‘Every night we say goodbye and every morning we check in to say I’m okay, I’m alive’

There isn’t enough time in the day for Tanya Bulax at the moment.

A native of Kyiv who has lived in Ireland for 17 years, Tanya is playing a central role in helping the local groups and agencies identify the needs of the hundreds of refugees from her home country who have arrived in Westmeath over the last two months.

In addition to her voluntary role aiding her compatriots, she is also juggling full-time work and family obligations, plus the constant worry about her sister and mother who are still in her home city. She tried to convince her mother to come and stay with her in Ireland, but not to no avail.

“My mom is 81 in two months and she is still in Kyiv, in her apartment. Many nights I spent with her on the phone. I asked so many times when Kyiv was repeatedly bombarded [to come to Ireland], even friends from here said they’d bring here. I was crying, I was shouting at her.”

Tanya says that her mother, who lives on the sixth floor of a 16-storey apartment block, has spent much of her time in the last two months in her bathroom as it is the structurally safest part of her home in the event of a missile hitting her building.

“There are not so many protected shelters. We were not prepared for the war. When she hears an air raid siren she goes to her bathroom. She is over there with a kitchen pan to protect her head and many nights I spent with here on the phone trying to entertain her, talking to here, because she is on the opposite side of the city to my sister.

“For a long time they could not see other, but recently my sister visited her, but it is still hard to navigate through the city.

“My sister is on the eighth floor of a nine-storey building. Every night we say goodbye and every morning we check in: ‘I’m okay, I’m alive’, because you do not know if it is coming to your house.

“My mum said to me when I asked her to come, she said yes, but not in this way. She said: ‘I was born under the bombs [she was born in 1941 when the Nazis were attacking Ukraine] and I will die under the bombs’.”

Tanya says that while she would like to have her mother safe in Ireland with her, she understands why she is not leaving.

“Kyiv is a special city. It is like New York or Paris. You belong to the city and the city belongs to you. It is in your blood. I left Kyiv but I never leave it. It is in my soul. It is in me. It is the best city in the world. It is green, it is beautiful.”

In addition to working closely with the Columb Barracks Regeneration and Restoration Committee, which allocated a corner of the barracks to the refugees for a hub where they can meet and establish a so called ‘free shop’ and the Women’s Community Projects, recently designated by Tusla as the Community Support Contact Centre in Mullingar, Tanya is also in the process of setting up a local branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Ireland.

A fan of local heritage, she wants to set up a group that teaches adult and children refugees about the history and culture of both their homeland and Ireland.

“In my opinion people need to know where they live, and respect and love the place.”