Moldova (bbabo.net), - Against the backdrop of constant talk about the war, many Ukrainians began to look for an alternative airfield for themselves: they are thinking which country they would like to move to. In fact, the active flight of Ukrainians from the country began in 2014 after the Maidan. The result of European integration was the devaluation of the hryvnia and the fall in incomes of the population. At times, the payment for the "communal apartment" has increased, food and gasoline have risen in price. Many residents of Ukraine began to make ends meet with difficulty. As a result, some rushed to Russia, others - as migrant workers to Europe. The Kp.ru correspondent went to the square and asked the Ukrainians themselves where they could live well.

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“We are running away from lack of money”

- In Ukraine, now we have to count pennies, - Igor, a taxi driver in Kiev, and a businessman in the past, tells me. - Until 2014, I worked in the company as a commercial director. The firm collapsed. I got a job in another company for a salary of $1,500, and now my salary is only $400 (the hryvnia has depreciated so much in recent years in Ukraine).

Now the man has to work as a taxi driver. According to Igor, small businesses in Ukraine are dying, there are practically none left. Only chain stores have a chance to survive.

- People are looking for ways to get away from lack of money. Nobody needs our higher education in Europe, people with working specialties are needed there. Locksmiths, plumbers are hired with pleasure, and they have their own white collars. In the same Germany, a Pole is more likely to be taken as a manager than a Ukrainian, - Igor told me.

Many Ukrainians go to work in Poland and the Czech Republic, they specifically learn languages, although this is not officially required. Job advertisements can be found in Kiev on almost every post. Unlike job advertisements in Russia. Paperwork for migrant workers is handled by special firms or an inviting party. Ukrainians admit that it is not difficult at all. Another thing is to go to work in Russia.

- Here you will be purged, as it should be. You have to really want to work and live in Russia in order to agree to go through all these circles of hell, - Marina Kuzmina (surname changed) from the city of Izyum, Kharkov region, tells me. She came to Russia to work 8 years ago, works as a nurse, and all these years she has been striving to obtain Russian citizenship.

The border guards do not give the go-ahead

- I have a patent, I have a civil law contract with the employer, certified by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but at the same time I cannot go to my home in Ukraine and then return to work to Russia. Due to covid restrictions, the Russian border guards will simply not let me in. Now only those who have children, parents, brother or sister, husband or wife in Russia can cross the border without any problems, ”Marina explains, and then, already laughing, she adds,“ even according to labor law, I am entitled to leave, and me they don’t let go, but it’s impossible to work so much without getting out!

Marina did not see her husband and child, who remained in Izyum, for almost a year.

- When I entered Russia for the last time, they tortured me at customs for 2.5 hours: “Did you buy an invitation or did you not buy it?” They hit the psyche. Many split, admit that they bought. But I had a legal invitation. And how many times did the migration service officers dissuade me: “But why do you need a TRP (temporary residence permit. - Ed.)? What will you do in Russia? You will be paid a penny, the bank will not give you a mortgage, not all Russians get it.” Listening to this, it's hard not to break down, - Marina notes.

And then he tells me the story of his godson.

- Slavik has been living in Poland for the third year. Despite the pandemic, it’s easy to go there, no quarantine or restrictions. It is enough to get a work invitation. And going to Ukraine on vacation, visiting relatives is also no problem, ”says Marina.

Her godson's wife is going to give birth in Poland.

- Youth is considered a promising labor force there. If a woman in labor is registered, then doctors will conduct her pregnancy for free, and childbirth will also be free. And when the child is born, the parents will be given a one-time allowance. Slavik and his wife work officially in Poland. Once they needed 5 thousand euros for the operation of a relative. So the Poles gave them a loan at low interest, and they transferred the money to their sick relative in Kharkov. In Russia, no one will give a migrant a loan, - Marina explains.

Slavik offered Marina to make a work invitation to Poland for her, but she refused, saying that Russia is closer to her. Last October, she applied for a TRP.- All documents were filled in by a lawyer, otherwise you will break your brain. True, I had to do a medical certificate twice. I did one, then they changed the legislation, I had to do another. But I don't even count money anymore. In "Sakharovo" (there is a multifunctional migration center - Ed.) You need to stand in line for several hours to get a number for a medical examination. A few days later, I had to stand in the same queue to get a ready-made certificate of medical examination. It's not for the faint of heart. Probably, in order for you to think 100 times whether you need it, Marina notes. - And Ukrainians also take an exam in Russian in Russia, although, for example, my family has been speaking it all my life. On the other hand, many Tajiks and Uzbeks barely understand Russian, but at the same time they somehow get a job here.

With luck, Marina will receive a temporary residence permit in a few months, but a residence permit - not earlier than 2023. Those are the official procedures.

“I’ll wait, wait, and then maybe I’ll spit, and I’ll go to Poland,” Marina throws in her heart.

“We take things out by buses”

- I first went to work in Russia 5 years ago, because my friends went there. I didn’t want to go to Europe on an ad, I don’t know to whom. To come to Russia, before the pandemic, you could buy a job invitation for $500-700, but now the border guards won’t even let you in with it. And they don’t let you in with a patent, - confirms Marina’s friend Irina, who has also been working as a nurse in Russia for many years.

In Russia, Ira has a husband, so she can cross the border in both directions without any problems. By the way, some Ukrainians are trying to conclude even fictitious marriages with Russians, so that they can come to us without hindrance. True, even in this case, the right to enter is given only for 90 days (if you do not have a temporary residence permit or a residence permit in Russia).

- To make RVP, you need money and endurance. I'm not mentally ready for this yet, - Irina notes.

In the Kharkiv region, she left her parents and son a student.

- No one asks us, ordinary Ukrainians, “how do you live?”. In Ukraine, food and clothing prices are now higher than in Moscow. Therefore, I buy things for my son here and send them home. At a sale on the Internet, I found sneakers for my son for 2 thousand rubles, and in Ukraine exactly the same ones will cost 5 thousand rubles. So we are sending transmissions to our homeland. On New Year's and Easter days, minibuses that run between Russia and Ukraine are crammed to the ceiling with bags. Sending a parcel costs from 2 to 5 thousand rubles, depending on its weight and size, - Irina told me.

According to her, if Russian citizenship were easier to obtain, then thousands of Ukrainians would rush to Russia.

- Our Izyum is a small, dying city. We had two city-forming enterprises of federal significance, but they closed. Half the city we went to work in Russia, and now people have returned back to Ukraine, because they are not to see their relatives. There are only a few people who would have spent a year and a half in Russia. As a result, many have already gone to work in Europe. If such strict conditions for entry remain in Russia, then no one will come here, - Irina notes.

“In Moscow they fight, in St. Petersburg they dismember”

- My father is buried in Russia. I really want to go to his grave, but I don’t know how to do it, because they won’t let me through at the border, ”the saleswoman Olesya tells me at the famous book fair on Petrovka in Kiev.

According to her, if she had the opportunity, she would gladly move to Russia.

“But many are still afraid to go now, because they don’t know what the reaction will be, how the Russians will meet the Ukrainians because of the promises of war,” Olesya notes.

In a conversation with me, Ukrainians also admitted that they are frightened by the news that comes from Russia, and not only related to the war.

- We constantly hear that in Moscow there are fights on ethnic grounds with the participation of people from the Caucasus or Central Asia. Scary! And in St. Petersburg you are generally dismembered like that. A dismembered corpse of a Ukrainian was found in an apartment on Nevsky Prospekt, we all discussed it (we are talking about Andy Cartwright, an underground rap artist who died back in 2020 - Ed.), - Anna from Kiev notes.

- In Russia they do not like visitors. My aunt with a higher education, a teacher, moved to live in Russia. So she was not hired for a job in her specialty. In the end, she works as a nanny. Russians say about us, "Khokhols have come in large numbers!". And my aunt is also Russian! Yes, due to circumstances, she lived in Ukraine for a long time, but so what? In Russia, they seem to say that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, but in reality it turns out that you are more welcome to migrants from Central Asia, ”says my Kiev friend Tatyana.

“The Americans are taking our brains out”

- Those Ukrainians who are more punchy go to Germany, the UK, the USA, Japan and Israel, but this is already much more difficult, not everyone is expected there, - says my Kiev colleague - journalist Stanislav.The green light in these countries is on for students, but not everyone can afford it. It is necessary that parents have money, and big money. But specialists, primarily IT specialists, are welcomed by the West with a bang.

- My son works in an IT company. So the Americans constantly persuade the guys: “Putin will soon attack Ukraine, leave! Where would you like to go?" The salary is offered several times higher, housing and all conditions. My son decided that he would leave, but so far he is thinking where exactly, - says my friend Natalya from Odessa and bitterly remarks. - The last "brains" are being taken out of Ukraine. Our children will no longer leave offspring here. And what will we have left here, the village?

Recently, more villagers from Central and Western Ukraine began to come to Odessa, who speak the Ukrainian language and spread their way of life. In Russian-speaking Odessa, such guests, to put it mildly, are not welcome. This is exactly what Natalia means. At the same time, she admits that neither her son nor other young people see prospects for themselves in Ukraine.

- Salaries are low, the economy is not developing, laws are not observed, there is no normal police, army, medicine. Not the state - but a misunderstanding, so the youth is fleeing from here. It is sad that our children are leaving, but preventing them from doing so means depriving them of a chance for a better life, Natalya notes.

VIEW FROM THE EDITOR

We don't store what we have

Elena Matveeva

The situation with Ukrainians moving to Russia is simply paradoxical. On the one hand, our authorities have been talking about a demographic crisis and an acute shortage of workers for several years. It would seem that let's give Ukrainians - people who speak the same language with us, believe in the same God with us, have a common history with us and have done a lot for the development of Russia - the right to freely enter, live and work in our country. Let's give them "elevation", provide them with medical insurance, arrange their children in schools and kindergartens (now these places are occupied by children of immigrants from Central Asia). Let the Ukrainians moving to us have unconditional advantages over labor migrants from other countries. Then they will come to us not just with their families, but with entire villages and even cities! Then the problem of the extinction of Russians, which demographers constantly talk about, will not be so acute for Russia.

Yes, in recent years, the authorities have made migration concessions for Russians from other countries, including from Ukraine. But these changes were not dramatic. Otherwise, the Ukrainians would not compare our migration requirements with the circles of hell in a conversation with me, they would not have been waiting for years to receive a residence permit. And then, on top of everything else, a pandemic was superimposed, and the nuts were spun with renewed vigor. But the pandemic will end sooner or later. And we can succeed, as in the well-known proverb: “what we have we do not store, having lost weeping.” Ukrainians, whom we are now pushing away from ourselves in the bureaucratic and covid heat, can settle in Europe, and it will not be easy to bring them back to us.

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