EASTERN EUROPE WOMEN

VERONIKA PRUDIKOVA

The idea came to me when I met Veronika. She was my guide in a press trip to the Check town of Karlovy Vary. I has always admired the Eastern Europe women will and effort to achieve what they wanted to, being a very good example the tennis players that dominated the professional world. Veronika was a perfect example: in spite of his 26 years, she spoke perfectly Spanish, English and German. She was studying at the International School of Commerce in Barcelona where she was paying all the expenses doing all kind of jobs; she was also a dancer-her parents have a Dance academy in Karlovy Vary-and sometimes she runs one and a half hour, non stop, along the Barcelona beaches. I started with her and found more Eastern Europe people living in Catalonia. I published the story in La Vanguardia Magazine titled “Eastern Europe Memories”. I wrote the profiles and Celtia Traviesas the generic text. Now in my blog I post the stories of 4 of these women.

VERONICA PRUDIKOVA, 26 YEARS OLD. CZECH REPUBLIC

“What surprises and, even bothers me, is when they ask me if I had difficulties in my country. They think all the Eastern Europe people are the same, while there are huge differences. I am from Karlovy Vary, a beautiful city plenty of thermal resorts and tourists. Mi family is well off and I never lacked anything. But I like to see the world and I went to live in Germany when I was 18. A few years later I went to Peñiscola to learn Spanish and to Barcelona to study at an International Business school. I also speak English and German and I’m starting to learn French. I paid my studies working as a part time model. Sometimes I’m lucky and I have a whole day session; sometimes I work as a congress hostess, many hours standing up and always smiling.

PHOTO SESSION AT BARCELONA'S FORUM

I share an apartment with other students- to rent a flat in Barcelona is terribly expensive-, and I love Barcelona night life, much better than in Karlovy Vary. I love the sea and the Mediterranean climate”.

GOING TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE SCHOOL

SELECTING THE RIGHT CLOTHES FOR THE FORUM PHOTO SESSION

ALMA STOJANOVIC, 39 YEARS OLD. BOSNIA

ALMA IN THE NPO WHERE SHE WORKS

“Everything started in April 1992. I’m a Muslim and my husband was half Serve and half Croatian. We lived in Samac, in the north of Bosnia. I worked as an economist and we had a one and a half years son, Nebojsa. The tanks came at night, though we all had promised that we would not let happen here the same things than in the rest of Yugoslavia. I stayed till May 17 when I was forced to leave together with my son. My husband, Zeljko died the same day while he was defending the city, although I didn’t know till six months later. We lived during one year in a refugee’s camp in Istria, in the north of Croatia, and later on in Germany. In Istria I met Carles, an NPO volunteer. We fell in love and in 1996 I came to Spain and we got married. In 2000 Damir was born. Now I work as accountant in a small NPO, Setem. Our love story vanished and we divorced. All the things that happened to me made me stronger and I learnt to value highly all the things I have now. The Spanish don’t value at all what they have, but they’ll have to learn about it.

AT HOME WITH HER TWO SONS

CLAUDIA CICUR, 30 YEARS OLD. RUMANIA

CLAUDIA IN HER OFFICE

“I always have been in love with Barcelona. I knew the city through guides and TV programs. I come from a middle class family, I have 2 sisters and we lived in Transylvania. The end of Communism made a few very rich and brought the poverty to the rest. I arrived to Sabadell, in Catalonia (Spain), in 1999. My older sisters were already there and the beginning was really difficult. I had accountant studies but I was forced to work taken care of an old woman, in a bakery and, after that, cleaning and ironing in private houses. After a few years, mi situation started to get better. After one month I could understand perfectly all the Spanish words-after all, Rumanian is a Latin language-.

I met the man that is my husband now, Jonathan, in a Rumanian party. After a while I started to work with him, in a building finance company. I already speak Catalan and I employ all my free time, as a Jehovah’s Witness. I’m very happy here and my horizon is wide open.

CLAUDIA WITH A RUMANIAN FOLKLORE GROUP

MARIJA TATARCHUC, 60 YEARS OLD. UKRAINE

MARIJA CELEBRATING THE ORTODOX NEW YEAR'S EVE WITH HER FAMILY

“I am from the Ivano-Frankivsk region, in the Carpats. I have no studies and I worked in very different places. After the Soviet Union fall and the Ukraine independence, the situation worsened very much. In 1999 we decided, together with my 2 sons and their families, that I’d emigrate to try to help then. I was alone because my husband had already died. I paid 1.500 dollars to a travel agency that organised a trip and that promised me a job and the papers in Spain. But it was a fake. The responsible, an Armenian, kept us, 28 persons, in a 3 rooms flat during 2 months. We were not allowed to go out because he told us, that without knowing the language and without papers, the police would extradite us. After 2 months, I run out of money, and the Armenian through me out to the street. I could survive thanks to Church nuns that gave me shelter.

MARUJA IN ONE OF THE HOUSES SHE WORKS

They got me a job cleaning a house and after one year came my son Ivan, her wife Anna and my nieces Basil and Ivanna. Now ,I get up, every working day, at 6 o’clock to clean one office from 7, 30 h to 9, 30 h; after that I work in a house from 10,30 h till 14,30 h ; then I go to another one where I work from 15,30 till 18,30 and, finally, I clean another office from 19 h to 22 h. With the money I am sending to my daughter, we are building a house in my village where I hope to come back some day.