A14 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 , 2022
russia invades ukraineBY LOVEDAY MORRISlviv, ukraine — When Tetanya
Mudrianyets woke up at 5 a.m. to
rumbling, she thought it was
thunder. Her mind immediately
went to the clothes drying on the
line outside.
“I thought I’d go take the laun-
dry in,” said the mother of eight,
five of whom still live at home.
But as she stepped out of her
house on her family’s small farm
just outside the town of Khakhov-
ka, on the edge of Russian-occu-
pied Crimea, “the sky lit up.”
Hearing news of the invasion,
the children, ages 10 to 18, begged
her and her husband to leave as
the sound of the explosions
moved closer. But by the time
they found a taxi and set out, the
roads had been taken by Russian
troops.
It was the beginning of a trau-
matic 560-mile, three-day jour-
ney across the front line and on to
Lviv, a western city roughly
50 miles from the border with
Poland that has become some-
thing of a refuge. Previously a hub
for tourism, with its historic old
town a UNESCO World Heritage
site, it is now a hub for the
internally displaced.
Its main train station heaves
with a mass of people attempting
to move on to Poland or other
areas in Ukraine’s west. Some 152
community buildings such as
schools, theaters and art galleries
have been turned over to house
the displaced, as well as 100 reli-
gious institutions. Residents have
also opened up their homes to
those from cities under bombard-
ment.
But the mayor has said that
arrivals should make themselves
useful.
“I want to emphasize that to-
day, Lviv is no longer a tourist
center,” Andriy Sadovyi said in a
public statement Monday. “All
those who come here must re-
member that they are not guests.
We should work together for the
victory of our army!”
As they arrived in Lviv over the
weekend, the Mudrianyets family
rode the tram that rings the city
for four hours in an attempt to
keep warm, before seeing a sign
for a restaurant that was giving
free food to the displaced. “Our
teeth were chattering,” said Tet-
anya’s husband, Anatoly, speak-
ing after the family’s first hot
meal in days.
They stayed at the restaurant
eating and napping before catch-
ing an afternoon train to stay
with relatives in the Transcar-
pathia, on the border with Slova-
kia. From there, they would de-
cide whether to cross.
But the border crossings, with
days-long waits, are daunting.
Temperatures dropped over the
weekend, and it began to snow,
bringing more misery for an esti-
mated 30,000 people who were
lining up in cars or on foot at the
region’s train stations and cross-
ings with Poland.
“Nobody wants to leave their
home,” said 55-year-old Anatoly,
who wept a s he told the story of
their escape, leaving behind what
he described as an idyllic, self -
sufficient life on their farm with
150 cherry trees, two cows, two
bulls and 100 chickens. But get-
ting his family to safety was moreimportant.
“We just grabbed a backpack,
documents, vests, underpants,”
he said. His 11-year-old son, Ilya,
brought a book. A few games were
thrown in.
“The scariest part is going into
the unknown,” Anatoly said. On
the road, he said, they passed a
burned-out Ukrainian armored
vehicle and military truck, before
passing the local hydroelectric
plant, which now flew the Rus-
sian flag. Dozens of Russian mili-
tary vehicles were outside.
Anatoly said he gave his chil-
dren strict instructions not to
take pictures for fear they’d be
stopped and searched by Russian
forces. Although some details of
the family’s story were not possi-
ble to verify, their account match-es satellite images that show the
hydroelectric station under Rus-
sian control.
To reach western Ukraine, and
a chance of safety, the family had
to traverse the Russian-con-
trolled bridge over the Dnieper
River. The soldiers were waving
civilian cars through. “It was very
scary,” Anatoly said.
“We didn’t see any fighting, but
we saw the consequences,” he
said. There was smoke rising
from somewhere in the distance.
When he left his home, Anatoly
thought he’d be able to make it
out of the country to Slovakia,
where one of his older sons lives.
But in the days it took the family
to cross the country, the govern-
ment barred all men ages 18 to 60
from leaving.In line with the nationwide call
to arms, Lviv’s mayor said wom-
en, children and the elderly were
welcome to stay in the city. “We
ask military-conscripted men ac-
companying them to return to
their cities and join the defense of
our country,” he said.
The rule has made for agoniz-
ing separations or led families
that were thinking of fleeing to
stay. At the city’s train station,
young couples who had gotten
this far together contemplated
being separated.
“I have eight kids to look after,
and they tell me I should go
fight?” Anatoly said. “My wife
said, ‘Okay, I’ll cross but what are
you going to do? Sit here for five
years with no family?’ ”
But there were reunions, too.Two sisters who had returned
from Poland to collect their chil-
dren after fighting broke out were
finally reunited after their grand-
mother brought them to the Lviv
station on Sunday.
Maxim, 13, and Dasha, 12,
gripped boxes holding their pet
parrots while waiting for their
mothers.
The birds “were hungry too,”
said their grandmother, Valenti-
na Perovna, 61, before her daugh-
ters arrived for an emotional re-
union. “We all suffer together.”
Lviv is a way station as much as
a new home for the displaced.
Around 31,000 internally dis-
placed people are hosted in the
region, said Maksym Kozytskyy,
the head of the regional adminis-
tration. Another 100,000 have
moved on to Poland, he said.
There are still 35,000 spaces
available in temporary shelters
and with people who have opened
up their homes, Kozytskyy said.
The main problem is dealing with
the logistics of the flow of people,
but the huge volunteer effort and
donations mean there are no hu-
manitarian needs, he said.
There was a steady stream of
residents delivering carloads of
food, clothes and blankets to a
buzzing aid distribution point in
one of the city’s museums Satur-
day. Volunteers sorted donations
to be sent on to shelters and
homes. Among those volunteer-
ing were some who had been
displaced themselves, eager to
keep busy.
When the Mudrianyets family
arrived in Lviv, they had spent all
but $200 of the $1,500 they had.
Their older children, who all live
outside the country, offered to
wire money, but with a cash
crunch there was no way to with-
draw it. They don’t know what
they will do when it runs out.
The crush at the border, and
restrictions on men of fighting
age, have discouraged many from
leaving. And with longer-term
accommodation in the cities full,
people are increasingly trying to
find options in countryside villag-
es, said Evgenia Nesterovich, a
volunteer at the bus station.
But it is unclear how long the
calm here will last, amid warn-
ings that Belarusian President
Alexander Lukashenko will open
up a new front on the border to
the north.
“The front line could come very
close to us,” Kozytskyy said.Anastasya Ivanova contributed to
this report.Amid war, tourist hub becomes refuge for the displaced
PHOTOS BY WOJCIECH GRZEDZINSKI FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTCLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: At the train station in Lviv in western Ukraine, people trying to flee the war w ait for a ny train to Poland. Members of the Mudrianyets family, who had a 560-mile, three-day
journey to get to Lviv, sit around a table at a restaurant serving free food and hot drinks to refugees. Ukrainians wait at the train station in Lviv; the area is hosting about 31, 000 internally displaced people, the
head of the regional administration said. Anayel, who is from Cameroon, holds her 7-month-old son, Andriej, while waiting for a train.
People wait for a train at the station in Lviv. The city, which is roughly 50 miles from the Polish border, has become a hub for those trying
to flee the war. Before, it was a tourist destination known for its historic old town.“The scariest part is going into the unknown.”
Anatoly Mudrianyets, a farmer from near the Crimea area who fled with his wife and five of their children to Lviv