Igor, 63, already counts to a hundred in Dutch

Igor Stepanov (63) wears the same checked shirt as when he arrived in Hillegom eighteen days ago, but his gaze is softer. He has read that he can stay for a while. During his first days in the Netherlands, he could find very little official government information. It made him insecure. Igor was afraid that he had to go back to Ukraine, into the war.

A few days ago he went to the town hall of Hillegom to register. That was allowed, the State Secretary for Asylum had announced. Igor had brought his passport, he has no other documents. The local municipal official was at a loss, there is not a word of English in that passport. It could just take a week or two, the official said. “And maybe six.”

“It’s very frustrating,” says the brown ponytailed woman sitting at the table next to Igor. “Certainly for someone like Igor who is so ordered himself.” Her name is Sabine Kamstra and she takes care of Igor together with her husband Jurgen van Dooren. Their house with scaffolding wood furniture and lots of concrete gray has just been renovated two years ago. Igor was able to live in an apartment in their backyard, where the family stayed during the work.

He has his own computer and a kitchen and a living room for himself. “He only showers in our sons’ bathroom.” The sons sold lemonade and homemade brownies on the sidewalk in front of the house and earned one hundred and forty euros for Igor. He got groceries from it. The State Secretary has promised Ukrainians living money in the Netherlands, but Igor has not yet received anything. He can’t even open a bank account yet.

Even buying eye cream can be complicated, Igor noted. “In Ukraine, you can buy all medicines at the pharmacy, as long as they don’t make you drunk.” In the Netherlands, eye cream comes with a doctor’s prescription, he was told. He cannot yet insure himself without a citizen service number. The pharmacist arranged for him to go to the doctor. “The doctor helped me for free, really very nice.”

His daughter Carina (36) and grandson Sascha (13) live 400 meters from Igor. The three of them accidentally ended up in Hillegom. Local entrepreneur Arjan Warmerdam had driven to the Polish border just after the war broke out to pick up Ukrainian refugees. He took Carina and Sascha to his house, they had lost Igor on the run. Only women and children were allowed on the crowded train from Lviv to the Polish border town of Przemyśl. A day later, Igor managed to escape from Ukraine himself.

Street names of Hillegom

Now he gets to know the roads and street names in Hillegom, which gives him a sense of control. “I don’t want to be deaf and blind here.” He notices that the Dutch have more ‘private homes’. In Kramatorsk, the city where he comes from, there are mainly apartments, says Igor. Many people have stayed, including his neighbors. “They ask me how I was able to leave my house,” says Igor. “I had to stay, they say. To defend my house with my body. But how?”

It’s not the first time he’s run away. In 2014 there was also fighting in Kramatorsk. That was when Donetsk and Luhansk were taken by pro-Russian separatists. Igor fled the city to Dnipro, a two-hour drive to the west, and stayed in a hostel for two months until he was able to return home safely.

He had expected it to be the same now. On the day the war broke out, he called the same hostel to reserve a room in advance. “The receptionist said: I hear bangs here too. Then I knew this time was different.”

Dutch for Dummies

Now missiles are hitting his house, he heard three days ago. He tried to call friends, but telephone communication was no longer possible. Jurgen immediately went online and found a video of the impact on YouTube. A neighbor later told me that their house had just been missed. Igor himself only watches the news twice a day. Only in the morning and evening, to BBC World News† “Otherwise I’ll get depressed.”

He closes his eyes and moves his hands as he talks. Until his retirement, he taught English at university. Now he is learning Dutch. He’s graduating Dutch for Dummies, a bright yellow book. The name sounds funny, he says, “but it’s well put together”. He now knows the days of the week and can count to a hundred in Dutch. “Good morning, good afternoon,” he says. “Bread, cheese, sausage.”

“Orange”, Jurgen shouts from the kitchen. “Orange,” giggles Igor.

Sabina: „We help him with Dutch. And Igor helps us with English.”

He also gave guest lectures at a primary school in Hillegom. He talked about himself, about Ukraine and, in “the last block of the lesson”, also about the war. “All the children knew the colors of the flag!” says Igor with satisfaction. He said they were very interested and asked good questions. “They asked if I had seen the bombings myself. One of the children wanted to know if Ukraine also has a McDonald’s.”

He has even been recognized once. In the supermarket, he heard a cashier tell her colleague that the ‘Ukrainian refugee’ was there. He looked there in vain for sunflower oil – but it was sold out. Because of the war. “Food is more expensive here,” says Igor. “Only cheese has the same price. I think because you make so much of it.”

“There was another big event,” says Igor. Yesterday he was back at the town hall, and this time he was received by the mayor himself. He was given a tour: the cellar, the wedding room, the council chamber. He was also treated to lunch. The mayor was really very nice.”