Sitting in a restaurant in Shankill, Co Dublin, Anna Zilenska, who fled Kyiv a month ago and has been living with an Irish family for a week with her daughter, said it was "amazing" to finally eat a traditional Ukrainian meal.
She was eating the eastern-European dish borscht, which is thought to have originated in Ukraine. The dish is made with red beetroot, which gives it its distinctive colour, and was cooked by a volunteer named Olena, from the Ukrainian Crisis Centre (UCCI).
Volunteers from the UCCI, a group that formed in recent weeks in response to the war in Ukraine, served traditional “comfort food” to some 150 Ukrainians in Gourmet Shankill Cafe Restaurant on Sunday.
Anatoliy Prymakov, who is from Ukraine and has lived in Ireland for 15 years, helps operate UCCI and said the aim of the event was to help bring comfort to Ukrainians who had arrived in Ireland and may have no English or have trouble integrating.
The owner of the restaurant made the space available for the day to allow the group to host the event.
“The aim is to get people out to meet other Ukrainians because many of them are stuck in hotels and don’t have any connections here yet. They need to meet others in similar situations and develop coping mechanisms and exchange information about how to get jobs and things like that,” Prymakov said.
“It’s to help get them away from the news cycle as well because lots of terrible things are happening back in Ukraine.”
For many, it was their first traditional meal eaten together with other Ukrainians in over a month.
Prymakov said there were many similar events in Dublin but he was “more worried” about Ukrainians in rural areas, who may not have similar opportunities to meet others from home.
Anna Zilenska, and her new friend Natasha, fled Kyiv a month ago and have been staying with Irish host families next door to each other in Dublin.
They did not know each other until they met in Dublin. On Sunday, they brought their children to the restaurant to have a traditional meal surrounded by others from their home country.
“This is amazing. It’s really helpful to meet other people from home and share a meal together,” Zilenska said.
Zilenska came to Ireland with her daughter but her husband had to remain in Kyiv.
“It’s very hard. We miss home. It’s nice to be here with other Ukrainians today,” she said.
Marta Bitar, from Lviv, has lived in Ireland for 9 years but visited Ukraine in January to allow her parents to meet her one-year-old daughter Aisha for the first time.
In February, she found herself fleeing the country to get back to Ireland.
“It was terrifying. I’ve never experienced a fear like that,” she said.
When Bitar moved to Ireland with her husband, she found the first two years “incredibly lonely” and said she could not imagine how much more difficult it would be for Ukrainians who were forced to flee their country and may not have any English.
Bitar found it difficult to get a job and make friends.
“That’s why this is a good idea,” she said. A traditional warm meal “makes people relax and gets them talking to each other”.
“I hope more things like this will happen.”