Nina (44) and Symon (47) arrived from Ukraine in March with their twin boys aged 13 years and their youngest son who is 11. Nina can speak some English. The family has been here a few weeks when she and Symon visit the foodbank but you can still see fear and shock in her eyes. It’s difficult for us to imagine having to flee your country at a moment’s notice.
The family came here from Kyiv where they had a comfortable life until the Russian invasion. Nina worked in a bank and Symon was a bank manager. On 4 March they decided the situation in Kyiv was too dangerous and that they had to leave, spending two weeks driving to Poland where they applied for a visa.
Now they are all sleeping in one room at her sister’s house in Muswell Hill. Nina’s sister has lived in London for 20 years and has two daughters aged 13 and six. By chance, their mother had arrived at the beginning of February and is now working in a bakery.
Nina and Symon’s sons are now attending a local school and she says they’re coping well.
“For adults it’s very hard to pick up English,” she says. But she and Symon are having English lessons at a college in Camden where they’ve made new Ukrainian friends.
“It’s a long way from Ukraine to the UK,” she says. Their friends and Symon’s parents are still in Kyiv. When the war ends the family is intending to return.
“But my area where our house, our shops, our school, our lake, our wood is bombed,” she says. “People don’t go to the lake anymore”.