It’s a Christmas of mixed feelings for 17-year-old Stan Chekh. He fled Ukraine with his girlfriend Sofia and now feels safe in Mierlo, but his parents and brother are still in Kharkov. “It’s hard to see bombs fall every day and all I can do is watch and hope it works.”
Stan lives with 46 other young Ukrainians in an old school building in Mierlo, which they call a ‘pension’. They all came to the Netherlands without their parents when war broke out earlier this year.
“At first my parents didn’t think it was a good idea and asked me what I should do abroad at my age.”
“Some kind of earthquake woke me up at 5 in the morning,” says Stan. “The sun was just rising and when I looked out the window I saw the darkest smoke you can imagine.” The realization that she was no longer safe in his country of origin came quickly and he decided to run away with his girlfriend. “At first my parents didn’t think it was a good idea and asked me what I should do abroad at my age. But in the end they understood that it was better for us to leave”.
His parents and brother remained in Ukraine. “They built our house themselves, so they don’t want to leave.” Stan’s older brother is in the military. He’s very worried about him. “He Pretends there’s nothing wrong and says they’ll make sure they win the fight. But I can’t imagine everything is going well,” Stan says, full of misunderstandings. “It’s in the battle lines, where the fighting is toughest.”
“It’s sad we can’t celebrate Christmas like we used to, but we’re still trying to create a family atmosphere here.”
Stan shows the shared living room. There the young people play and even have Christmas lunch together. “With all kinds of tasty Ukrainian dishes,” Stan enthuses. He reminds him of Christmas with his parents. “We always celebrated with my grandfather, grandmother, nephews and nieces. Then we ate a lot and chatted well into the night”.
It’s days like this that he misses his family the most. Yet he tries to make the most of it together with the other young people. “It’s sad we can’t celebrate like we used to, but we’re all friends here in the house and we still try to create a family atmosphere. And until then, I can only hope that one day we will get back together and celebrate Christmas together.”
