Ukrainian refugee tells how she traveled five thousand kilometers from Odessa to Lisbon in a Fiat 500

With little money, luggage limited to a few pieces of clothing, and a computer, Anastasia managed to escape Ukraine with her husband almost a year ago in a small car that served as a shelter until they arrived in Portugal.

“It was difficult to leave the country, and of course we couldn’t take anything with us. I only had my clothes and my computer,” said Luce, a 29-year-old web designer who was preparing for a new professional project when Russia invaded Russia Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Anastasia and her husband did not know what to do or where to go. They traveled nearly 5,000 kilometers in a Fiat 500, where they spent several nights en route from Odessa to Lisbon, with a 10-day stopover in Bulgaria.

“When the war started, we fled the country. It was a long story. There was no petrol on the roads. We could not get money, but we managed to leave the country with a family with a seven-month-old baby. We were all together in a small Fiat, Fiat 500,” he recalled.

Her husband, who works in tourism, lost his job as soon as the war began. For him, the decision to leave was immediate. Everything stopped. There was no way to continue working. “People fled the country, and there were no companies, no jobs, nothing,” recalled Anastasia, who took two weeks to digest the departure.

Before crossing Europe, they headed to Bulgaria to leave the couple who accompanied them with the child: “My husband and I speak English, it’s easier to find other places, but they only speak Ukrainian. So we took them to Bulgaria. first, and then we decided what to do next, because we were in such shock.

“We couldn’t do anything and couldn’t understand what was going on,” she said in an interview with Luce almost a year after the events, which she today views as an adventure that made her more able to cope with new situations. “After that, we managed to cope with everything,” he assured.

They did not have time to prepare a route, got lost in Italy and slept for “many days” in the car, which they managed to save with the help of a person in charge of the company where Anastasia worked. After choosing Portugal, which they visited four years ago, the journey was made step by step.

“I don’t know how it happened, but it was very easy and very fast, I chose Portugal and my husband chose Portugal. We had a car, but we didn’t know what to do with the car because we were driving. It’s expensive , but at the same time you feel like home is with you wherever you go, you have a home, your car.” Anastasia’s CEO made this possible by funding fuel and a few nights in a hotel.

Wherever they went, the car attracted attention with its color, registration number, and the contrast between the reduced size of the car and the height of Anastasia’s husband, a Ukrainian from Kharkov, who is 2.04 meters tall.

When he arrived in Lisbon, he admitted, “I just wanted to sleep” in a warm place.

The first night was spent on the premises of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), “in a large room with many beds”.

They contacted volunteers to find a place to stay until they had the necessary documents. Soon, offers of help poured in, trying to figure out the profile and needs of the newcomers, but Anastasia answered any question that she just wanted to sleep in a warm place – “We couldn’t sleep. sleep”.

He was surprised by the solidarity he found in Portugal. He eventually accepted an offer of a foster family from a Porto Salvo couple, Oeiras (Fernando and Susana), whom he considers to be his Portuguese parents today.

“We stayed with them for a month and a half for free, they gave us everything, clothes, everything we needed. They also helped us psychologically,” he said, adding that thanks to this couple, they managed to rent an apartment and equip the premises. house. “They were our guarantors,” he said.

Fluency in English allowed Anastasia’s husband to find a job in Portugal in a month and a half, in the field of tourism.

The house in Alges was empty, but with the help of a new Portuguese family, they managed to collect what they needed in two days. “We pray to the angels and they appear here,” Anastasia joked, enthusiastically talking about the visits of Fernando and Susana: “Once they came to our house with a coffee maker and told us that the Portuguese have a habit of drinking coffee and it is important to drink coffee in the morning for good health I didn’t expect a coffee machine! The other day we took a toaster and said it’s important to have a toaster in the house [risos]”.

Anastasia has spent the last year finishing her job at the company whose CEO helped her travel to Portugal, and has devoted her free time to helping other Ukrainians travel to Portugal, including her mother-in-law. The web designer is now preparing her portfolio to start her job search as she intends to stay in Portugal for at least one more year.