You're reading: Refugees find food and comfort at volunteer-run center in Kyiv

A ​small crowd has assembled ​about noon ​in front of an old building at 9/11 Frolivska Street, in ​Kyiv's ​historic Podil district. People are asking the guard when he would let them though the iron gate.

Many people are here for the first time.

They are all refugees from the war zone arriving to the Humanitarian Aid Center, created and run by the volunteers known as the Volunteer Hundred.

“I want to go home,” says a 4-year-old girl in a bright pink coat, clutching a Barbie doll in her hands.

“We don’t have a home anymore, so we need to wait,” her mother replies quietly.

Suddenly, the gates open and the crowd flows inside the spacious yard filled with fire wood, piles of boxes and minivans.

The first thing newly arriving people ​do is register inside the one-storied building to get daily help.

But squeezing inside the tiny room is next to impossible, and the refugees line up and wait some more to get a little piece of paper with a number on it.

It is later exchanged for a daily ration of food, clothes or basic kitchenware like pots and plates. The latter are in short supply here.

The number system allows the volunteers to track how much they have given to a particular individual that day.

Arseniy Finberg, the top coordinator of volunteers, has been busy at the center for hours by now. His day starts at 8 a.m., right after he drives his children to kindergarten. He then drives right up to Frolivska, ready for the day.

He says he tries not to talk to refugees because he gets too emotional and needs all his strength to run the center, which is way more than a full-time job.

Finberg, 32, is a co-founder of the Interesting Kyiv tourist bureau, but now he spends almost all his time coordinating the center’s work, he admits.

His volunteering effort started on Feb. 18. That day at least 13 protesters were killed on EuroMaidan Revolution​, and he realized he could no longer just be an observer. He felt he needed to help more actively.

Finberg started organizing his friends through social networks to to bring wood and clothes to the EuroMaidan activists and take care of the wounded. Little did he know that in several months he will be helping thousands of people.

Finberg says that after the annexation of Crimea he and other volunteers realized that a space to organize their work, because of the growing number of displaced people.

“Our friends from ESTA holding (real estate investing company) came of big help,” Finberg explains. “They gave us their warehouse yard on Frolivska, and that’s how we ended up here.”

Later, the State Emergency Service gave them a heating tent, while the Kyiv city administration offered some kiosks to stock clothes and shoes. By now, they also have a registration center where the refugees check in daily, a, children’s van, a medical unit, a kitchen and a center for psychological help.

Since March they have helped more than 10,000 refugees and believe they need to brace up for a difficult time through the winter. They seem to be as ready as it can get. Some 20-40 volunteers show up daily to help, Finberg explains, but the real number of those who help  is much higher and it feels like a big community.

Besides providing basic aid, they try to help people to find jobs. A group of volunteers in one of the vans at the refugee center offers people basic jobs like watchmen, matching their skills with demand around Kyiv.

“The only thing we can’t do is accommodation. We just don’t have enough capability for that,” Finberg adds.

Finberg, a father of two, says his family are worried that he spends too much time at the center. “But every night and weekends are scheduled for children,” he says.

His five-year-old daughter donated some of her toys to the refugee center. “She knows that her father is helping people from the war zone,” Finberg says. He smiles for the first time when he talks about his children.

In the registration room, meanwhile, another child finds a music disk in a pile of books while her mother is waiting for registration. She is happily showing the disk to her mum, only to hear “We have nothing to listen it on.”

The mood here is not festive, many people are curt and irritated by waiting. 

Lesia Lytvynova, a volunteer at the center, says she is preparing New Year celebrations, complete with a musical program and presents for children.  She says it’s important to create a festive atmosphere for the refugees.

“There are all kinds of people who come over to our center – and we don’t ask them what their political views are,” Lytvynova explains. “If you see a person drowning, you won’t ask them for their passport, right? You’d just rescue this person. That’s what we are doing here.”

More than 200 people reach out to the center daily. It’s still a tiny fraction of 640,000 people that the Social Ministry says have become refugees from the east of Ukraine and Crimea.

An elderly woman stands near by the table with old, Soviet-made plates and chipped cups piled on. She is looking for a cup, but can’t choose one. It’s her second time at the center and she says she is very uncomfortable.

“I had a regular life and it was all ruined,” says Natalia Antonova. She left her home in Pisky, the closest village to the Donetsk airport where ruthless fighting and shelling has continued for months.

“It’s good that we have a chance to get at least something at the center, but it feels bad for me now to show up here. I had everything I need,” she says, her eyes filling with tears.

Lytvynova, the volunteer, says that many people can’t stop crying when they come to the center. “It’s not easy for them to let it all go,” she said. “They just need a person who can listen to them. And we try to help them with it – we merely listen.”

Olena Kimova, another volunteer, spent most of her autumn at the center. She came once to donate some of her possessions once, and says it brought her back to reality. “Many Kyivans haven’t changed their lives; it feels like there is no war for them, but here we face its consequences,” she explains.

Kimova is in charge of the warehouse for kitchenware, and says she has never felt more useful than before. “The main difficulty is an emotional one,” Kimova explains. “You need to think about how you can help, and don’t take all the problems personally. It’s a doctor’s approach.”

Kimova says her husband was very proud of her at first. Then he got angry because she was out there all the time.

“He supports me anyway,” she says. “But I come back home only when the war ends.”