‘I wept tears of joy after we escaped the entrance to Hell’
A UKRAINIAN refugee has told how she was overcome with emotion as she and her 16-year-old daughter arrived to Ukrainian flags and cheering at Heathrow airport.
Tanya Sazonova, 38, and her daughter Sonya fled Sumy, nicknamed “entrance to Hell” as it was among the first places the Russians attacked, with the help of a British Army captain she befriended while working as a Nato translator.
Tanya, who today starts working at an Ikea store three weeks after arriving in the
UK, praised her British hosts Grant Hopkins and Emma Sayers for welcoming them into their home in Theale, Berkshire.
She told of her traumatic journey fleeing Ukraine as she was forced to sleep rough in Lviv train station for two days waiting for her daughter’s train to arrive, which was stopped many times due to the risk of Russian air raids.
The war broke out while Tanya was on a work trip to Kyiv and she had been unable to return to her daughter and parents in Sumy.
When the Army captain arranged for her to be hosted in the UK, she tried to convince her “brave and stubborn” parents, who are in their late 60s, to come with her but they refused as they wanted to continue contributing to the war effort.
She hadn’t seen her daughter for a month before they were reunited at Lviv’s station. She had kept herself
busy by making camouflage nets for tanks and translating for Red Cross and British volunteers. Mother and daughter then fled the country via the nearest border into Poland. Speaking of the moment she arrived at Heathrow,tanya, who was head of translation at an oil firm, said: “I was really scared at first because it’s like starting from zero.
“I started feeling nervous but when we were coming out from Heathrow to the arrivals hall I saw Ukrainian flags and
my hosts for the first time. They were waving and I started crying in a good sense and I’ll never forget this moment in my life.
“They are a very lovely couple. All my thoughts were about Sumy, my daughter, my parents. Keeping busy helps distract you.”
Rachel and Nigel Poulton have taken in a Ukrainian family of six into their Yorkshire home. Rachel, in her early 60s, said the “best thing” was seeing the children playing and laughing again.
Tanya and Rachel are working with UK charity Sanctuary Foundation, which has launched the Sanctuary Course, a free online resource for those hosting Ukrainian refugees or welcoming them into their communities.visit sanctuaryfoundation.org.uk.
‘I started crying when I saw the Ukrainian flags’