My wife and I are thirty-year-olds, easygoing young people who were captivated by the idea of earning some money across the Apennine Peninsula. No sooner said than done! And so we have in our hands passports with cherished Schengen visas valid for two weeks, and a phone number obtained through third parties of our compatriot living in the small Italian town of Reggio nell'Emilia, half an hour's drive from Bologna. Two days to pack (our travel bags have everything - from a business suit to an electric hair dryer), a swift forced march across the expanses of our native Ukraine, and we find ourselves in the ancient city of Lviv.
We are to travel in a small Mercedes with only three passenger seats, the rest of the cabin taken up by parcels (minibuses are ordered right here in Lviv). A sturdy lad, Ivan, also the driver, threw our luggage into the cabin, and an hour before noon we sped toward the western borders of our homeland. Surprisingly quickly crossing the Carpathian serpentines, a few hours later we found ourselves at the first checkpoint on our way - Chop. The quick-witted Ivan managed to wedge his steel horse right into the very beginning of the long queue, thereby saving an hour or two. A few unpleasant minutes of talking with an overly strict Ukrainian border guard (I kept fearing to hear: 'You are the weak link!') - and five minutes later a Hungarian border guard checks our passports via computer. Half an hour of waiting at customs. Finally we get the green light, Ivan presses the gas pedal, and we race along a solid Hungarian highway.
The first thing that catches the eye: Hungarians turn out to be smarter than us. On the highway, the median barrier is made at such a height that the headlights of oncoming cars do not blind you. However, looking ahead, I note that the Austrians and Italians are also up to par. The journey through Hungary was memorable for driving through the central squares of Budapest, dazzlingly beautiful in the evening during the New Year. It's a pity I didn't have (and still don't have) a video camera.
Imagining the route, I did not expect that we would be taken to the Austrian border on the same day. So, realizing that the driver was pulling into the short queue at the border checkpoint, beyond which, in fact, the Schengen area begins, I looked at my watch in bewilderment. Half past eight in the evening. Nothing remarkable, except that our visa started at zero hours of the next day! But the Hungarian stamped our passports after only a quick glance into the cabin, and the Austrian stamps appeared in our documents even faster. And Ivan flies forward, cursing desperately that he will be carrying illegal immigrants for three and a half hours (almost all the way across Austria)!
The night darkness hid from us the beauties of the Alpine passes, which were reminded only by a pressing pain in our ears and the silhouettes of ancient castles high in the mountains, so illuminated that they could be seen for dozens of kilometers. Try as I might, I could not make out the border with Italy. But on the approach to Venice we were enveloped in thick fog - the Adriatic is very close. We approached Bologna to the accompaniment of a torrential downpour. This despite the fact that all of Eastern Europe and Austria was gripped by frost of 10 degrees.
At four in the morning, having pulled up to the Bologna railway station, Ivan announced that his mission was over. Bologna is a very beautiful city, but as I watched the departing minibus, my heart sank. Western Europe had become a reality.
My meager knowledge of Italian, gleaned from a phrasebook, allowed us to buy not-the-most-expensive tickets for the commuter train to Reggio, and innate savvy suggested that, following the example of other passengers, these tickets should be validated right at the station.
Thus, at six in the morning, after nineteen hours of travel (about as long as the Kiev-Luhansk train takes!) along the roads of four countries, we found ourselves at the final point of our journey. Reggio nell'Emilia greeted us with a warm, sunny morning, with air that was piquant in a Caucasian way, and a fellow countrywoman who was completely unfriendly on the phone. To top it off, the local station had no luggage storage.
True, at our disposal was the address of a cannery somewhere near Naples with a crazy salary of 1.75 euros per hour and nearly free dormitory. But we didn't want to go there. So, throwing our bags over our shoulders, we headed toward what we assumed was the city center to see the sights. It was an early Saturday morning, various little shops and cafés were just beginning to open, and a few passersby were hurrying somewhere. We stopped to rest in some square. And then my attention was drawn to a guy strolling unhurriedly nearby, dressed very much like us. All I had to do was walk over and ask a simple question: 'Countryman?' To which came a positive answer - a Moldovan. Already something. We got to talking. It turned out Sasha had been working in Italy for four years, and in Reggio for three days. 'In a couple of hours, over at that edge of the square in the park, our people will start gathering,' he says. 'They meet almost daily. Especially many of them here on weekends. Some come hoping to hear about a job opening, others just to chat.'
As a result, by noon I was the owner of half a dozen useful phone numbers and a huge amount of equally useful information. So, we rented a room for two for 16 euros per day (with the condition that we use the shower no more than three minutes), and kind-hearted women took us to a free lunch at Caritas.
I swear, this story will become a family legend. No, not because everything was so bad. Rather, the opposite. At the entrance to Caritas, mostly Ukrainians, Georgians, and about a dozen very neat black people had gathered. Two young Italians, probably volunteers, were handing out numbers (I counted about eighty in total) and then let people inside a few at a time. The room turned out to be much tidier than our factory cafeteria. They gave me a tray on which there were several dishes in disposable containers: green peas and soy under sauce, a piece of chicken, a plate of beans in sauce, a bun, a piece of cake, and an almost full glass of martini. And all this in such quantity that a coal miner after a shift at the mine would be quite satisfied. In addition, anyone who wanted could take with them a dry ration packed in a paper bag. Then they explained to me that this is the daytime Caritas. There is an evening one not far away, but it is closed for the Christmas holidays.
Just as easily, the problem of lodging can be solved at the local church, where some spent more than a month while looking for work.
Evening was approaching, and we began to analyze the information gathered during the day. The situation was as follows. For men, work was possible only on a construction site, and you still had to fight for it. Nearby, as a living example, stood Andrei, who had been eating at Caritas for the fourth month. And this despite the fact that he knows how to lay tiles, and I don't really. No work on construction sites is expected until at least the tenth due to celebrations, while our visas are valid until the eighth. For women, the only possible work, and hard work at that, is in a family caring for elderly Italians. And you have to pay up to a thousand euros to a local businessman Lorenzo.
“The elderly person, that’s not her,” Andrei then pointed to a lady of well over seventy, slowly riding a bicycle in front of a bus, the driver of which did not even think of honking at her. “Mostly Ukrainian women are hired to care for ninety-year-old elderly people, among whom there are very many mentally ill. For some, such work turns into several years of hell.”
“And my grandfather,” Valentina from Ternopil contradicts, “did not allow me to wake up before nine and brought coffee to bed! I had my own room with a TV and video. But he died quite recently, and here I am again at the ‘labor exchange.’”
On the second day, I could already quite confidently pick out our compatriots from the crowd. Many carried bags from a local supermarket where products cost almost half as much. For example, with a normal bread price of two euros, there it cost one euro and twenty cents. And on the outskirts there is an area called Cassar Mazzuqui, where on weekends vans with Ukrainian license plates stop. Mostly they deliver parcels, but you can also always buy fresh press, video novelties and, of course, salo, salted fish and cucumbers, which local residents for some reason do not eat.
Italians turned out to be very good-natured people. Having gotten lost a couple of times, I told passersby the name of the street I needed, and they, not knowing themselves, ran into the nearest shop to then explain to me — in a few days I learned fifty Italian words. Mindful of the purpose of our trip, I tried to find local employment agencies, but they were closed. Time passed, all the city’s sights were photographed, finances were running out. And we made a heroic decision: to consider this trip a tourist one and, accordingly, to pack up. Which we did.
Well, as they say, everything is learned in comparison. What conclusions did I draw for myself from this trip? Of course, our man, accustomed to everything, will not be lost in the vastness of Italy. The question is what goals he pursues. At the cost of heroic slogging from dawn to dusk and meetings with a loved one once a week (many examples when husband and wife work seemingly in the same city but at a distance of fifty kilometers from each other), to save up a sufficient sum to ensure a comfortable life for five years at home? And then? The chances of becoming at least a “second-rate” citizen of Europe are minuscule. Thousands of workers who have lived here for more than one year, holding permesso (work permit), cannot even rent an apartment for housing. They will object to me: what about at home? And to some extent they will be right. But I have become less categorical in my desire to turn from a construction engineer into a day laborer.