera, Denny and Domenica have had to leave, but today Ali arrives, and we still have Natia, Chloe, Gavin and a gentle-voiced man called Habib who speaks five languages. Julie is arriving tomorrow. So much of what we are doing here is about greeting people with kindness, showing them consideration. The Ukrainians are a proud people - and they have so much to be proud of; I love how all the volunteers here treat the arrivals with so much respect. They are doing an amazing job, as are all the cooks, the medics, the Polish Humanitarian Action workers. Slava Ukaini! Heroyam Slava!
Xxx