Anastasia Gorokhova, a journalist, screenwriter and novelist born in Moscow but living in Germany, had planned to be in Riga on March 5 this year to take part in the Art Docfest film festival. The film "Beyond the White", based on her screenplay, was screened there. Unfortunately, the Russian invasion of Ukraine stopped her plans to attend the Riga film festival.
From the first days of the war, Anastasia was involved in Heart for Ukraine, an organization founded by her Ukrainian-born friend Marina Bond, the first violinist of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, who is well-known in Germany. It was founded eight years ago to help children affected by the first Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now the organization is working hard to identify needs in specific Ukrainian cities, help resettle Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in Germany and organize the logistics of humanitarian supplies from Berlin and other German cities to Ukraine.
As Gorokhova told Neatkarīgā, the influx of refugees in Germany is so huge and the number of requests from Ukraine for needs is so high that the work of one NGO is not enough.
Without thinking too long, with the support of friends and acquaintances, she and her partner Paul, who was born in Ukraine but moved to Germany more than twenty years ago, set up their own website. It collects information on what goods, products or medicines Germans can donate to humanitarian aid in Ukraine. She says it is important to inform Germans not only about what is needed, but also about what is not needed. It is then important to guide the process so that the needed items go to the right place.
The next big part of the work is related to coordination in the resettlement of refugees. In between, there are special requests: "I get a call from Ukraine asking if I can send the insulin that is needed in such and such Ukrainian town. I call my acquaintances, find what I need and coordinate to have the goods sent to the right place. I also coordinate the packing of large trucks and their shipment to Ukraine with items and products brought by sponsors and bought with their money from German supermarkets. Sometimes I have to take part in the search for things that can't be discussed officially. In Germany, a natural person is not allowed to supply drones and body armor to the Ukrainian armed forces. But we have had to deal with such things too. Today I received a request to find and supply walkie-talkies of a certain standard. I am looking for them right now. On top of all that, I have a lot of friends in Ukraine whom I try to contact and encourage and motivate. In this communication, new needs are emerging," Anastasia tells Neatkarīgā.
"Three days ago, my friend, a doctor in Uzhhorod, told me that they were short of certain medicines. Uzhhorod has not been bombed yet, but there are a lot of refugees there because it is near the border. The infrastructure and services of the small town are not designed for such a huge influx of people. We also have problems here in Germany. The medicines we need in Uzhhorod are sold in Germany only in pharmacies on prescription. You have to find a doctor. I know one doctor. I sent him a list of the medicines I need. The doctor drew up the necessary prescriptions and then forwarded them to the pharmacist. We will have to find a way to transport all this to Uzhhorod. Another story. A family from Ukraine realized at the beginning of the war that it would be impossible to live with the constant noise of explosions since their child was autistic. Now they have happily crossed the border, and I have to figure out where to settle them. I have looked at the options and realized that there are no more places available in Berlin that I know of. I contacted my friends in Leipzig. I managed to find them a place to live. Next, I will have to think about how to get the authorities to register them as war refugees as soon as possible. Sometimes they have to wait as long as four days. In Leipzig, registration is carried out in only one place: the city hall. Registration is particularly important for them because it means they are covered by German medical insurance. Next story. I receive a message from a long-standing client of mine in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. For many years I have been translating German doctors' reports, prescriptions and recommendations for her and her family. She is 45 years old and suffers from melanoma at a severe stage. She also has a 13-year-old daughter who has suffered from rheumatism since childhood and a 23-year-old son who suffers from epilepsy and is dependent on medication. They spent the last days of the war in a basement. Now Mykolaiv is also under fire. She and her daughter have left, but her son and her husband have stayed in Mykolaiv house because their son cannot be transported. When she crossed the Ukrainian border, she wrote to me that she was going to Germany and asked me to find a place to live. I found it. I hope that in two days I will be able to meet them here and settle them in the place I have found.
Everything is happening as fast and as intensively as never before. I have to walk the dog at seven in the morning, and I usually go to the shop at the same time. This morning, on my way out of the house, I also grabbed a garbage bag - thinking that I will throw it in the bin on the way, as always. I go, make some calls and write some messages, and then I find myself at the shop with that garbage bag in hand that I should have thrown away at my house a long time before," says Anastasia.
Gorokhova drew attention to another important, less noticed aspect of the war: Russians from Russia are also fleeing. "We have many friends living in Moscow and St Petersburg. Many of them have already happily gotten out of Russia, and many continue to do so. We need to help them too. You cannot imagine how many people are leaving Russia. One of my Russian friends has escaped to Istanbul. I received photographs from her. In them I saw another friend of mine in one of the cafés in Istanbul. The café is full of people from Russia. Georgia and Armenia are also full of Russians. One of my friends in Yerevan told me about the huge influx of Russian people who have flocked there with their dogs, cats, grandmothers and grandfathers. Recently, one of them in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, called and asked for help to get to Germany. Another rapper I know, Noize MC, who is famous in Russia, has left for Vilnius. Latvian journalists well known to your newspaper contacted me and asked me to help arrange an interview with him. The rapper was forced to leave Russia because he was facing criminal charges for his public support for Ukraine. He is scheduled to perform in Berlin this Sunday at a concert in support of Ukraine. I am helping him to translate a contract that he hopes will protect him from further trouble in Russia, namely from another criminal indictment for high treason. After all, this concert is a charity, the money will be donated to Ukraine.
It is, after all, natural that people should be helped.
Moreover, although they are few in number, there are also people in Russia who did not vote for Putin and who are now being forced to leave Russia, where the dictatorship is only strengthening. These people must also be helped. They are completely abandoned to their fate with the passport of an aggressor state in their hands. I have given at least five interviews about this problem to various German media. It is absolutely necessary to talk about it, if only so that people do not forget about them."
According to Gorokhova, in the early days of the war, those who wanted to take in Ukrainian refugees could go to the Berlin railway station: "It was full of refugees. All they had to do was to choose the most suitable refugees for them from the huge crowd and take them to be settled. There were reports that pimps were active at the station, inviting Ukrainian girls to stay with them. They did accommodate them, but they took away their passports and made them work for the accommodation in the specific field. The police started to pay more attention to this. It is no longer possible to accommodate Ukrainian refugees without registration.
There are so many refugees that there are not enough rooms to live in.
Special tents are being erected, living containers installed. The authorities are doing what they can, but the main burden of helping still falls on volunteers. All my acquaintances in Berlin have been hosting Ukrainian refugees for more or less some time."
According to Gorokhova, her selfless work in support of Ukraine is also partly due to a collective sense of guilt for the crimes committed by the dictator of her homeland: "I can't think about my own film projects now, when such horrible things are happening all around. It's probably not the right position, because art is also important. But I can't do anything else. At the moment, I see my main priority as helping Ukraine. Also because I feel guilty for belonging to a nation that caused a war.
Yesterday, I was sitting with my friend from Moscow, who has lived in Berlin for five years, in a café near my house. Of course, she is also against the war in Ukraine. The weather was nice. We were sitting at a table in the street, had an Aperol spritz and talked in Russian. A guy comes by, Caucasian in appearance. He suddenly turns around and asks us in Russian: "What are you, from Ukraine?" We both answer at the same time, independently of each other, "Yes!" Imagine - we no longer say we are Russian! The guy warmly congratulates us on our arrival and leaves. Could I have imagined that there would come a time in my life when I would feel bad about belonging to Russia with a Russian passport in my hand. There is, of course, no persecution of Russians here in Berlin, but there is a heightened distrust of Russians. It is unpleasant, but I take it with understanding and I think it is fair at this moment."
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