An oasis in the Adriatic where Ukrainians and Russians have gone to escape the war

“Our people respect the people of Russia and Ukraine,” said Savvo Dobrovic. “I didn’t see a bad relationship.”

It sounds like a solution to conflict: tens of thousands of people from warring sides in a heavy, protracted war against a small Balkan nation with only recent memories of conflict.

But Montenegro has managed to get in so far.

As of February 2022, Ukrainian refugees and Russian exiles are flooding Europe, fleeing war, conscription and the rule of Vladimir Putin.

More than four million people have fled Ukraine to seek temporary protection in the European Union – to Germany and Poland and elsewhere.

But beyond the EU, Montenegro has taken in more than 200,000 Ukrainians, making it the highest number of Ukrainian refugees per capita in the world.

“Montenegrins are very patient, they are people who want to help,” said Dobrovic, a property owner at the Adriatic resort of Budva.

Name slowlywhich means “little”, it is part of their way of life.

“It amazes me – they are mountain people, but what remains of that loud noise is the desire to hug,” said Natalya Sevets-Yermolina, who heads the Russian cultural center Reformum in Budva.

Montenegro, a member of Nato and a candidate for EU status, has not had its problems.

It has a large ethnic Serb population, many of whom are pro-Russian, and six Russian diplomats were expelled in the past two years on espionage charges.

But it has won praise for its response to the refugee crisis – particularly its decision granting Ukrainians temporary protection status, which has now been extended until March 2025.

The latest figures from September last year show that more than 10,000 have benefited, and the UN says that 62,000 Ukrainians have registered some legal rights at the time. That’s about 10% of the population of Montenegro.

Thousands more come from Russia or Belarus.

For all these groups Montenegro is attractive for its visa-free regime, common language, common religion and Western-oriented government.

That acceptance doesn’t always measure up to their standard of living.

Although there are many jobs for immigrants in coastal areas, they are often seasonal and poorly paid. Better quality, professional work is hard to find. The lucky ones were able to keep their jobs at home, working remotely.

Another difficulty is that it is almost impossible to obtain citizenship here, a problem for those who, for whatever reason, cannot renew their passports.

There has been a strong Russian presence in Montenegro for years, and it has a reputation, perhaps unfairly, as a playground for the very rich.

Many Russians and Ukrainians have property or family connections, but there are also plenty of people who ended up here by chance, feeling completely lost.

They were that non-profit shelter Pristaniste (Haven) was established.

Based in Budva, it offers the most desperate arrivals a safe place and a warm welcome for two weeks as they find their feet.

They are given help with documents, job hunting and apartments, and Ukrainians come for two weeks as a “holiday” from the war.

Valentina Ostroglyad, 60, arrived here with her daughter last year from Zaporizhzhia, the capital of a region in southeastern Ukraine that has been repeatedly bombed by Russia.

“When I came to Montenegro I could not handle fireworks, or cross the roof – I associated it with those explosions,” he said.

Now she works as an art teacher and enjoys her adopted country: “Today I went up to the well, admiring the mountains and the sea. And the people are very kind.”

The ongoing bitterness of the war ensures that Ukrainians continue to come, they can no longer bear the pain and suffering at home.

Sasha Borkov, a driver from Kharkiv, was separated from his wife and six children, aged four to 16, as they left Ukraine in late August.

He was turned back at the Polish border – he was previously arrested in Hungary for transporting illegal immigrants and is banned from the EU. His family was allowed to continue to Germany while he, after a few days traveling around Europe, was finally allowed to touch down in Montenegro.

Appearing depressed and exhausted, he explained how the war eventually drove him and his family from their home.

“When you see and hear every day houses being destroyed, people being killed, you can’t put it past,” he said.

“Our apartment is not damaged but the windows are broken, too [the bombs] they are getting closer.”

Borkov said that he had been looking into the possibility of going to Montenegro since the start of the war: “[Pristaniste] he brought me into the house, gave me food and drink, and a place to stay. I rested, then I started looking for a job.”

He has found a job and his family will join him here. He is applying for temporary protection, and a place in a Ukrainian refugee center.

Elsewhere in Budva, Yuliya Matsuy founded a children’s center for Ukrainians to study history, English, maths and art – or just dance, sing and watch movies.

Many were tortured by the war, he says: “They weren’t interested in the mountains or the sea, they didn’t want anything.”

But when they started communicating, their eyes were smiling. The smiles and emotions of those children were something that was impossible to convey. Only then did we understand that we were doing the right thing. “

Now many are settled. The younger children learned Montenegrin and now attend local schools, while the older ones have continued to study remotely in Ukrainian schools.

Both charities have Russian volunteers, who have helped promote good relations between the Russian and Ukrainian communities here.

Other parts of Europe have seen occasional conflict. At the beginning of the war, Germany recorded an increase in attacks on Ukrainians and Russians.

But there has been little of that so far in Montenegro.

There is a sense of tolerance here and Pristaniste and its volunteers have played a role in fostering it.

Sasha Borkov distinguishes between the Russians he met in Budva and those who fought in the war in Ukraine.

“The people here are trying to help, they are not doing anything against our country, against us, against my children, [unlike] those who shoot and destroy our houses, say they are liberating us.”

Friendships have grown between volunteers and residents, and among residents, and a Russian-Ukrainian couple living in Pristaniste recently got married.

Empathy is a key factor. A recent speech in Budva by Kyiv-based journalist Olha Musafirova about her work, in Ukrainian, moved Russians in the audience to tears, horrified by their country’s actions.

For Ukrainian actress Katarina Sinchillo, the Russian diasporas can be different and the Montenegrin ones are “sensitive”.

“I think that the people who live here are a different community in some way because they are intellectuals,” he said, “educated people who cannot live without art.”

Russian-Ukrainian joint projects are vanishingly rare.

But Sinchillo founded a theater here, with her husband and fellow actor Viktor Koshel, using actors from all over the former Soviet Union.

Their performances are well-attended, he says: “Progressive Russians, who help Ukraine, go with interest and joy.”

Koshel says the environment here is ideal for such contacts. “Here in the countryside it’s heaven, it takes you away from these city people, who are sad, depressed, political propaganda etc. You go to the sea and everything that disappears.”

They also collaborated with veteran Russian rock singer Mikhail Borzykin, who has seen huge changes in the Russian diaspora over the past three years.

Before the war, he says, “strong arguments” about Putin in Russian society were common, but the recent influx of anti-war immigrants has created a different situation.

“Most of the young people who came here, they understand the horrors that are happening, so there is agreement on the main questions,” he said.

As for the pro-Kremlin members who were members of Russia’s corrupt elite, they call it diaspora, they are living peacefully in the properties they bought in Montenegro years ago.

“Controversies are not played out in public,” he said.

Borzykin is part of a volleyball team of Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians and says “they are all the same height”.

Despite the warm welcome, the future of some migrants remains uncertain.

Strict citizenship laws mean many of them will not be able to stay here permanently.

Most Ukrainians seem willing to return home when the war ends, thinking they still have homes to go to.

“Right now it is a great danger to our lives, but when it ends we will return home,” said Sasha Borkov. “There is no better place than home”.

But most Russians say it will take more than the fall of the regime to persuade them to go back for good.

Natalya Sevets-Yermolina, from the northern city of Petrozavodsk, says she is in no rush.

“I have a problem with the fact that it was not Phuthini who persecuted me, but those small people I lived with in the same town,” he said. “Putin is far away but those who do his will will stay, even if he dies soon.”

Borzykin says he’s also unlikely to make a quick comeback, as attitudes may take decades to change.

“Germany needs 30 years [after the Nazis] when the new generation came. I’m afraid I won’t have that long.”

Oleg Pshenichny contributed to this article