report
Status: 04/09/2022 12:01 p.m
Antalya has become a place of refuge for 800 Ukrainian orphans. A Ukrainian businessman recently took her there to safety – for six months at first.
They slide, swing, climb: the Ukrainian orphans cavort on one of the playgrounds in Antalya. Ruslan Shozdak watches them:
If you see pictures from Bucha, Hostomel, Mariupol or other Ukrainian cities, then you will be happy to see children playing here in this sunny park. You’re glad you were able to get her to safety – for a few days, a few months. I feel honored to be able to do something for these children.
Zhosdak is a Ukrainian entrepreneur, a quiet man with a full red-blond beard in a T-shirt and jeans. When war broke out in his country at the end of February, he was in the Turkish city of Antalya. There are almost 80,000 orphans in Ukrainian homes. He wants to spare at least part of the war trauma.
Orphans and their carers from Ukraine in Antalya.
Image: ARD
“No rockets fly here”
The first children arrived in Antalya last week via Poland. Hanna is ten years old, a petite but confident girl with dark hair. She is so happy to be here: “Yes, because there are no more rockets and planes flying overhead. I heard them and the explosions. That really scared me.”
At that moment, the little ones lose their gaze. She seems far away for a moment, at home in her hometown of Dnepropetrovsk. It is around 460 kilometers southeast of Kyiv. Hanna only gets a few minor attacks there.
A few days ago, the Ukrainian Deputy Consul in Antalya, Sergei Kaian, says the city was heavily bombed: “Our main problem is to evacuate the children as early as possible. Because if the Russians bomb the cities or the train connections, then they have to stay , such as in Mariupol.”
Turkish entrepreneurs and the government are helping
They want to bring more orphans to Antalya with their carers, a total of at least 3,000, maybe 5,000, explains the young man with sunglasses and a white-embroidered Ukrainian folk shirt. Turkish entrepreneurs and the government are helping to ensure that there is enough money for food and health insurance – and above all for accommodation in hotels. The businessman Schosdak takes care of them:
There are very different offers. Unfortunately, there have also been hotels that have offered us very high prices, practically the maximum they can get. But there were and are some who offered us their small hotels at very reasonable prices, at least until the start of the season. We’re paying for it now and looking for other solutions at the same time. We have selected the hotels where the children are guaranteed to be able to stay for the next few months.
Build infrastructure for teaching
You plan with at least half a year. If the war ends earlier, they will of course leave sooner, he assures them. Neither he nor the vice-consul seem to really believe in it. At the moment they are setting up the infrastructure for teaching, he says: “We are trying to connect them with their teachers at home. The adults who came with us will help out for that long. And I think we can in the next two to three weeks also organize a few excursions and offer lessons on Turkish culture and language.”
At home in Ukraine, Hanna and the others had online lessons before the war because of Corona. The ten-year-old tells us that the internet just isn’t working at the moment.
“Better than sitting in the bunker every day”
She raves about the sea and wants to go swimming soon. It’s still a bit too cold at the moment: “I’m really looking forward to it. It’s better than sitting in the bunker every day. I’ve always been afraid for my friends, that they could die. I miss my home a lot , but can’t go back yet.”
She speaks of death as a matter of course. The other children are very quiet, listening to her.
“Forget for a Few Minutes”
One of the supervisors is Evgenija Rebecca, a young woman in a glitter shirt with long peroxide blonde hair. Her braid goes all the way down your back. “We feel so safe here. When we walk by the sea, we forget for a minute or two what’s going on at home,” she says.
Most of them know Antalya, even if none of them has ever been here, she says, while one holiday plane after the other thunders over her head.
Antalya – popular holiday destination of Ukrainians
The holiday stronghold is well known in Ukraine. In peacetime, many Ukrainians come here. The situation now seems all the more unreal to Evgenija Rebecca. Do you and the children feel like tourists or as refugees? “I can’t answer this question exactly because we don’t feel like refugees. But because volunteers help us, of course, we somehow understand that we are refugees after all. We are provided with everything here.”
And yet it is also very important for little Hanna to be able to go back home soon. She dreams of it: “I would like to become a volunteer to be there for people who need help.”
Then she spontaneously says thank you in Turkish and hops over to her friends. They are just lining up to march off, in rows of two holding hands. It’s going to lunch.
Refuge in holiday paradise – Ukrainian orphans in Antalya
Karin Senz, ARD Istanbul, April 9, 2022 10:35 a.m