This story was told by a dearest friend of mine. I will spare her name. It cannot be mentioned for a number of reasons. Let's call her Maria Petrova.

That is not what is important. What matters is that my friend and other volunteers are helping, for free, expecting nothing in return. It's just her - she carries the good in herself. Just like those young people who - instead of drinking a beer on a Saturday afternoon, or watching a football game, or discussing the queues for cooking oil, take the time to go to the Greenpeace's office in Sofia to load another van with aid for Ukraine. Diapers, warm blankets, dry food.

Volunteers loading a van with humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Photo Credit: Bulphoto

Maria is there. I am waiting to steal half an hour from the time she spends at the Greenpeace office, turnered into a dispatch centre. I am waiting to hear first-person what is happening there - across the EU and NATO border. Where they pacify with bombs and tanks and de-Nazify with snipers and Kalashnikovs.

Maria and and her fellows set off for Chernivtsi, Ukraine, on Sunday night (6 March 2022). They carry a special humanitarian aid document issued by the Ukrainian embassy in Bulgaria. They load the van and leave at 8 pm. A long way through Bulgaria and Romania is waiting for them.

I ask Maria if crossing the border is easy at this point. "Because of our status we were let through very quickly," she says. But they still come across a not-so-cooperative Romanian customs officer who, even after seeing the documents and the stuffed van, makes them open the door.

'Then everything just poured through the door...'

Donationa for Ukrains

The distance is long and the volunteers spend the first night in Romania. The next day they reach the border. I ask Maria how she sees the war. What is it to cross the imaginary line between peace and war. 

"Besides the border guards, there are young people walking around with uniforms and guns," she says. "Both military and police. And they're all wearing bulletproof vests." She adds that although the war hasn't reached Chernivtsi yet, everyone is ready - you can see fortifications, sandbags.

Chernivtsi - an arrow to the bomb shelter.

It's Monday. Because of the long journey our volunteers arrive in Chernivtsi in the evening. They unload the donations but are caught by the curfew. It starts at 10 pm and ends at 6 am. Under curfew nobody goes out on the streets. Our volunteers have to spend the night in Chernivtsi.

Night in Ukraine... According to Maris, all Russian attacks take place at night. The massive blasts come under the cover of night...

Maria and the people with her are camped out to sleep with refugees from all over Ukraine who have reached Chernivtsi. Mattresses and blankets were piled in a gym, which used to be a judo training hall.

To the gym - now turned into a sleeping hall for those fleeing the war.

You might want to know what Chernivtsi looks like right now. It is the final stop in Ukraine for those fleeing the war through Romania.

"Some Ukrainians who have where to go do not stop here at all, they leave the country right away. Оthers are waiting here. Sometimes people are even waiting to make a decision whether to leave or stay."

Maria and the volunteers have planned to rescue two families. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned with one ot the ladies.

"When we got there, we started looking for her. We phoned her. Nobody picked up. At one point someone picked up. Speaking in Romanian the person said veri clearly "Omicron'. This is how we found out the lady we were supposed to pick up got sick with COVID."

While in the gym, our volunteers were posinioned next to a the mattresses of several children and their parents. It turns out to be a Ukrainian family - a mother, a father and their three children. They were at home while bombs were falling over their yard. They stayed a week. Somewhere around day 7-8 of the war a bomb blew their house down. They packed what they could carry in a few bags and fled. Not knowing where they would go.

Our volunteers could offer a drive to Bulgaria to the family. Under a very recently issued law in Ukraine, fathers of families with three or more children are exempt from the general mobilization and can leave the country. This father was not quite sure though whether this was possible. And in the morning they had to find out.

"It turned out that in this respect we and the Ukrainians are very mjuch alike. Bereaucracy, paperwork, forwarding people from one place to another. But we called our channels and got a 100-percent assurance that there such law did exist and we could go."

After convincing Alexander, the father, that he could leave the country, the Bulgarian volunteers leave taking three families with them. Their van, however, is involved in a car accident and though only slightly damaged, it needs rearragement. Peopled need to be moved to other cars and some of them - to cross the border on foot.

There is a huge queue of refugees at the borderline between Ukraine and Romania. A queue that costs the characters of this story six hours. Six hours in which they stood huddled behind bars, freezing.

Ukraine-Romania border

The three children of the family that travels with Maria just stayed stuck at the border and waited without saying a word. "That's how we knew who was fleeing the war after seeing it from the front row, and who was fleeing out of precaution," Maria says. "Our co-travellers, who had seen bombs destroy their lives, sat in silence and waited. The children didn't say 'I'm hungry, I'm cold, I want to go to the toilet' a single time."

Despite hanging on the border, Romanians are much more prepared than we are, Maris says. They give everyone a free mobile phone card with EU roaming. So refugees can call relatives and register with their new phone number.

Romania - The Orthodox and Muslim communities have united and are working together to help refugees. 

In Romania, they offer diapers for the little ones, hot meals are prepared by clerics - Orthodox and Muslim. Together, the two religions are standing up to help those fleeing the war. There are also tents where you can come in, get warm, have a cup of tea or coffee.

Romanian volunteers prepare hot food for Ukrainians.

Maria and friends are already in Bulgaria. I ask her what is happening to the others. With those who have nowhere to go.

"Volunteers with buses they take them to Central Station in Sofia. And there the story ends. From there on, no one has any commitment to them."

The family that Maria and the other volunteers took with them is already here. They are staying in a hotel. The Adventist church will cover the rent of the apartment and they will move in there the next few days. The children will also start school here, but not immediately - they need some time to shake off the nightmare.

Of course, hanging out in the cold on the borders is taking its toll and now all three children are sick. They are being treated, taking medicine and staying at a warm place.

Maria says that she has already started looking for contacts and trying to push what the Romanians are doing - giving SIM  cards to Ukrainians entering the country.

I ask her if she will go to Ukraine again. Without thinking, she says - YES. She just needs a few days to catch up on her duties, which she has abandoned for a while to run and help people suffering from the war.

At the end of this story, which hopefully has a happy ending, Maria says something I will remember from this war.

When I ask Maria what her motivation was for doing this, she says, "Ventsi, I realized one thing. There are no other people's children. All the children in the world are ours too."

I hug Maria. There is nothing else to do.

Yes, there are no other people's children. And there shouldn't be.

Чужих дітей не буває!

Чужих детей не бывает!

Bulgarian Version