Alina Olkhova left home shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Speaking to Cerys Edwards, she reflects on adjusting to life in the UK capital.
When Alina Olkhova began working as an interpreter for Michael Desmond, Labour councillor for Hackney Downs in Clapton, she did not realise that their friendship would allow her to escape war-torn Ukraine some 12 years later.
Michael, 67, was visiting Kharkiv – the city in north-east Ukraine where Alina lived – as part of a Jewish heritage project he was working on. After he left, the pair stayed in touch.
“We have known each other for many years,” says Alina, 33. “When the war started, I was looking for different options to escape Eastern Ukraine, which is where I was based at the time. So we contacted each other again.”
Under the Homes for Ukraine scheme Alina has been living with Michael since April 2022. She’s one of more than 160,000 people who have used the scheme which enables Ukrainian refugees to live in the UK with a sponsor household.
“It’s really nice to be staying with someone who isn’t just a random person but is a friend,” she says. “When you are away from your family and friends it takes time to get to know people and to form your own community […]. It’s important to me to have someone who I have known for many years.”
Although Alina is now settled with a friendship group of fellow Ukrainians, her family remain in Zinkiv, a city in the Poltava region in the east of the country. She’s visited them twice since the start of the war.
Described by Michael as an “anglophile”, Alina had previously visited London five or six times. She speaks fluent English, German, Ukrainian and Russian, and now teaches online language classes.
“She’s a very capable translator and I think that’s helped her during her time in London,” says Michael. “She’s playing a role in the community, saying hello to neighbours and so on, as well as being active with the other Ukrainians.”
Both Alina and Michael have enjoyed learning about each other’s culture.
“Sometimes we share stories, and he teaches me some English expressions,” Alina says with a laugh. “For example: I know London ‘like the back of my hand’, ‘well-spotted’, and ‘I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream’, which I think is [particularly] funny.”
Last year Michael accompanied Alina to an Easter service at a Ukrainian church in Mayfair.
“There was a huge gathering, it was really quite crowded and there were people coming and going everywhere,” he recalls. “The priest was shaking the incense and holding holy water, and [because of the crowds] the holy water went all over me. I’m truly blessed by a Ukrainian priest. Which is quite funny because I’m Jewish so I’m not familiar with holy water.”
Though initially planned for a six-month period, it is now one year since the launch of the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
With 4,295 Ukrainian households having received homelessness support from their local authority in that time, the policy has been criticised for failing to provide for refugees when their sponsorship arrangements end.
Noting the difficulty in finding council-owned accommodation in Hackney, Michael says he’s “very happy” to continue sponsoring Alina, a role for which he is paid a £350 thank you payment each week by the government for a maximum of two years.
“I’m thinking about what to do next,” says Alina. “We will have to see. It’s difficult at the moment to plan your life, for obvious reasons. What I do know is that I am very grateful to Michael and to the scheme for all the support.”
