On February 20, after four months of closure due to pandemic-related restrictions, Veronica Bevol and her family recently opened the doors of a family-run business resort on the outskirts of Chisinau, Moldova. They had already closed dozens of bookings and were preparing for a seminar organized at the hotel. Four days later the plans changed. They called on all customers to apologize: everything was canceled. They could not stay in their own facilities.
“We join the national call for solidarity, compassion and empathy for the Ukrainian people,” the hotel’s Facebook page posted on the morning of February 24. The post was accompanied by a series of phone numbers. “Our complex is ready to receive refugee families. . If you know people who need help, please send it. ”
“On February 24 we saw terrible news. Some neighbors heard bombs from the top of the mountain. We were warned that thousands of people were crossing the border. We canceled all bookings and posted a post on Facebook.” – says Veronica the next day, at 18:00, at the resort I was full.
“They call us day and night. They called us and said, ‘Please, I’m an adopted mother and I do not know where to go,'” said Veronica Beauvoir, a resort manager on the shores of Lake Costa. The city is about 30 kilometers from the capital of Moldova.
According to the family business, the hotel receives about 12,000 tourists annually. They entered more than 2,500 refugees after the Russian invasion. Its owners are reluctant to make private donations, claiming that they have not yet received any state funding to cover some of the costs of hosting the refugees, although they have requested it.
At 11:30 a.m., dozens of guests are dispersed in the dining room, most in front of computers. There are many children and adolescents who are connected by video calls in front of teachers and classmates.
Among them is Angelica’s daughter, who sits next to the girl every day to help with lessons. After lessons from her ten-year-old daughter, a woman from Odessa works on the same computer for several hours.
Is a 50-year-old Ukrainian lawyer. He sits next to a large agenda where he writes down his daily tasks. “I have a lot of work to do. Now people from Ukraine are calling me and asking me about a new law that has been passed in the country to reduce taxes for entrepreneurs so that they can maintain their business,” Angelika said.
Clients continue to demand his services, but he stopped paying: “Everything is voluntary. The office is closed, but I want to do everything I can to help people get out of here.” Two weeks ago, his cousin, a Ukrainian soldier. , Died in Sum.
“I do not make money, so I am very grateful to be here, in this beautiful place, so that my daughter can move,” the lawyer added. Red spots appeared on the girl’s hands. The mother believes it’s because of anxiety.
“He is very nervous, he is suffering a lot from the war.” Angelina first lived with her daughter in a church in the town of Costest. They were later transferred to a school set up to receive Ukrainian refugees. Then he came to St. The resort thanks to a few acquaintances “we are more quiet here, but I am already thinking about returning to Odessa.”
The hotel manager, who was sitting at one of the large round tables in the hotel’s pristine dining room, gazes out of the large windows overlooking the lake, sympathetically pointing and telling the stories of several Ukrainian women. “This is Olga, she called me on February 28 from Iasi (Romania) and told me she was from Odessa. Please greet them.”
Now, after almost a month in the complex, the refugee is responsible for organizing the database of those who have been welcomed to his facilities. He also remembers those who have already left. Like a woman who showed up at a hotel in a closed face while flying from Kherson without a shower weeks later. Or a young woman wounded by debris on her face remains in Mykolaiv, who has received medical treatment upon arrival. Now he is in Bulgaria, where he has a family, says Bevol.
Although in the first weeks of the war the hotel complex was a transit point for dozens of Ukrainian refugees who were planning to move to other European countries, after a month of conflict, population turnover was declining, a trend repeated at several points in the host country. “At first they spent two days here. Dozens of refugees leave every day. Now almost no one leaves,” Beauvoir said. The hotel is home to about 150 IDPs, most of them women and children.
They do not want to go too far. They prefer to wait as close as possible to Ukraine to end the war or improve security in their regions. “They prefer not to go, they have a family there. Most of those who go these days have to go back to Odessa or Mykolaiv.”
Moldova is the third poorest country in Europe, with 390,187 of the more than four million refugees who left Ukraine after the start of the war. The small non-EU country was overwhelmed by the flow of migrants for the first few days, but the delay in arrival was compounded by the opening of a humanitarian corridor to the EU via Romania, for which the country is consolidated as a gateway. Scores for the majority of IDPs. The Moldovan government estimates that about 100,000 Ukrainians remain in the country.
It gets dark and several children are playing football on the resort square. Some mothers stroll around the lake while their children run from one side to the other until they have lunch and are taken to their rooms.
As Moldovans begin to roll up their jackets and approach the peak season for these resorts, Bivol reiterates that the priority now is to continue providing services to needy Ukrainian refugees. “We do not ask ourselves how long this will last. We are never going to expel them and we will continue to accept them the way we treat our customers.”
Source: El Diario
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