Irish take to TikTok to show friendship and support for Ukrainian refugees
Ukrainian Student Kate Melnyk, 20, found Ireland’s hospitality has come as a pleasant surprise. She Uses TikTok to connect with people around Ireland.
There’s an old Irish saying about friendship — “may good and faithful friends be yours wherever you may roam”.
For a Ukrainian refugee's list of priorities as they arrive in Ireland, friendship may fall behind things like shelter, food, and financial stability.
But for many, friendship is what has made their ordeal that bit more bearable as they begin to lay down roots here, many with the hopeful intention of digging them back up to return home — whenever that may be.
The comment section of a video uploaded to TikTok may not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of friendship. Like any form of social media, it too has its own fair share of online bullying.
However, when Lena Melentova and Kate Melnyk decided to share with their followers that they had arrived in Ireland with a short clip taken from their Santry hotel rooms, the comment sections were flooded with friendly messages offering support.
“Don’t worry, everything is going to work out. Remember you are welcome and you are amongst friends here,” reads one comment, to which Ms Melentova replied: “Everybody is friendly in Ireland”.
Ms Melentova, 24, arrived a month ago from Kremenets in western Ukraine, which was targeted by Russian forces launching missiles at oil depots.
She came alone, leaving behind her parents and her grandmother who lives in Kyiv. She hopes they will be safe where they are but also hopes they can leave soon.
“For two weeks before I left, I would put my laptop in my backpack with all my documents every single night,” Ms Melentova told the .
“I packed my glasses when I took them off, and even packed food in this emergency backpack. It was ready to go, every night.”
Ms Melentova said that when foreigners were asked to leave Ukraine before war erupted on February 24, “nobody believed the rockets would start — but it happened”.
“I had curtains on the windows, but they were not blackout curtains. So, I put additional blankets there on the first day of the war because when we switched on the lights at night they could see us from the sky,” she said.
Ms Melentova spent some time deciding where to relocate to, tied between Germany and Ireland before choosing the latter as she spoke English well, having taught the language to Russian children online.
Helped by a friend in the UK, Ms Melentova packed her backpack one last time and made the 2,730km journey to Dublin.
She knew a little about Ireland’s own dealings with war from her history studies in school, as well as our notoriously wet weather and welcoming spirit.
“I was told that people here are friendly, but I couldn’t imagine just how friendly and cheerful they actually are,” she said.
While searching for jobs from her Santry hotel room, which she’s since moved out from and now lives with a host family, Ms Melentova shared a video of her travels with the caption: “When you’ve been living in Ukraine peacefully. And in one day everything has changed. You lost a favourite job. Moved to a new country. But everything’s gonna be alright."
“Welcome to Ireland, we’re small but we’ll do our best to look after you,” one comment read.
Every single one of the 175 comments left under the video shares similar sentiments, with Ms Melentova acknowledging almost all of them.
She has since become friends with someone who reached out on the app, and they’re working together to find her a job.
“I was teaching English to Russian kids online. But now I’m not sure if there’s many opportunities here to teach in an English-speaking country.
“So, I’m trying to reinvent myself a little bit, I’m researching tech jobs that I can start from scratch in and develop myself in the field.”
For Kate Melnyk, 20, Ireland’s hospitality has come as quite the pleasant surprise given the film directing student knew very little about the country except that everyone wears green on St Patrick’s Day.
“Ireland is a great country, and I would never have imagined I’d end up here because I didn’t even know what Ireland was before. I knew nothing about it, but I’m finding it amazing here,” she said.
Ms Melnyk was born in Vinnytsia in western Ukraine but fled from the capital where she lived for three years.
Like Ms Melentova, she chose Ireland over Germany due to her strong command of English, having lived in the US for 10 months during her studies.
“A week before the war began, I had a conversation with my ex. He was telling me to leave Ukraine because there was going to be a war, and I laughed about it. I was like ‘no, that’s not going to happen, Europe will not let it happen’. Now I feel so stupid, he was right,” Ms Melnyk said.
“I left the day everything started, it was a horrible morning. I rented a flat in Kyiv with my friend and she woke me up at five in the morning saying ‘wake up, the war has started’.
“I couldn’t believe what she was saying, until I heard the explosions. So I packed my stuff, it took me 20 minutes.”
Ms Melnyk returned to her home city of Vinnytsia to see her family, making an emotional visit to her grandparents.
“They’re extremely patriotic. They said, ‘we were born here, and we're gonna die here’. That was very sad for us.”
She said that while staying in her home city, sirens would sound up to ten times a day alerting the residents to seek shelter.
“You consider not going for a second because you’ve been going up and down all day, then you start to panic that what if this is the time a bomb hits and you’re not in the shelter.
“It messes with your mental health a lot. I couldn’t sleep for days before we left because I was expecting the sirens to go off. It gave me major anxiety.”
The family were hiding in a bomb shelter when the decision was made for them to flee Ukraine, knowing then that Ms Melnyk’s father would have to stay behind and fight.
She fled Ukraine with her mother and 12-year-old brother, crossing four countries with the intention of stopping in Warsaw, a plan which fell apart upon their arrival.
“There were so many other Ukrainians there, they’d run out of accommodation and social benefits,” she explained.
Her mother decided to go to Austria where she had a friend, though Ms Melnyk was torn.
“I decided not to join them in Austria, and it was a very difficult decision for all of us. It was a small town, and if I think of the rest of my life, staying in another country for a long time, it wouldn’t work for me.”
A couple of days later, Ms Melnyk too found herself in a Santry hotel room with a luxury she hadn’t had for weeks: free time.
Uploading a TikTok, she shared the sudden oddness of her situation with the call-out: “I’m in Dublin and I would be really happy to make new friends here!”
That same day, she posted another comment which read: “Guys, you are all amazing! I’m literally crying.”
Among the hundreds of comments are suggestions of nearby walks, genuine questions about her plans for continuing her studies, the offer of spare clothes and books and above all, companionship.
“Oh my god, so many people reached out to me on TikTok and Instagram,” Ms Melnyk said.
Now living in Rathgar with a host family, Ms Melnyk is worlds away from the bustling life of Kyiv in more ways than physical distance alone.
“When I was in Ukraine I was always busy, I never had time for my family or even myself. When war stops your life, you see things from a different angle.
“You appreciate different things. I was worried about my career, I wasn’t focused on my relationships. Then horrible things happen and you understand that the only thing that matters now is you and your family’s lives.”
Now working in a local pizza shop, Ms Melnyk fills in blocks of spare time with trips to the beach and making connections, even donning the green suit she packed especially for March 17 and heading out with new friends.
One of her more recent TikTok uploads is of her looking out over the Blackrock coastline, captioned: “Dreaming about a future under a peaceful sky is a blessing”.
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