“If Ukraine won the European Championship I would go crazy. I would do this”, says Maxim and starts running in circles with his arms open. It’s dining time and he takes refuge from the sun in a shade on the patio while he exchanges soccer cards along with Rares, son of immigrants from Romania and classmate. They attend first grade in the Ramon Faus and Esteve school. In Guissona, Lleida. It’s Monday and there are just a few hours left until the duel on the first day of the Euro Cup phase between Ukraine and Romania.
It is the ‘party’ of Guissona, with 7,781 inhabitants: almost 30% of its inhabitants come from these two countries. 1,129 from Romania and 1,128 from Ukraine. They lead the ranking ahead of Senegal (614), Bulgaria and Morocco, in a rural municipality that has grown exponentially: it did not reach 3,000 inhabitants 30 years ago and today there are 49 nationalities, with more immigrants than Spaniards (3,680). The vast majority of the population is dedicated to agriculture and livestock, by the hand of the bonÀArea cooperative.
Close to home
Maxim explains that his father makes fuets and that he loves them. Next to him, Yurii, his brother, in third grade: they respond in unison that his favorite subject is mathematics. He observes Ramona, the dining room monitor and born in Romania. Rares’s father is a truck driver, like so many other men from Guissona. Just like Dorian and Gorge, who are grabbing a coffee at Bar Alex, right in front of the BonÀrea facilities. It was served to him by Adina, also from Romania. Dorian, who arrived two decades ago, starts working at 3: right at the same time the game starts. He’ll hear it on the radio. He says that football helps him feel a little closer to home, although he doesn’t watch as much as he used to. “Work doesn’t leave you time for other things”Dorian spits. BonÀrea trucks are seen everywhere. There is no unemployment, 2.4%.
Taras with Yuri and Maxim. / ARNAU SEGURA
In the streets of the center, Mykola, a Ukrainian from 1973, runs a business that is half food store and half call center. He will also follow the game on the radio because he will be working. “But right now the main match is between Ukraine and Russia”he remarked. “Before the war I watched a lot more football. I was also much younger”. Only two years have passed since the beginning of the invasion. You prefer to devote your attention, your money and your efforts to “the defense of Ukraine”but he does not blame the young people who have traveled to Germany, home of the Euro Cup: “Sport must continue. This country cannot lose its youth”.
He regrets, with sadness, that the war is being “a disaster” and that each day is the same as the previous one. Or not: “There are days that are worse”. He points out his town on a map of Ukraine, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, to the west, and relates that he arrived two decades ago: “On the 7th I will turn 24 years old”. Achieve, what anniversary. She arrived by bus, chasing a future. But a part of him left him at home: when he left alone for Guissona his wife was pregnant. He didn’t see his son until he was two months old. “It was hard”sighs.
The family settled in Guissona after a while. Mykola worked as a pallet in the cooperative until a fall forced him to reinvent himself. Today collect money to buy and send material to Ukraine. Shows boxes of knee pads and tactical glasses for the Army. “A civilian person without permits cannot buy much”, he says apologetically. He regains his smile by showing the cup won by the Ukrainian team in the tournament between communities that was played in 2015 in Guissona. “It’s a little dusty”, laughs. The Romanian and Ukrainian communities of Guissona play friendlies against each other every Saturday. Football as a meeting point.
forget the war
The Ukrainian community watches the games at the Cal Batist restaurant. Marian (1994) arrived two years ago and Rosti (1990) arrived 20 years ago, with her parents: “They wanted a better life, more money”. “Football gives us a little joy. The possibility of relaxing and forgetting about the war and everything that happens for an hour and a half”sighs. “I would speak Romanian, but I only know how to swear”, he acknowledges between laughs. While they talk, Romania scores 1-0.
Vladimir throws his hands on his head. He does it again at 2-0 and 3-0 at the end, as Alex and Cosmin stand up and shout. They share a table with David, the son of Ukrainian immigrants. The three, already born here, are third-year ESO students. David has not returned to Ukraine since the war began on February 24, 2022. “I hope it will all end one day. I would like to be able to return. I want to always live here, but I would like to be able to go visit my family”sighs. “Maybe in a couple of years”.
Ivan, Marian, Oleg, Oleksiy and Vlad, under 30 years old, populate the central table. They arrived 15 years ago from the Lviv region and most of them work in the cooperative. All talks die in the same place. “The situation is very bad. Here people talk less about it every day, but it remains the same”, they claim. They have acquaintances at the front. Some already deceased. Nazar, younger, is sitting a couple of meters away, silent. He arrived escaping the war. When a chair at the table becomes free, they invite him and he accepts. He speaks with little Spanish and very shyly, but he speaks. Football, an excuse, as a unifying point. They laugh despite defeat.
In the restaurant watching the Romania-Ukraine match / ARNAU SEGURA
Taras, son of Ternopil, picks up Maxim and Yurii when they leave school, at 5, and reveals their defeat. His smile evaporates, although it soon resurfaces. He also talks about the war: “It never ends. They don’t stop and we can’t give up”he points out. “We explain to the children that Russia is attacking Ukraine. Our house, where we were born. They don’t find out much, but they already understand who the bad guys are and who the good guys are.”, keep going. Maxim and Yurii, at his side, say that they have been able to return to Ukraine because the war has not reached the west. They explain that people are fine there, that they are not sad. “And when we arrive they are very happy”shouts Maxim.
But when they return to Ukraine they can only go with their mother. “If I went to Ukraine they would not let me return. I have grandparents in Ukraine who are already very old and I hope this ends soon, so I can see them before I die”says Taras. Or not come home. Or return home and not be able to return home. And in the meantime a football game.
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2024-06-23 06:00:06
#Ukraine #Euro #Cup #Guissona
