The migration of birds to warmer places is a characteristic feature of autumn. Similarly, when this season comes around, a considerable number of Ukrainians also “fly” away in search of a job in foreign lands, leaving their family and friends at home. At best, they see their dear ones twice a year. Still, there is no alternative: for the vast majority of Transcarpathians, migration is the only way to survive.
Vasyl Panko is one of those who returned this fall on the feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary to visit his family and is now returning to work in Russia. He heads a team of construction workers from the Mizhhiria region, who have been working for years in the suburbs of Moscow. Panko first learned his builders’ skills during Soviet times, when he worked on teams of shabashnyky (moonlighters). When the Soviet economy crumbled, he didn’t complain. To keep his family afloat, he went to the Moscow region, where his elder brother lived. They formed a team and got down to work. They slaved away for a whole year, with breaks on Easter Day and Christmas.
They learned how to do almost every type of construction work, such as laying concrete, masonry, roofing, and house renovations — there is no job that they cannot do. For months they live in cramped rooms at best or at worst, in trailers. High-quality work is the team’s hallmark because you can’t compete if you do slipshod work.
This example is typical of Transcarpathia, the region with the highest unemployment rate in Ukraine. Official statistics state that unemployment in Transcarpathia ranges between 3.9 and 5 percent of the able-bodied population. Out of the total registered number of the region’s redundant labor pool, 28,000-30,000 have the status of an unemployed person. Two-thirds are women and every fifth is a young person. Rural residents comprise 68.3 percent of unemployed people. This is easily explained. Large enterprises are standing idle, and it is unprofitable to build something in this primarily mountainous countryside, which is short on skilled labor. All the region’s production facilities are concentrated in a few big cities, and many people are unwilling to move to a new place for permanent residence.
“When job-seekers depart from railway or bus stations, the impression is that entire villages or cities have come to see them off,” Panko says. “Like an epidemic, mass migration has infected not only Transcarpathia but all of Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian government must immediately tackle the problems of legalizing the work of Ukrainians abroad, creating new jobs, and paying decent wages in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the bitter consequences of labor migration must be acknowledged. According to Vitaliy Hecha, chief economist at the demographic statistics section of the Transcarpathian Oblast Department of Statistics, last year 160 residents Transcarpathia residents died outside the region, 38.8 percent of them outside Ukraine.
People mainly die as a result of accidents: there are 83 recorded instances. Seventy-three people died of natural causes. The phrase “natural causes” should probably be interpreted somewhat differently: many of our compatriots die because when they become sick abroad, they cannot afford to seek treatment or do not pay much attention to the illness until it is too late. According to statistical data, blood circulation diseases account for one-half of deaths from natural causes. Fourteen percent of patients died of myocardial infarction, every ninth of digestive tract diseases, one in ten of respiratory illnesses, and every eleventh of tumors and congenital deficiencies.
Statistics also indicate that seeking a job abroad is the greatest danger for Transcarpathian residents. Russia tops this list, with 71 percent of all recorded deaths of Transcarpathians abroad. More than two-thirds of these deaths resulted from accidents. Fifteen or so people have died in Russia, mainly from bronchitis, gastric ulcers and acute pancreatitis. This is ample proof of the conditions in which Ukrainians work.
According to the regional job center, last year 3,199 people left their homes in search of a job in other regions (compared to 2,838 in 2003); 2,953 of them went to do farm work, 118 to work on construction sites, and 128 to process vegetables and pick mushrooms, berries, and fruit.
In most cases Ukrainians go job-hunting to improve their housing conditions (to purchase an apartment or build a house) and buy a car or other expensive goods.
Is a television or a washing machine worth such sacrifices? Our newspaper recently received an e-mail from Greece, which shows the acute problems that our compatriots face abroad.
Dear editors,
I am writing from Greece. I am Russian, and I’ve been living in Athens for 10 years. During these years hundreds of human destinies have passed before my eyes. People keep coming from various countries and the [former Soviet] republics, and there are especially many Ukrainian women. My heart bleeds when I see them. No education, no housing, no clothes or household appliances are worth the tears that your mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives are shedding in foreign lands. It is too high a price for a European-style renovation or a private business that may go belly up in a few years; all the years that they lived in slavery and humiliation may also be wasted.
They cannot endure working in night clubs and bars, so they take to the bottle, enter into sexual relations, and then, rejected or simply abandoned and broken down, they often stoop even lower: they begin taking drugs and wind up in prison or on the streets.
Everything looks nice, everyone smiles at you, but they don’t understand what you want to say to them because you don’t know the language and you just wave your hands around. They don’t understand! They call home and hear, “We need $300 to pay for the child’s school” or “We’re doing renovations. Can you send us $1,000; you’re abroad, what’s the problem?” Never, never will she confess to you what she has lived through and gone through in that country. She will feel ashamed to admit all this, but it is even more shameful to come home empty- handed, without meeting her family’s expectations. To obtain a residence permit, they work for a lawyer for years on end. They are waiting, running, and paying, while at home they say again, “You must,” “We need,” “We are in debt,” “Problems,” etc. It will take more than a newspaper to describe all this!
We are going to open a counseling and employment center very soon. Whoever needs help, please phone us.
To reach Radmila Kharakhodnina and Natalia Koliada by telephone, contact the editorial office.
