There, beyond the border, there is money and hope
Sashko will turn twenty-five in a few days. After the army, he tried himself in various fields: he worked at a factory as a lathe operator, entered the correspondence department of an agricultural university, baked bread at a small firm on the night shift... The small salary promised when he was hired was either hopelessly delayed or not paid at all. The young man tried his hand at trade, but he was not cut out to be a merchant.
And then, among friends, talk began that one should go abroad, that the West always needs workers, that there you can earn money and feel like a human being. For almost a year, Sashko methodically visited the offices of agencies and firms that recruited groups of people willing to work abroad. He asked questions, looked, compared, weighed. Often firms with confusing names were located in some basements. The reception of visitors was secret; visitors were let into offices by password or accompanied by trusted people. In short, complete conspiracy. That is not surprising, because Ukraine has very few agreements with other states regarding the legal employment of our citizens.
Sashko did not like all this. He wanted to go abroad to work only legally, and he soon realized that, apart from a few countries, our fellow Ukrainians were officially not accepted anywhere. Therefore, when one firm began assembling a group for Cyprus (ostensibly for rest, but in fact for work), he decided to try his luck.
"We make you a visa for two weeks. We buy a round-trip ticket. And all this for only $500. You go as a tourist. If you find a job and like it, you can stay. If you give Valera, who will accompany you, 100 bucks, he will easily find you a nice little job, because he knows the language and the country... Oh, we almost forgot, you need to have another $200 with you to show at customs, otherwise you won't be allowed onto the island."
Hello, island of love!
Soon Sashko, along with four other seekers of happiness, became a passenger on the charter flight Mykolaiv - Nicosia.
Panic began immediately after the plane took off. It turned out that under Cypriot law, a new arrival must have $500.
An hour later, Cypriot customs officers were already searching the Kherson residents. Sashko's companions were immediately weeded out because they did not have the said amount. The guys never got beyond the airport; they were immediately sent back home. After that, the customs officers turned to Sashko. But to his great luck, their vigilance had already been dulled. They forgot to ask how much money he had brought. And so, together with Valera, Sashko ended up in Nicosia.
"Let's buy a car!" Valera immediately declared. "If we walk, the police will immediately bust us."
For two weeks, while Sashko sat in the hotel or walked around the city, Valera spent whole days somewhere in the car, imitating vigorous job-searching activity. During this time, he did not find any work for Sashko at all. When the visa was about to expire, he appeared before his ward, to whom he was bound by a 100-dollar friendship, sad and exhausted: "The only thing I can offer is work on the plantations. Work a little, and during that time I will definitely find something for you..."
Sashko, who knew neither the language nor local customs, had no choice, and he agreed.
In a remote village, the young man worked 10-12 hours a day picking lemons, oranges, and grapefruits. The work was hard and the pay was low. Besides Sashko, the owner employed 25 more people: Lebanese, Syrians, Libyans... From them he heard stories about how some greedy owners do not pay their illegal laborers their wages, promising to do so at the end of the month, and then hand them over to the police. And in this way they profit. Valera never showed up even once. Sashko finally realized that there was no hope to be had from him. However, sitting in the middle of nowhere, you are unlikely to find a good job. And so he set himself the task: to learn the language. So, when he was free, he tried to communicate more in cafes and on the beach. Soon he could already maintain a basic conversation with local residents, the so-called Pontians.
Compatriots Are Dangerous
As for compatriots, and on the island everyone who came looking for work seemed to be such, then...
"Sometimes I had the impression that I was at home," says Sashko. "Everywhere you hear Russian or Ukrainian. Our people there not only work; there are many among the vacationers as well."
However, paradoxically, life has shown that it is wiser and safer to stay away from compatriots.
"After our people get their first dollars in hand, many of them begin to behave, to my view, more than strangely. You would think they came to earn money, so earn. But no. Drinking and carousing begin. Of course, our people have to do the hardest work, they get tired, and they need to unwind. But I have seen enough of this unwinding - real binges, with beatings, fights, scandals. As a rule, everything ends with calling the police, because after 10:00 p.m. drinking is prohibited. Next - a month behind bars for violating the passport regime. From there - a direct road to the homeland."
And one more thing. Perhaps these are my personal observations, but it seems that our people there become callous and envy is very widespread among them. Even if someone manages to find out about vacancies, they will never share it with you...
Their habits through our eyes
After working for two months on the plantations and overcoming the language barrier, Sashko set off on his travels. It is very difficult for an illegal to find a permanent job, so he had to do all sorts of things: he picked grapes, worked in construction, on plantations, and also worked part-time as a dishwasher at a cafe on the night shift, all the while looking for a place to settle down.
"Tell me, how did you like working in construction?" I asked.
- The working day starts at 7:00 and ends at 15:00. During this time there are two lunches: a light one at 10 and a hearty one at 12. By the way, since we are talking about food. There are no problems with it. First, Cyprus is a region of year-round international tourism, and the service is set at the highest level. Cafes, bars, restaurants can be easily found anywhere on the island. Second, you can get food products anywhere. And most importantly, often free of charge. At first I couldn't understand why they put bags with different kinds of bread, buns, loaves near specialized shops in the evenings... It turns out they only sell fresh bread. So what is not sold is removed from the counters and sent to the landfill early in the morning. Our people take this bread in bags and then don't buy it in stores for weeks. It turns out significant savings, because a loaf costs on average a dollar. You can also stock up on fruits. As soon as a banana gets a small dark spot, it is already rejected and put out on the street for the garbage truck to pick it up. And even quality fruits are very cheap. Once I visited a landfill. What was there! That year they had a big harvest of potatoes and bananas - so they were massively thrown away to keep prices from dropping.
In general, our unpretentious compatriots save wherever they can. They buy clothes not in stores, but at wholesale warehouses or during sales. For example, jeans that cost $25 in a supermarket, if you know the places, can be bought for only $2.
- And how much did they pay you on the construction site?
- $50 a day. That's the minimum wage of a local worker. A five-day working week, two days off. A week's earnings are enough to pay for housing and food.
Sashko really liked Cyprus. Wonderful nature, good climate. In summer +40, no rain. Winter is the rainy season. "But what does the rainy season mean? It pours for an hour, and the sun is out all day. Temperature +15-20," explains my interlocutor.
- And it is also very calm there. At any time of day or night you can go outside and not fear for your life. The police have everything under control. The island is small, everything is telephone-connected, says Sashko. - Is there a Russian mafia there? I haven't heard anything about it. There are small bandits. In general, I wouldn't mind staying there forever. A paradise corner: clean, quiet, full of vitamins.
- You should have married a Cypriot woman...
- No, that's not for me. Our girls are much better. The eye immediately picks them out in the crowd, Sashko confesses. - And the locals eat well and move little. The consequences, you understand, are what they are... I saw enough of our girls aged 20-25 there. They are brought in like cattle - in batches. Their documents are taken away and - to work, girls! Some do hostessing, some do prostitution, but everyone is in debt and has no prospects of getting out. I could not help them there.
Sashko's dream of staying on Cyprus forever was not destined to come true. One fine day, or rather at five in the morning, the police grabbed him along with 20 other illegal immigrants. Everyone knew perfectly well that it was done on a tip-off. The previous evening there had been a grand noisy drinking party.
When he recalls that episode, he still feels bitter. The thing is, he was already about to leave that employer - he regularly didn't pay, and kept postponing the final settlement until the end of the month (although it is customary to pay weekly). Sashko decided to wait another two days (his room was paid for that period) and get his $200. It was precisely during this period that the police drastically changed his plans.
- Apart from my work clothes, I always kept all my things packed so that I could leave at any moment. So when the raid came, I took my suitcases and walked to the police car... Running away made no sense - they would have tracked me down and caught me. The law-abiding Cypriots would have turned me in anyway.
No worse than in a sanatorium
So our compatriot ended up in a Cypriot prison. As it turned out, it is no worse than our sanatorium. After a medical examination and disinfection, Sashko was put in a cell. It was designed for three people. At six in the morning it is opened, and you can freely walk around the entire prison territory. But at 22:00 - lights out, and you shouldn't forget about it. In your free time you can do whatever you want: sleep, watch TV (there is one for several cells), read in the library, take a shower, play football, work out on exercise machines, study - the prison school offers free English and Greek lessons. That was very useful, because the prison was a complete international mix.
The food was like in a restaurant. At 8:00 for breakfast they served an egg, feta cheese, bread with butter or jam, choice of tea or coffee, with or without sugar. For lunch - spaghetti, beans or legumes (everything necessarily with meat), salads, as much bread as you want, bananas, oranges, lemons... If someone didn't have enough, they could take a tray of food to their cell.
Sashko was kept in prison for a little over a month. During this time he even gained weight. Although he was periodically called for interrogations and threatened to keep him until he got money for the return trip. He wasn't particularly worried. His fellow sufferers had already told him that under Cypriot law an illegal immigrant cannot be held in prison for more than 40 days. In the end, that's what happened. They bought him a plane ticket and deported him, and he received a mark in his foreign passport.
Farewell, fairy-tale island!
- Probably, you can't show up there for about five years?
- No. There is no way back for me. They banned my entry forever, Sashko smiles. - Probably, the Cypriots got angry that I didn't have money for the return trip.
- Do you miss Cyprus?
- I don't even know how to say it. On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, the deception there is put on an assembly line. They bring people in, promise them the moon. They don't pay for hard work, constantly putting off the payment. Then the owner calls the police and turns in his laborers. Then he calls his acquaintance, for example in Moldova, and she brings another batch of live merchandise. There are many Moldovans in Cyprus now, and they have significantly driven down the price of labor. So, dishonest people shamelessly profit off people like me.
However, at home I don't have much of a choice either. For several months I have been unsuccessfully trying to find a job. I will probably head abroad again... But I am unlikely to use the services of travel agencies now. I've had enough - I got burned.