Features

by Kyoko Niiyama and Teru Matsumoto, Staff Writers

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began two years ago, on February 24. Fleeing the war, 45 Ukrainians, ranging from young children to the elderly, are now living in Hiroshima Prefecture. With the end of the war nowhere in sight, many of the evacuees have no idea of when they will be able to return home to Ukraine. The Chugoku Shimbun takes a look at the lives of Ukrainian families and their struggles with the emotional conflict they suffer from as evacuees.

Clad in a brand-new uniform, Zoriana Khivrich, 20, carefully lays out plates and forks on a table at a restaurant in a high-rise hotel in downtown Hiroshima.

Ms. Khivrich has been working part-time three days a week since last November, after responding to an offer by the hotel to help evacuees find work. Even with so much to learn, including how to speak to customers and the procedures used for clearing plates, she smiled and said that it had been worthwhile.

“What will become of me?”

Until two years ago, Ms. Khivrich was studying business administration at a university in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. After lectures, she enjoyed shopping with friends and worked part-time. That all changed with Russia’s invasion.

Two months after the invasion began, she and her mother were evacuated from their home in Kiev to Japan, settling in Hiroshima City. In the beginning, she became depressed with the persistent thoughts of what would become of her.

Ultimately making the decision to move on, she began putting her energies into studying Japanese at a vocational school. In February last year, she began working five days a week at a restaurant in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward. Her Japanese improved and she made more friends.

Japan’s “complementary protection system” for eligible refugees, launched last year in December, provided Ms. Khivrich with even more hope. If she were to receive recognition as a “quasi-refugee,” she would be eligible for status as a permanent resident of Japan. With that, she would be able to work here for up to five years without any restrictions on employment. She is hoping to begin developing a career based on that status.

Despite feelings of loneliness living away from her home of Ukraine, she said, “Even if I were to go back now, I would have no dreams or hope.” Ms. Khivrich is determined to move forward. “I have no choice but to work hard and carve out a career for myself in Japan.”

Studying Japanese on her own, unable to go to school

Hanna Semenenko, 41, is an evacuee living in Fukuyama City. Ms. Semenenko said she would like to learn more Japanese so she can start working. Four months after the invasion, she fled Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine, with her two daughters, aged six and three. Her husband, unable to leave Ukraine due to that government’s general mobilization order for possible conscription into the armed forces, remains in Ukraine.

According to the Hiroshima Prefectural government’s International Affairs Division, 13 of the 45 Ukrainian evacuees living in the prefecture are employed. Some are unable to work because of old age or chronic illness and the language barrier is fairly high, with Japanese language skills often required to find work. Even if wanting to utilize the work experience they gained back home, the evacuees sometimes have difficulty finding work in their field.

Ms. Semenenko hopes to learn Japanese but, with the care of her two daughters and other obligations, she finds herself unable to attend Japanese language school. With that reality, she studies on her own. The family relies on financial support provided by the Nippon Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Tokyo. However, the support they receive is limited to three years and will run out next year in June. The family has yet to find a way to make a living after that.

In Ukraine, Ms. Semenenko was a piano teacher. Among the vocabulary repeated in her notebook for Japanese study are the words “music,” “song,” and “dance,” reflecting her thoughts of a previous career.

Keywords

Ukrainian evacuees
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than six million Ukrainians were displaced as of the end of last year. According to the Immigration Services Agency of Japan, 2,102 evacuees were living in Japan as of January 24, 2024. Some of the evacuees entered Japan with “student” or other residence statuses.

(Originally published on February 21, 2024)