AN INCALCULABLE LOSS

ONE hundred and ten days, an estimated up to 150 deaths per day, almost five million refugees, buildings levelled, families torn apart: this has been the reality for Ukrainians in the more than three months since the Russian military invasion began.

But before their lives were changed beyond recognition, the Tsiura family spent their days surrounded by family.

Ms Tsiura had lived life to the fullest with her children: Sergei, 22, Mariia, 18, and Oleksandr (Sacha), 9.

Weekends were spent playing at the local aqua park, bowling, or even hiking.

When not at her job as a human resources manager, Ms Tsiura would join friends at her local book club, and hike during the winter, when snow turned the nearby forest into a wonderland.

But there was a dark cloud on the horizon, and at 4am on February 24, 2022 it crossed the path of not just the Tsiura’s lives, but the life of every Ukrainian.

WHEN THE WAR BEGAN

Sitting in her unit in Brovary, about twenty minutes outside of Kyiv, the mother-of-three could only listen in shock as the windows of her apartment began to shake.

“We didn’t believe it, because it’s the 21st century and there are intelligent people, clever people in the world. They didn’t believe it was war,” Ms Tsiura said.

The family spent four days holed up in a dark corridor on the sixth floor of their apartment building, unable to sleep, with the constant sound of an air raid alarm overhead.

“We couldn’t sleep, we were on duty for four hours at night,” Ms Tsiura said.

“We took our mattress and placed it on the floor and just sat there all day.

“We stayed there four days, and a lot of buildings were destroyed, and we then understood the danger.”

But when heavy fighting began close to their home, Ms Tsiura knew something had to be done.

They had to get out, and fast.

She made the decision to run away with Mariia and Sacha.

They would go to Townsville, where Ms Tsiura’s sister Marina Iashchenko, and her husband Dean Campbell, and their daughter, Sofia lived.

Because men aged 18 to 65 were ordered to remain in the country, Ms Tsiura had to leave Sergei, who is studying at university, behind.

Holding only what they could carry in small bags, Ms Tsiura, Mariia, and Sacha fled from everything they knew.

In a Townsville Bulletin interview room, sitting alongside Marina and Mariia, Ms Tsiura wept as she remembered the day they left Kyiv and began their journey to Australia.

THE HARDEST FIRST STEP

With no public transport, Mariia, Sacha and Ms Tsiura were driven to a train station in Brovary.

They found they were among hundreds of other people trying to flee.

“This is a terrible road when you do not know where to go and whether you will get there alive,” Ms Tsiura said.

The sound of an air raid alarm was the last thing they heard as they squeezed between 250 other people on the train carriage – bound 500km west to Lviv.

Another sleepless night followed, with more shots heard during the trip.

They waited five hours in below eight degree temperatures for the next train to Poland.

But the train never came.

“Sacha was crying because he was very cold … we had believed the train would come,” Ms Tsiura said.

When the cold became too much, they found shelter with a relative in the city, and collected second-hand clothing to keep warm.

Their golden opportunity to continue travelling to Poland came in the form of a neighbour, who offered to drive the three to the border.

ACROSS THE BORDER AND OVER THE OCEANS

After crossing the Polish border, the family stayed for one night at a hotel where a kind receptionist opened her doors to the family.

They spent the next 11 days under the roof of the Kasia Juszczak family.

Across the world in Townsville, Marina’s husband, Dean, had booked plane tickets for his sister-in-law, niece and nephew to travel to Australia.

But the night before their flight, Sacha suffered a serious allergic reaction and had to be hospitalised.

“I did the EPI pen for him, my hands were shaking, but I understood that if I don’t do it, he could die,” Ms Tsiura said.

With Sacha recovered, the family travelled from Poland, to Dubai, and on to Sydney, where they encountered an unexpected roadblock: hotel quarantine.

Ms Tsiura and her children were ordered immediately into quarantine from Sydney airport, despite Mariia holding a vaccine exemption.

When they finally boarded their last flight to Townsville a day later, the family were so worried they’d miss their flight, that they arrived to the airport four hours early.

“The airport wasn’t even open, but we were just there waiting,” Ms Tsiura said.

She said seeing her sister waiting at Townsville Airport was a moment she would never forget.

“We cried in the airport … I saw Marina and I didn’t believe what I saw … I knew we can rest here,” she said.

CALLING AUSTRALIA HOME

Weeks after arriving in Australia, the family were contacted by former St Benedict’s Catholic School teacher Jess Smit, who began tutoring Sacha in English.

She campaigned to have the boy enrolled at the school.

Ms Tsiura, Mariia and Sacha have since been granted humanitarian visas, and have been living in Marina’s family home since March.

The visas will allow them to live and work in Australia for three years.

But the little wins remain bittersweet for Ms Tsiura, who fears for Sergei, and mourns the life she had built for herself and her children.

“I want my son with me, it’s very hard … when you wake up and you see a message, you think ‘it’s okay’,” she said.

“I am praying all the time … because all the plans for our life, our dreams and we left, and it’s broken,

“When you lose it all and don’t have anything, it’s very difficult … Kyiv is a big city, it has all that you want … but now our (qualifications) are worth nothing (in Australia).”

DAY BY DAY

As the war in Ukraine wages on, Ms Tsiura and Mariia are faced with their next battle: learning English and building a life in Townsville.

It is one they’re willing to tackle head-on, one step at a time.

While Mariia has dreams of continuing her clinical psychology degree, she is now actively looking for work.

Both mother and daughter have started studying an English course through TAFE.

“First we need to stay here and learn English and when we learn English, then we can work and (figure out) what we need to do,” Ms Tsiura said.

“It’s hard for me to ask for help because I had a good job, I had money, for me it’s very difficult having done all this and now having to ask for help.”

katie.hall@news.com.au