In the early hours of February 24, when the first Russian missiles fell on Ukraine, Lena was at the Kyiv airport queuing to board a plane to Stockholm, on what was supposed to be a getaway with friends before starting a new job next week. following. That plane never took off. She never started the new job. Instead, she became a refugee.
Escaping from Kyiv was an odyssey. After a day of panic, a friend called to offer him a seat in her car. They drove to Lviv, in the west of the country, on secondary roads. But once they arrived in Lviv, the next step had to be decided. “Everyone seemed to have somewhere to go but me. A Danish guy wrote to me that I had only been chatting with on Tinder for a few days. He suggested that I go with him, to a Danish city called Vejle, that he would help me. I thought: “why not? If it doesn't work out and he turns out to be a jerk, you get the hell out." I did not see myself in a refugee camp, ”she recalls.
Lena is still in Denmark. Her story with that guy from Tinder did not end well: he left her the same day that she was granted her asylum. “I think he unconsciously played my savior. Then she got tired or just scared. He told me that he no longer wanted to be with me. It was hard, because the only thing I had here was him. I saw myself alone, without money and without the possibility of returning home. He did not have any type of financial aid, because in the papers for the asylum application he had said that he had a partner. I felt trapped."
Little by little he came out of the hole. He got work and housing. He has his parents, already older, in Dnipro, one of the cities hardest hit by the war. And she has decided that she will visit them in a few weeks, despite the risk that this implies. However, it will be a round trip. Now she does not consider returning to Ukraine. “When people ask me, I am ashamed to say it, I feel judged. But I don't want to go back to my country, not even after the war is over. Now my life is here."
