CHAPTER SEVEN

Fox in the Henhouse

The strange pull between Eastern European girls and Western men has taken on a new shape. Back in the early days, after communism collapsed, the West was a dreamland—and for many, that dream ended in the backrooms of brothels across Europe. But now, with Wi-Fi and webcams, the rules have changed. Girls want to talk first. They want to choose the stranger before the stranger chooses them. And somehow, that shift has turned into a job for me—one that requires no special skills, just enough English to keep the conversation flowing.

A year has passed quickly. I’ve now completed two years at KIMO—two more to finish my undergrad, and another two for my master’s. Time moves fast, especially since I started working at the coaching centre last year.

I talk to Igor more often these days. He’s happy that I’ve more or less settled into life in Kyiv. There’s no talk of visiting him again. Even with a ceasefire officially in place, I don’t think I’ll see him before the war ends.

We use a mobile chat application that claims to be secure and hack-proof. But you can’t always trust those claims. So we talk with the quiet assumption that our conversations will eventually be tracked or tapped. Even if someone breaches the security and accesses our messages, there’s nothing to find. We don’t talk politics, war, or even use words like “weapon.”

Grandpa’s pension got suspended. An inspector came to our house in Mariupol to check if Grandpa was really living there. Of course, he wasn’t. Based on that visit, they stopped his payments.

Pensioners in the rebel-controlled areas don’t receive their payments directly. To access them, they have to cross into government-controlled territory and register as internally displaced persons. But that’s not the end of it. If they remain outside the government-controlled area for more than 60 consecutive days, they lose their right to the payment. That’s why many pensioners living on the rebel side make the trip every 59 days—just to keep it going.

There’s no shortage of noise in political circles and the media—some even mock it as “pension tourism.” What a brutal insult. What a disgraceful betrayal of people who gave their working years to the system. They’re not asking for charity. They’re asking for what’s theirs—the money they paid in when they were still able to work. It’s the old man’s own money. His property. He trusted the government with it.

For the past year, Grandpa has been making the trip every 59 days—just to make sure he has something to live on. He gave up on Grandma’s pension entirely. She simply doesn’t have the strength to walk the two kilometres of no-man’s land at the line of contact. With only half the income and prices rising, he was already dipping into their savings. His pension was the last steady source. Now that both are gone, the savings won’t last long.

Papa said he’s spoken with some humanitarian legal aid groups who believe the government’s actions are unlawful. They plan to take the case to court—and, if needed, all the way to the country’s highest court. Grandpa’s not alone. Over a quarter of a million pensioners have had their payments suspended, just like him.

I’m here with Grandpa in Mariupol now for Christmas. His pension case still isn’t resolved, even after six months—though the legal aid organisation representing him has done everything they can. Grandpa won in the court of first instance, but the Pension Fund appealed. He won again in the appeal court, and now the Fund has appealed once more.

Back in Kyiv. Life feels a bit monotonous—class, coaching centre, class. Katya and I don’t have many friends here. Her life’s a little more colourful, though—she goes out with Mykyta quite often, and sometimes I notice I’m the one waiting now, filling the pauses she no longer seems to feel.

Mykyta’s internship has turned into a paid job. The salary isn’t much, but a job is a job—especially when it’s a government one, and there’s a chance of getting posted abroad.

Igor is at his house in Donetsk with his mother and sister. For the past year, he’s been on a three-month rotation. The ceasefire agreement signed last year has reduced hostilities—though both sides still violate it. Now soldiers like Igor can take longer breaks. He serves at the contact line for three months, then returns home for three months.

Good news from Mariupol: Grandpa’s pension has been restored, and he’s receiving payments again.

But they didn’t pay the ten months of arrears that were suspended. The Pension Fund says they need a separate regulation from the government to know how to handle back payments.

It’s summer 2017. Katya graduated. Her parents came from Rivne for the convocation but left the same day. After they were gone, the four of us—Okello, Mykyta, Katya, and I—partied all night to celebrate her graduation.

Other than Mykyta, Okello is our closest friend in Kyiv. We meet once or twice a month—mostly to party. Not much of his usual serious talk these days. Sometimes we even get him drunk on purpose, just to pull the fun out of him.

We keep reminding him: he might be a strong African man, but when it comes to drinking, he shouldn’t try to keep up with the Slavic crowd.

Lately, whenever I meet Okello, he keeps bringing up the same idea: that once I finish my degree at KIMO, I should try my hand at the kind of work he does. He says an internship at a non-profit organisation would be a good place to start. He has already spoken to a local humanitarian group his organisation works with, and he insists it would help me find a regular job later, without pressing me for an answer.

Eventually, I sent Okello my CV. Soon after, I got an email from the organisation he had forwarded it to, offering me a chance to work with them over the summer. My job was to monitor updates on government websites—including the parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers—and track changes in laws and policies related to humanitarian protection, providing analysis when needed.

I did internships with the organisation in both summer 2017 and 2018. They didn’t pay me anything, except for a few goodies—fancy tote bags, pens, notepads, and the usual donor visibility materials they hand out at workshops and conferences.

But I can’t complain. They gave me a job in summer 2019. That’s the same time Katya finished her master’s and joined a multinational insurance company as an HR assistant.

I still have a year—two semesters—to finish my own master’s, and I’ve already taken up a job. My employer has been very supportive, allowing me to manage both work and study. It might sound like a lot, but honestly, I have plenty of spare time.

Now that both of us are working full-time, we’ve rented a flat on the left bank, where the rent is a bit more affordable, and moved in.

Grandma’s health is declining quickly. The government healthcare she used to receive in Donetsk has worsened a lot due to funding shortages and the breakdown of supply chains with mainland Ukraine. On top of that, the war has taken a toll on her mentally—everything around our displacement and her constant worry about us has deeply affected her.

Grandpa wants to take Grandma to Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. That’s where she had her last round of therapy almost a decade ago, two years after she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Both of their international passports have long since expired. To apply for new ones, they need to be physically present at a passport office in government-controlled territory. Fortunately, the entry–exit checkpoint in Novotroitske has been open to vehicular traffic since the previous year. That means Papa can now drive Grandpa and Grandma in his Zhiguli, without Grandma having to walk the two to three kilometres of no-man’s land.

At the beginning of winter 2019, Papa is driving them to Mariupol. A month later, Grandpa is returning to collect their international passports.

They have now receive biometric passports. Since last summer, Ukrainian citizens with biometric passports no longer need a visa to travel to Schengen countries. This saves Grandma and Grandpa the big hassle of applying for a visa to the Czech Republic.

Grandma wants to wait a couple more months before travelling to Karlovy Vary, hoping for the milder weather of early spring. The cost of the trip is going to be huge—almost enough to wipe out their entire life savings.

Papa is worried about that, so he’s decided to cover part of the expenses from his salary to make sure Grandma and Grandpa don’t end up penniless.

Something doesn’t add up.

Nearly eighty years of life between them — forty each — distilled into savings that barely cover the cost of a single stay in Karlovy Vary. A place meant to restore old bodies, now priced beyond what their entire working lives managed to store. And yet Papa’s income from a month or two is enough to pay for it.

If Grandpa were still working, he could manage it. Labour still has value — but only while it is being performed. Once it is converted into money and left to rest, it begins to decay.

For decades, Grandpa exchanged his time, his strength, his health for money, trusting it to remember what his body could no longer do. But money does not remember. When he tries to turn it back into care, warmth, dignity, it comes back thinner, lighter, almost embarrassed by how little it can buy.

That is when Okello’s words finally make sense. Not as a slogan, not as ideology, but as arithmetic.

Money isn’t a store of value anymore. Anyone teaching that in economics class is either lying or clueless. Modern money is a process of transferring value from you and to the government—slowly, quietly, with the grin of a fox in a henhouse.

When you are young, the system feels generous. Money looks like freedom. You can travel, take someone you love to Karlovy Vary, live well. That illusion is necessary. Your labour is still required. Your body still works.

But while you work, something else is happening. What you save for later is being thinned out — not stolen outright, just made smaller each year, until one day it can no longer carry you.

Only when your hands shake and your back bends does the calculation become visible. You are no longer useful, and what you saved no longer saves you. The experiment ends quietly.

Young people like Igor go to war believing they are defending a future. But who will stand beside them when that future arrives? Who will push them from office to office, asking for pensions that no longer buy medicine, holding money that looks official but behaves like a souvenir — paper decorated with buildings and symbols, remembering nothing of the lives that earned it.

Since we moved to the left bank, I don’t see much of Katya during the weekdays. Like my office, both Katya’s and Mykyta’s offices are in the city centre —which is a good 45 minutes away by foot and train. Mykyta comes over a few times a month to stay with Katya, but most of the time, they meet after work somewhere in the city centre. Katya usually gets home quite late.

But today was different. Both of them came home together, and much earlier than usual—just after I got back from the office.

Neither of them said anything. Katya dropped her bag on the sofa and walked straight to the toilet. She didn’t even take off her sneakers.

Something was wrong. Her face looked pale, and her eyes—puffy, red. Not fresh tears, but the kind that come after hours of holding it in.

I turned to Mykyta and asked, what happened?

He didn’t answer. Just looked down.

Katya came out of the toilet for a moment, glanced at me, then turned around and went right back in. That’s when I got up and walked over. I stood outside the door.

Katya, open the door, I screamed.

She did.

She didn’t say anything. Just pulled me into a hug, tight. Her head rested over my shoulder, but she looked away—like she couldn’t face me, or the words she was about to say.

“Ira called me — she couldn’t bring herself to call you. Igor died this afternoon,” said Katya.

I cried out loud.

“I don’t believe this. You’re lying, Katya” – I burst out. Then I ran to my room and slammed the door.

I couldn’t breathe. I sat on the bed. I couldn’t sit still. I stood up, then sat back down. Again. And again. My legs were cold. My face was burning.

Katya came in quietly. She didn’t say a word. Just wrapped her arms around me. I tried to push her away, but she wouldn’t let go. She just held me, tighter and tighter. And I broke down in her arms.

I spoke with Igor’s mother a day after. And with Ira.

I didn’t know what to say.

They didn’t either.

The sky was grey and dry that morning near Vodiane, but the wind carried a low, steady hum—like the front line was breathing. Igor had been posted to a half-ruined outpost northeast of the village. Just an old dacha with frozen sandbags, torn plastic sheets, and a clear view toward the Ukrainian side near Talakivka.

The ceasefire was written on paper, not in the ground.

That morning, the shelling started again. The first landed near the kitchen. The second came closer. The third hit the communication trench—right where Igor was walking.

They said it was fast. He probably didn’t feel anything. They found him near the trench, his radio crushed, his hand still holding the rifle.

The report said: Killed in action. Vodiane sector.