8 minute read
Trapped in Ukraine
ON THE COVER
Trapped in
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Ukraine Pontiac business owner shares stories of employees trapped in Ukraine.
ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
TOP: Vladimir
Gendelman, owner of Company Folders Inc, during a happier time. Today, he is preoccupied with helping his employees trapped in Ukraine.
APontiac business owner, originally from Kharkiv, Ukraine, is desperately trying to help his employees stuck in Ukraine.
Vladimir Gendelman, 47, whose business Company Folders, Inc. has workers in his home country, is consulting with military personnel on the best ways to help them stay safe.
They talked about “general terms of what happens during a war,” Gendeman explains. “What are the strategically good places to be and strategically not good places to be?”
One employee in Lviv, Gendelman says, was able to cross the border into Poland, thanks to the city’s close proximity to Ukraine’s western border. This was on the morning before Ukraine’s martial law was enacted, which prevents men ages 18-60 from leaving the country.
Another employee in Dnepropetrovsk, Gendelman continues, was in a bad area strategically. His home was surrounded by three bridges, which makes it a key target for the Russian army.
“I pulled up his address on Google Maps, and I realized that he was between two bridges and very close to a middle bridge which has railroads going over it,” Gendelman says. “This makes it the most dangerous area.”
Gendelman advised his employee to try to get out of Dnepropetrovsk as soon as he could, so his employee managed to escape to take shelter with his sister, who lives in a smaller village.
“There is practically nothing going on there,” Gendelman says of the village. “It’s quiet, but occasionally he hears shots.”
TOP: Gendelman
shared these photos that show what it’s like on the ground in Ukraine.
ON THE COVER
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A third employee in Mykolaiv, another strategically poor area due to its proximity to the Black Sea, rivers and bridges, was advised to leave, but couldn’t because of his elderly parents. “He stayed behind to take care of them,” Gendelman says.
For this employee, the situation is “loud.” Bombs, shots and other racket fill the area, but he’s still able to get outside for food and other supplies in times of quiet.
THE WAR IN KHARKIV
Gendelman’s four employees in Kharkiv, however, have a different story. One employee managed to leave Kharkiv, driving to nearby Poltava where things are not as bad. “He’s in good shape, other than there is no internet,” Gendelman says. “He told me that they brought in new food supplies.”
The other three employees in Kharkiv, on the other hand, “have it the worst.”
“Kharkiv is under a very big attack right now,” Gendelman says. One employee, Eugene, who lives on a high floor of an apartment building, moved in with another employee, Dennis, to be lower to the ground.
Together, they shelter with their families, which include four adults and five kids. “The apartment is very small, and they can’t be in rooms that have windows,” Gendelman explains. “All nine of them, for the most part, are in one room.”
As they look outside, they see what they call “hail.” However, this is not traditional hail in the sense that we know. Instead, this hail in Kharkiv contains nuts, bolts, nails and other sharp objects that rain down from the sky after attacks.
“When these rockets come down, they explode and all of these sharp objects fly in different directions and cause a lot of damage,” Gendelman says. “They come 40 at a time.”
During these attacks, some people go to bomb shelters. Others lay on the floor, Gendelman explains, in their hallways and other corridors away from windows. The metro stations used as makeshift bomb shelters, however, are what Gendelman calls “hell.”
“It’s really cold because there is stone or tile. There is no heat. There’s a bunch of people and everyone is hungry, dirty, scared. People are almost shoulder to shoulder.”
In a bus station outside of the building where Eugene and Dennis shelter, a bomb hit the area, killing everyone at the station, Gendelman says. A missile even landed near their apartment building, but luckily it didn’t blow up. “The ground is shaking,” he explains. “The building is shaking. They’re scared. They’re scared for themselves. They’re scared for their families.”
NO DIRECTION FOR WHAT TO DO
With no direction or instruction for what to do, many residents in Ukraine, including Gendelman’s employees in Kharkiv, take the situation day-by-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute. Now, they also face the concern of potentially running out of drinking water as the city is surrounded.
The fourth employee in Kharkiv has a bathtub made of cast iron, where he hides with his family. “He, his wife and their child lay in the tub to protect themselves,” Gendelman says. “Outside of that, they have supplies. They do not have internet, but they do have heat and electricity.”
Born in Kharkiv and immigrating to the U.S. in 1990, Gendelman has a mix of emotions about the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. “I’m extremely grateful to be here and not there,” he says. “On the other hand, I feel responsible for my employees, yet I’m extremely helpless because I really can’t do much. The ideal thing to do would be for me to go there and put them on a plane.”
Doing the only thing he can, Gendelman continues to support his employees trapped in Ukraine, consulting with military personnel as the situation unfolds. “I’m really, really sad that it came down to this,” he says. “I never thought that anything like this could happen in Ukraine.”
YEVGENIYA GAZMAN @YGAZM
TOP: Demonstators in Detroit don the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
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ment organizations, JFS will be working with other community organizations, churches and synagogues, donors and government organizations to support families escaping from Ukraine.
Leonid Balabanov, JFS’ director of transportation and translation, is one of many with family members affected by the situation.
Balabanov’s wife’s family has been in Kyiv throughout the conflict, including her mother, father, brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their two children.
Balabanov says they’re talking with them every day to make sure they’re fine, but it’s still hard to understand what’s going on.
Balabanov says his wife’s family has slept in an underground parking structure. “It’s explosive there. They’re afraid,” he said. “If air raid sirens are not sounded, they go back to their apartment.”
The family is unable to flee because his motherin-law is homebound in a 24-hour senior facility, which is seeing problems itself.
“The facility is running out of food and medications. My brother-in-law is doing his best to supply whatever he can find to help everyone at the facility,” Balabanov said.
Balabanov’s brother-in-law cannot leave as Ukraine isn’t letting men ages 18-60 leave the country. “They can fight. They won’t let them leave,” he said.
It’s a heartbreaking situation for the family.
“My wife is crying for the last four days,” Balabanov said. “I don’t know how to explain what we feel. We do not understand how it could happen, and why. I cannot even understand it.”
Balabanov and his wife attended the Detroit rally for Ukraine on Feb. 27.
“We were there. We went to support Ukraine,” Balabanov said. “I was very happy that people were supporting our country. There were a lot of American people supporting Ukraine, some Russian people supporting Ukraine and some from Lithuania supporting Ukraine. I was surprised. It was a lot of people there.”
Balabanov says his brotherin-law and sister-in-law are under a lot of stress.
“They fear for my motherin-law and the kids, and hope for international assistance to end this insanity,” Balabanov said.
“I hope they’ll be alright.”
STORY My STORY My
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Where HFL did enter her life personally was at the end of her college career, when she applied to grad school.
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