Rhino's Ramblings - The Border

By Robert Thomas - Opinion/Commentary

As I finally get over jet lag and walk around Moose Jaw people ask me what did I really accomplish when I was in Ukraine?

Did I really make a difference? And if so how did I help?

These are questions which fill my mind and I keep asking.

My friends in Odessa, despite my best efforts, decided as a family to stay behind and face what may happen.

They have chosen to remain and re-build Ukraine.

As I spoke to them and told them look I know a route out that is not all that bad but they declined.

The war has impacted many people as not only are their livelihoods pretty much being destroyed but at the same time there are so many young people leaving and with them goes Ukraine's future.

As I sat in Varna, Bulgaria safe from the war I had a chance to chat with Olya after I got off of the telephone with yet another journalist wanting to ask me questions.

I asked Olya how things were going and she said the same as always and getting worse.

More and more of her friends were leaving and 80 percent of them were never coming back.

Odessa - even if the Russians don't show up - will never be the same. It is the same throughout the country.

Ukraine and Odessa itself was now nothing more than a broken dream and their grandchildren would simply hear about a special place that they may someday dream about coming back to.

This is one of the things overlooked in this stupid war.

The people who are leaving are for the most part never coming back and it is not just the war compelling them not to return.

It is quite simple to answer, living in Ukraine is a tough life. It always has been and for so many unlikely to really ever improve.

There are rules, there are laws but in reality they aren't being followed before the war let alone now.

The Ukrainian bureaucracy in Odessa - especially at the higher levels - are on the take. Money for programs to make life better for all Ukrainians continues to be stolen by people at the top.

Now the country is advising people to donate only to their approved charities. It just never ends.

Even if the nightmare the war has become were to end in the next six months the anxiety and uncertainty many Ukrainians have endured for the last few months is never really going to go away.

People might ask why I came home?

Honestly I never planned to, but for my friends it is safer if I left.

For Olya it is depressing knowing so much is going to change.

Her business partner has now left the country with the family’s ultimate goal to end up in Italy.

Someone in her mid-thirties set to start a new life again.

It will take a lot of work and effort to succeed abroad. Effort she would have contributed to building a better Ukraine if it wasn’t for the stupid war.

Effort which will be spent elsewhere.

So what about Olya my friend of now over 15 years?

Despite my asking she and her family have decided to stay.

With the business for the next little while put into hiatus Olya is using her business contacts to do something good and positive for Ukraine.

They are starting a foundation to help the truly needy who are right now suffering.

The threat of war and now the war itself has harmed the poorer people of Odessa and Ukraine so disproportionately that having the chance to launch a new life elsewhere is their only hope.

There is no work for many. And no government help as well.

Ordinary people are actually being evicted by landlords and they have but also it means they have no funds to pay for basic baby things and yes even medicines.

If you want the truth to the matter I will give you Olya’s words on this.

Don’t give your money to charities connected with the government they will steal 95 percent of it.

If you really want to help go through reliable private charities that are grassroots in nature.

Olya is perhaps one of the most hard working and adaptable person I know. She is not afraid to go out and make things work. To make things happen.

In the few days I have been away she has started organizing a relief effort together with some contacts in Germany and other humanitarian groups. A better way to assist those who are really in a desperate need for things like medicine and baby products to name just a few.

I told her I would do something I usually shy away from and put out an endorsement for hers and the German partners who are launching a major relief effort.

This is just part of the decision she and her family made to stay behind. To do what they can to help re-build Ukraine.

For myself I was feeling let down because my real reason for being here was to help them get out when the time came.

But it was her family's decision and I respect it.

I asked Olya really what good did I really do and she said potentially I did more than I will ever know.

I now know exactly what the everyday Odessite and Ukrainian is going through because I lived it.

I was not like the rest of the foreign press who lounge in the fanciest 5 Star hotels Odessa has to offer asking for their nightly drinks despite the fact consuming alcohol is prohibited.

Making a fuss as they say, something is easy to find out since you know people who work in those hotels.

What Olya told me is I lived in Moldvanka - economically one of the poorer regions of Odessa - and I fit in. I know what ordinary Ukrainian people are enduring.

“You see us for who we are. You now know part of what our lives are. You road the tramvai (trams) while other foreign reporters are riding around in limousines,” she said.

I told Olya how bad I felt for my friends in Kharkiv. I had gone there to tell they need to move quickly. The horrors I saw were just a start and things were only going to get worse.

Sadly they did not listen.

I have had people ask me what did I see in Kharkiv?

I saw horrors beyond description, things I will never unsee.

The worst were human remains on the streets of Kharkiv and dogs scavenging them.

I had not heard from the people I went to visit there and help in days. They were suppose to be right behind me getting out before it was too late.

It left me empty and depressed about the failure to help them.

As I chatted with Olya she finally asked me what really happened at the Ukrainian - Moldovan border.

Really why would so many military people key in on me? What really happened.

Olya knows I have perfected the art of going through military checkpoints.

I had survived the Donbas and have literally made it through dozens of checkpoints over the years with Kalishnikov toting warriors without attracting attention to myself.

I know how to do it, it is just how you act.

This is my great secret I can appear to be a native Odessite right down to the mannerisms.

That is how I am so successful with my street photos. People think I belong there and I simply blend into the surroundings.

When we got to the Ukraine - Moldova border the expected bus was not there.

But the driver said the expected bus coming from Varna was going to be late but it would be there in about 40 minutes and just across the road there was a toilet.

So everyone got off the bus and headed into a very small hotel where there was a single toilet where everyone would toss down 10 Hryvinas (about 40 cents Canadian) to use it.

Due to the length of the lineup I decided to head back to the bus because I worried about it being empty and my camera sitting in my carry on bag.

As I was about to sit down I noticed the older boy’s grandma sitting there and praying.

She was sitting right behind me and I know perhaps I shouldn’t have I listened to her ask G-d to spare her grandson from the army. As him and his younger brother was all she had.

She spoke to G-d about being poor and having little in life but her family. She prayed that her grandson would not now be taken by the army.

You could tell by the clothes they wore this was not a very rich family and the clothes were used.

The suitcases they had were broken and stitched up. It was all they had.

As I sat there I had flashbacks to my life and how my grandmother had just passed away this past Spring.

I remembered being raised by my grandma since I was an infant. And how we never had much.

Growing up in life many times my clothes were very cheap and often handmade by my grandmother who was quite the farm seamstress - a seamstress out of necessity to help save money and to get by.

I remember my grandma being deeply religious and in that poor woman's prayer I thought about my grandma.

It was the toughest part about Ukraine

As I got off the bus something came over me as I watched the Ukrainian soldiers going through everyone's documents - especially the birth certificates of younger men.

Men between 18 - 60 are not allowed to leave the country.

Deep down I knew this kid was likely 18 or 19 and was just wanting to go with his mom, grandma and younger brother to a better life.

I told Olya once I left the bus I started acting Ukrainian and told the woman from Odessa who had gone to England as a mail order bride to speak Russian only to me.

In those two hours as we waited for the bus to transfer to I avoided eye contact with the Ukrainian soldiers. I acted Odessite the best I could in the darkness.

Then as we lined up in two lines to have our documents looked at the majority of border guards keyed in on me thinking they'd caught a big fish.

The other line - including the guy I thought was 18 or 19 - was let through with little scrutiny.

I asked Olya given the loss of my friends in Kharkiv did I do right? Would Ukraine miss one kid in the Stupid War?

All she did on Instagram chat was put a heart on my comment.

Editor’s Note - After laying out the majority of this column I received this. Someday perhaps I will tell you the rest of the story but all I can say now is I never failed in Kharkiv.