Alena Patrakova: «I am Russian and I am helping my Ukrainian brothers»

The relatives of Maryan, the Ukrainian minor who has been studying in the city for eight years, welcomed by Antonio Merino and Margarita Pardo, were the first refugees who arrived in Plasencia fleeing the war. It happened on March 3. From then until today there are more than thirty who have done it and the voice of most of them is a Russian woman. Her name is Alena Patrakova. She arrived in Plasencia 15 years ago. “I did it for love, my husband is from this city and since then I have lived here with him and our 13-year-old son.”

He explains that “those who have arrived so far are in the homes of relatives or Ukrainian acquaintances who already lived here, because they had come to work, most of them at a Malpartida company.” These are grandmothers and mothers with grandchildren and children, “because men cannot leave Ukraine, they have left their country to save their lives.” But he remembers that “they have left everything there, that they barely arrive with luggage because it does not fit in the transport, and that is why they need a lot of help.”

Among the refugees who have been arriving in Plasencia in the last week, there are three minors. «The siblings Zoya and Iván, aged 7 and 10, who follow the course online at their schools in the Ukraine, and Nikita, a 16-year-old boy who is going to study here at the La Salle school». The same center in which the schooling commission has given a place to Maryan’s two nephews.

The mayor receives the Ukrainians who have arrived in Plasencia. /

A. Sole

Alena Patrakova has requested this Wednesday the help that the Ukrainians who are in the city need, “and the others who are going to arrive, because there are other people who are already on their way”, to the mayor. She has done so accompanied by the refugees and at the request of Fernando Pizarro, who has summoned them to welcome them to the city and listen to their needs.

“Now we will form a group with the city’s social services and associations, in which I will be, to coordinate this help,” Patrakova advanced at the end of the meeting. “Because I am Russian, but I want to help my Ukrainian brothers,” she makes clear. In fact, Russian is the language in which they communicate. “I don’t know Ukrainian, but in that country the vast majority of the population speaks Russian.”

For Alena “what we are all experiencing is a drama, we are suffering because Russians and Ukrainians are brothers, it has always been like this and we must not allow any politician to separate us.”

He hopes to get the help that the refugees need and appreciates what is being sent. In fact, yesterday two trucks loaded with more than 40,000 kilos of humanitarian aid left Malpartida for the border between Hungary and Ukraine. A work coordinated by the NAD Children’s Association, which has been possible thanks to the two vehicles donated altruistically by the company Transfrigo Moyano.

And also yesterday Full Inclusion has offered “as temporary accommodation until the end of June 2022” its San Gil hostel, which has 35 beds, to accommodate Ukrainians who may arrive in Plasencia.