At the De Eswal campsite in Vries, 35-year-old Daria Radna from Kharkov is getting ready to go to work. “Just call me Dasha.”
She is a lawyer, but now she cleans buses of the company Drenthe Tours from Assen. “That way I at least have something to do,” she smiles.
She has been camping in Vries since May, together with other Ukrainian refugees. A total of 26 houses are inhabited, mostly by families. Everyone has their own story.
very bad dream
“I fled Kharkov when the first bombs fell. My parents’ house was bombed to the ground. We fled as soon as we could.” Her brother and many friends stayed behind. Her mother fled to France. Dasha slept nights in a subway station. With only a backpack and her dog she managed to get to Poland. There was a bus that took her, and many others, to the Netherlands.
It has now been six months since the war in Ukraine broke out. She can’t believe it. “It’s a nightmare that I can’t wake up from. I don’t understand it either. What do the Russians want? Will they continue until we’re all dead? Do they want our country? I don’t get it.”
Terrible flight
The Hrudyna family was also on the same bus that Dasha ended up in. Father Olexander, mother Lubov and their three children aged 5, 8 and 17. They are from Kherson province.
With their three children and the cat, they decided to flee their country at the end of April. They got into a car and risked their lives through the bombings to Poland. “We ended up in a huge traffic jam. Everyone wanted to leave. There was no other route, we did not dare to take a detour because there were land mines everywhere. It was terrible,” says Lubov.
hope for life
The southern city of Kherson has been dominating the news in recent days. The Ukrainian army is said to have launched a major counter-offensive. The city of Kherson has been occupied by the Russians since early March and Ukraine now wants to liberate it.
“We hope that our army will make it, but I am afraid that the Russian army is stronger. In the end, I am convinced that the good will win over the evil. The most important thing is that my family and friends are still alive when the war is over,” Lubov says in tears.
Contact with left behind family is difficult. Internet no longer works and electricity often goes out. “We can sometimes only call, but that’s enough.”
Nothing like it used to be
The three children go to school in Eelde. “We had the vain hope that our children could go back to school in Ukraine in September. That it would be just like it used to be. But we now know that won’t happen. Our hopes for a quick return are gone.”
Back home safely is still a long way off. Fortunately, the Ukrainian refugees can stay longer at camping De Eswal. The Municipal Executive has decided to extend the reception until April 1 next year. Holiday park Het Akenveen in Tynaarlo is also allowed to house refugees for longer. Because it looks like they will be staying in Drenthe even longer, they miss certain practical items. “A very simple clothes rack, for example. So that we no longer have to live out of suitcases. And when winter comes, a communal dryer would be very nice.”
For now they are safe in Vries. “Thank you,” Dasha says in Dutch. “Many thanks for your help. On behalf of everyone here at the park. It’s so important to us.”