While in Moscow three weeks ago, following a media tour to Donetsk, eastern Ukraine in which I participated, I had the pleasure of meeting Jon Hellevig, a regular writer at Russia Insider. Jon was in Donetsk a few weeks before our group, thanks to the efforts of the same Russian/German citizen group, Europa Objektiv, which organized our tour.
The second of Jon’s articles about his trip was published on April 21 and is titled, ‘Donbas endures’. The article describes one of the settlements in Russia of war refugees from eastern Ukraine. It is located across the border from southeastern Ukraine, on the road to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. It’s also on the shoreline of Sea of Azov, prompting an evocative sub-title in Jon’s article: ‘Fleeing the bombs in eastern Ukraine to a room with a sea view’. Our group visited the same settlement several weeks later.
Jon explained, “I have not visited a refugee camp before.” I have, in Haiti. There are some parallels and warning signs between the two places, notably in the calls by the regime in Kyiv for international troops called ‘peacekeepers’ to enter eastern Ukraine.
Displaced by War in Eastern Ukraine
Jon writes, “Tatyana Bolshakova and her family from Donetsk used to travel to the seaside for holidays. They had always dreamt of a house with a sea view, she said, but she would never have thought this is how they’d come by one, pointing out through the window overlooking the Sea of Azov in the room that she and her family occupies at the Primorka refugee camp in Russia’s Rostov region.”
Like Jon, I was struck by how well Primorka was organized and how well the residents were received by their Russian hosts. The settlement is located in a former youth (‘pioneers’) camp dating from the Soviet era. Hence, the camp is known as ‘Pioneer’ camp. Primorka is a small town in an area of agricultural plains. The children attend local schools.
A local woman, Svetlana, had purchased the unused pioneers’ camp just before hostilities broke out in Ukraine last year. She and her husband planned to earn income by reopening it as a summer camp for children and families. Along came a war just across the border with Ukraine, a 45 minute drive to the west.
As victims of Kyiv’s war against Donbas began to flee to Russia for safety, the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian government began to requisition facilities such as the Pioneer camp in Primorka. It received its first displaced residents on June 5, 2014.
More than one million Ukrainians have fled to Russia to escape the war during the past year. We were told that in the Rostov region alone, there are close to 50,000 displaced Ukrainians, many of whom are living in some 30 camps. Hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians have obtained work visas and settled permanently or semi-permanently in Russia.