“Our folks respect the Russian and Ukrainian folks,” says Savvo Dobrovic. “I merely haven’t seen any unhealthy relations.”
It appears like a recipe for rigidity and confrontation: tens of 1000’s of individuals from opposing sides in a bitter, protracted struggle descending on a small Balkan nation with its personal very latest recollections of battle.
However Montenegro has managed the inflow to date.
Since February 2022, Ukrainian refugees and Russian exiles have fanned out throughout Europe, fleeing struggle, conscription and Vladimir Putin’s rule.
Greater than 4 million folks have fled Ukraine for short-term safety within the European Union – to Germany and Poland and elsewhere.
However past the EU, Montenegro has let in in additional than 200,000 Ukrainians, making it the best per capita Ukrainian refugee inhabitants on the planet.
“Montenegrins are very affected person, they’re individuals who wish to assist,” says Dobrovic, a property proprietor within the Adriatic resort of Budva.
The phrase polako, which means “slowly”, is integral to their lifestyle.
“It amazes me – they’re a mountain folks, however all that’s left from that noisy temperament is a want to hug you,” says Natalya Sevets-Yermolina, who runs the Russian cultural centre Reforum in Budva.
Montenegro, a Nato member and candidate for EU standing, has not been with out its issues.
It has a considerable ethnic Serb inhabitants, lots of whom have pro-Russian sympathies, and 6 Russian diplomats had been expelled two years in the past on suspicion of spying.
However it has received reward for its response to the refugee disaster – particularly its resolution to grant Ukrainians short-term safety standing, which has now been prolonged till March 2025.
The latest figures from September final yr present greater than 10,000 had benefited, and the UN says 62,000 Ukrainians had registered some authorized standing by then. That’s practically 10% of Montenegro’s inhabitants.
1000’s extra have come from Russia or Belarus.
For all of those teams Montenegro is enticing for its visa-free regime, related language, frequent faith and Western-leaning authorities.
That welcome doesn’t at all times prolong to their high quality of life.
Whereas there are many jobs for immigrants in coastal areas, they’re usually seasonal and poorly paid. Higher high quality, skilled work is more durable to search out. The luckier ones have been in a position to retain the roles that they had again house, working remotely.
One other problem is that it’s virtually unimaginable to get citizenship right here, an issue for individuals who, for no matter purpose, are unable to resume their passports.
There was a powerful Russian presence in Montenegro for years, and it has a fame, maybe unfairly, as a playground for the very wealthy.
Many Russians and Ukrainians have property or household connections, however there may be additionally a big contingent who ended up right here virtually by probability, feeling fully misplaced.
It was for them that non-profit shelter Pristaniste (Haven) was arrange.
Primarily based in Budva, it offers essentially the most determined arrivals a protected place and a heat welcome for 2 weeks as they discover their ft.
They’re given assist with documentation, attempting to find jobs and flats, and Ukrainians also can come for 2 weeks as a “vacation” from the struggle.
Valentina Ostroglyad, 60, got here right here together with her daughter a yr in the past from Zaporizhzhia, a regional capital in south-eastern Ukraine that comes underneath repeated, lethal Russian bombardment.
“Once I first arrived in Montenegro I couldn’t deal with fireworks, or perhaps a roof falling in – I related it with these explosions,” she stated.
Now she is working as an artwork trainer and having fun with her adopted nation: “At the moment I went as much as a spring, admired the mountains and sea. And persons are very form.”
The continuing grimness of the struggle ensures that Ukrainians maintain coming, now not in a position to endure the ache and struggling at house.
Sasha Borkov, a driver from Kharkiv, was separated from his spouse and 6 kids, aged 4 to 16, as they left Ukraine in late August.
He was turned again on the Polish border – he beforehand did jail time in Hungary for transporting irregular migrants and is banned from the EU. His household had been allowed to proceed to Germany whereas he, after a tense few days travelling round Europe, was lastly allowed to the touch down in Montenegro.
Visibly careworn and exhausted, he described how the struggle had lastly pushed him and his household from their house.
“While you see and listen to day by day homes being destroyed, folks being killed, it’s unimaginable to convey,” he stated.
“Our flat isn’t broken however home windows get damaged, and [the bombs] are getting nearer and nearer.”
Borkov stated he had been taking a look at the potential for going to Montenegro for the reason that begin of the struggle: “[Pristaniste] took me in, gave me food and drinks, a spot to remain. I rested, then I began searching for work.”
He has already discovered a job and his household are attributable to be part of him right here. He’s making use of for short-term safety, and a spot at a Ukrainian refugee centre.
Elsewhere in Budva, Yuliya Matsuy has arrange a kids’s centre for Ukrainians to take classes in historical past, English, maths and artwork – or simply to bounce, sing and watch movies.
Many had been traumatised by struggle, she says: “They weren’t within the mountains or the ocean, they needed nothing.”
“However once they began interacting, their eyes had been smiling. These kids’s smiles and feelings had been one thing that’s unimaginable to convey. And solely then we understood we had been doing the suitable factor.”
Now most are settled. The youthful kids discovered Montenegrin and now attend native faculties, whereas the older ones have continued their studying remotely at Ukrainian faculties.
Each charities have Russian volunteers, which has helped foster good relations between the Russian and Ukrainian communities right here.
Different elements of Europe have seen occasional friction. Firstly of the struggle, Germany recorded an increase in assaults on Ukrainians and Russians.
However there was little of that to date in Montenegro.
There’s a sense of tolerance right here and Pristaniste and its volunteers have had a job in selling it.
Sasha Borkov distinguishes between Russians he has met in Budva and people combating the struggle in Ukraine.
“Individuals right here try to assist, they’re not doing something in opposition to our nation, in opposition to us, in opposition to my kids, [unlike] those that fireplace at and destroy our homes, and say that they’re liberating us.”
Friendships have grown amongst volunteers and residents, and between residents, and one Russian-Ukrainian couple who lived at Pristaniste just lately married.
Empathy is a significant component. A latest speak in Budva by Kyiv-based journalist Olha Musafirova about her work, in Ukrainian, had Russians within the viewers in tears, horrified by their nation’s actions.
For Ukrainian actor Katarina Sinchillo, Russian diasporas can fluctuate and Montenegro’s is “delicate”.
“I believe the individuals who dwell listed below are a considerably completely different group as a result of it’s the intelligentsia,” she says, “educated individuals who can’t dwell with out the humanities.”
Russian-Ukrainian joint tasks are vanishingly uncommon.
However Sinchillo arrange a theatre right here, with husband and fellow actor Viktor Koshel, utilizing actors from all around the former Soviet Union.
Their performs are nicely attended, she says: “Progressive Russian folks, who’re serving to Ukraine, go along with curiosity and pleasure.”
Koshel says the setting right here is ideal for such contacts. ”Right here the countryside is heavenly, it takes you away from these urbanist, gloomy, depressive moods, political propaganda and so on. You go to the ocean and all that disappears.”
They’ve additionally collaborated with veteran Russian rock musician Mikhail Borzykin, who has seen massive modifications within the Russian diaspora over the previous three years.
Earlier than the struggle, he says, “fierce arguments” about Putin within the Russian group had been commonplace, however the latest inflow of anti-war immigrants created a unique ambiance.
“The overwhelming majority of younger individuals who have come right here, they after all perceive the horror of what’s taking place, so there may be settlement on the primary questions,” he says.
As for the pro-Kremlin former members of Russia’s corrupt elite, who he calls the vatnaya diaspora, they’re sitting quietly within the properties they purchased in Montenegro years in the past.
“Conflicts are usually not aired in public,” he says.
Borzykin is a part of a volleyball group of Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians and says they’re “all on the identical wavelength”.
Regardless of the comparatively heat welcome, the way forward for some immigrants stays unsure.
Strict citizenship legal guidelines imply lots of them won’t be able to remain right here indefinitely.
Most Ukrainians appear eager to return house if the struggle ends, assuming they nonetheless have houses to go to.
“At the moment there’s an enormous risk to our lives, but when it ends after all we’ll go house,” says Sasha Borkov. “There’s nowhere higher than house”.
However most Russians say it is going to take rather more than the autumn of the regime to steer them to return completely.
Natalya Sevets-Yermolina, who comes from the northern metropolis of Petrozavodsk, says she’s not in a rush.
“I’ve the issue that it’s not Putin that persecuted me however these little folks I lived in the identical metropolis with,” she says. “Putin is way away however those that do his bidding will stay, even when he dies quickly.”
Borzykin says he too is unlikely to return rapidly, as attitudes may take a long time to vary.
“Germany wanted 30 years [after the Nazis] whereas the brand new era got here alongside. I’m afraid I received’t have that lengthy.”
Oleg Pshenichny contributed to this text