Auslander reports from Crimea:
Today after Church we went to a facility that is housing some of the children and women from Slavyansk. The group consisted of Father and his wife, a senior Navy officer and his wife and we two. The officer had informed the facility of the time of our arrival and who was in the group.
I will not give the name or location of the facility beyond it is one of very many old Soviet holiday sights lining the Krim coast from north of Kerch on the east coast all the way around the peninsula to above Yevpatoria on the west coast. This facility, like many of them, was renovated in the last few years and is quite nice and clean as a whistle. The evacuees housed there are not crowded together by any stretch of the imagination and there will be more evacuees housed there in the next few days.
Security is tight and I'll leave it at that. The beach is beautiful, sand and very clean, the water shallow out to about 50 m from the gentle surf. As with almost all of these facilities there are extensive athletic grounds including a regulation football field. Nature trails are extant in the facility also. By the by, there are no sharks in the Black Sea and no tide, ergo swimming is safe for the children.
The housing facilities on sight are excellent, again clean almost to an extreme with substantial food preparation areas and a more than adequate dining area. The kitchen is spotless and as usual the staff are local women for the cooking and serving and in house cleaning. Local men do the grounds maintenance and cleaning. An efficient administration is in place and the usual on sight medical support has excellent rooms and modern equipment. Bath and toilet facilities are also spotless and modern, segregated to men at one end of the hallways and women at the other. All toiletries are provided as are soap, towels and washing pads in abundance. No photos are allowed.
The Evacuees
The number of evacuees at the facility are let's just say over 100. No men came from Slavyansk with this group. The ages of the group range from two almost brand new babies to late teenagers with a relatively small percentage of adult women, a few the mothers of some of the younger children and of course the mothers of the two babies. All will have a medical examination starting tomorrow.
The adult women are holding up well. All are distraught to one extent or another but all are functioning well with the children. We met with two groups of the women in private and their distress was quite visible when out of sight of the children. They are all very thankful to Russia for taking the children from harm's way. The evacuees run the gamut from upper middle class to quite poor.
Children are children. They are quite different here than in The West even though some of them try to mimic what they see on TV and the Internet from the west. It is in the eyes of the teenagers, especially the girls, where you can see the worry and fear just below the surface. The teenaged girls are working with the children, relatives or not, alongside of the adult women. The boys, some are worried, most are angry at the events in and around Slavyansk and their inability to do something about them. The boys are, after all, young men and the will to protect their families and their homes is already ingrained in them. There is adequate staff to assist the women with the children and keep the teenagers in line.
It is in the young children, the under 10 year olds, that the innocence yet reality comes through as you talk to them. After all, here is a group of children and teenagers who have seen far more than they should have at their tender ages and suddenly they are in another country in a heavily guarded facility and here are strangers including a foreigner in their midst. Some of the teenagers and younger children speak some English and more than one teenager was quite fluent in English, one so fluent she relieved my wife from translating for a while. Some of the children's comments, through the translators:
Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Auslander reports about the Ukrainian refugees situation in Crimea
Today after Church we went to a facility that is housing some of the children and women from Slavyansk. The group consisted of Father and his wife, a senior Navy officer and his wife and we two. The officer had informed the facility of the time of our arrival and who was in the group.
I will not give the name or location of the facility beyond it is one of very many old Soviet holiday sights lining the Krim coast from north of Kerch on the east coast all the way around the peninsula to above Yevpatoria on the west coast. This facility, like many of them, was renovated in the last few years and is quite nice and clean as a whistle. The evacuees housed there are not crowded together by any stretch of the imagination and there will be more evacuees housed there in the next few days.
Security is tight and I'll leave it at that. The beach is beautiful, sand and very clean, the water shallow out to about 50 m from the gentle surf. As with almost all of these facilities there are extensive athletic grounds including a regulation football field. Nature trails are extant in the facility also. By the by, there are no sharks in the Black Sea and no tide, ergo swimming is safe for the children.
The housing facilities on sight are excellent, again clean almost to an extreme with substantial food preparation areas and a more than adequate dining area. The kitchen is spotless and as usual the staff are local women for the cooking and serving and in house cleaning. Local men do the grounds maintenance and cleaning. An efficient administration is in place and the usual on sight medical support has excellent rooms and modern equipment. Bath and toilet facilities are also spotless and modern, segregated to men at one end of the hallways and women at the other. All toiletries are provided as are soap, towels and washing pads in abundance. No photos are allowed.
The Evacuees
The number of evacuees at the facility are let's just say over 100. No men came from Slavyansk with this group. The ages of the group range from two almost brand new babies to late teenagers with a relatively small percentage of adult women, a few the mothers of some of the younger children and of course the mothers of the two babies. All will have a medical examination starting tomorrow.
The adult women are holding up well. All are distraught to one extent or another but all are functioning well with the children. We met with two groups of the women in private and their distress was quite visible when out of sight of the children. They are all very thankful to Russia for taking the children from harm's way. The evacuees run the gamut from upper middle class to quite poor.
Children are children. They are quite different here than in The West even though some of them try to mimic what they see on TV and the Internet from the west. It is in the eyes of the teenagers, especially the girls, where you can see the worry and fear just below the surface. The teenaged girls are working with the children, relatives or not, alongside of the adult women. The boys, some are worried, most are angry at the events in and around Slavyansk and their inability to do something about them. The boys are, after all, young men and the will to protect their families and their homes is already ingrained in them. There is adequate staff to assist the women with the children and keep the teenagers in line.
It is in the young children, the under 10 year olds, that the innocence yet reality comes through as you talk to them. After all, here is a group of children and teenagers who have seen far more than they should have at their tender ages and suddenly they are in another country in a heavily guarded facility and here are strangers including a foreigner in their midst. Some of the teenagers and younger children speak some English and more than one teenager was quite fluent in English, one so fluent she relieved my wife from translating for a while. Some of the children's comments, through the translators:
Complete story at - The Vineyard of the Saker: Auslander reports about the Ukrainian refugees situation in Crimea
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