Thessaloniki: The “good Samaritan” of Ukrainian refugees
It is noon, when one of the five buses carrying refugees from Odessa arrives in Thessaloniki, to leave some of its passengers and continue with the others to Athens. An elderly couple emerges first on the coach’s stairs and the man helps the woman with the cane to come down the stairs. “We have to continue for Italy, they are waiting for us there. “Does he have a boat from Thessaloniki for there?” He asks us. Next is a woman with her teenage son and a hamster in a cage. She does not tell us her name, but she smiles and keeps repeating: “all is well”, “all is well!”. Some of her friends were waiting for her and leaving she says: “I feel happy that on the road from Odessa to Greece there was not a single problem”. Julia, as we are introduced, monologues: “We arrived safe, thank you!”. Next to her her four-year-old son, in the stroller her eight-month-old daughter and next to the cage with the cat- the Ukrainians are a people with a great love for animals. “The children will certainly not remember our departure. “Their father was left behind to fight for our city, Odessa,” says Julia, a military psychologist by profession, optimistic that “we will be back soon!”
They are all overwhelmed by the long and difficult journey. “We did not expect that we would find such a war and we would necessarily make the migration route,” a gray-haired gentleman told us, who also did not want to. to speak by name, nor to be photographed.
Today was the fourth route made by Pavlos Haldeopoulos, transporting Ukrainian refugees on the Moldavia-Thessaloniki-Athens route.
“This time we brought two hundred and twelve refugees from Odessa, but since the beginning of the war we have transferred more than five hundred,” he said, emphasizing with pride that his company is the only Greek company that brings appeals from Ukraine to Greece. “The day after tomorrow, March 15, I am leaving again. “I will drive a bus to Ukraine, to bring other appeals to Thessaloniki and Athens”, he explains.
Although very tired, because during these two weeks he sleeps few hours, he insists. “I can not stand idly by. If they told me that at some point I would make itineraries with war refugees from Ukraine to Greece, I would not believe it! For so many years we have had regular itineraries in various cities: Kyiv, Odessa, Nikolaev, Kherson and more. The Ukrainians and the Greeks who live there trust us. Now, at this difficult time, I must – I feel the need – be close to them “, says Pavlos Haldeopoulos, who comes from the city of Batumi, Georgia, but did higher studies (1985-’89) in Ukraine, in the city Khmelnytsky. “For me, Ukraine is a country of my student years. I love her as I loved our Batumi, in Georgia, and Greece “, he says and hurries to arrange his drivers, who will continue the route to transport the other passengers to Athens.
When, with the start of the Russian invasion, he saw on television that the first caravans of refugees had begun to arrive at the Ukraine-Moldova border, Pavlos Haldeopoulos knew what he had to do. He “grabbed” the steering wheel of the only bus of the company and took the road to the border. Since then he has hired four other coaches, which he manned with his relatives whom he “recruited”, and with this fleet and his own expenses he transports humanitarian aid to the border and in return, refugees.
Free, as he says, for those who do not have money. But the journey is long, the fuel has reached the heights and so he appeals to anyone who wants and can only contribute to the purchase of oil for buses.