One of Japan’s leading daily newspapers tracks down the Ukrainian refugees seven time zones away from home
If you happen to be in Tokyo next Thursday afternoon, you might consider taking the train out to Tanashi (田無駅徒) to participate in a life drawing session run by Ukrainian refugees out of a nondescript conference room a minute’s walk from the station.
Sometimes the Ukrainian models sit or stand in loose-fitting clothing on a turquoise mat; other times they wear traditional patterned dresses, with their heads wreathed in flowery folk-style headgear. At the last session of this type, back in February, the model was Anna, a ballerina who looked preternaturally relaxed while holding her feet in a ballet position that for most human beings could only be achieved through painful dislocation of the knee. Next Thursday, according to a post on Instagram advertising the session, the model will be Nora.
The Japanese immigration agency estimates that 2,731 Ukrainian refugees have made their way to Japan over the last few years. Of these, around 1,980 remain. As an article by Takayama Megumi for Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun newspaper (毎日新聞社) points out, it’s an infinitesimally small number compared to the 1 million Ukrainian refugees in Germany, or the nearly 7 million worldwide accounted for by the UNHCR.
Some of those now classed as refugees in Japan were already living there when the full-scale war broke out in 2022, the article points out. Others came to Japan having learned the language as students, and preferring to take their chances in Japan than in Poland or Germany. But many arrived without knowing any the language at all. “Japan is a difficult country to pick as a refugee destination”, admits the representative of a Japanese refugee-support foundation interviewed by the Mainichi Shimbun.
Three years on, the outlook has become harder still. Financial support for refugees is running out. The wave of Ukrainian restaurants that opened in 2022 in the wake of the Russian invasion has begun to die out.
Megumi visits Nadiya, a Ukrainian refugee-run restaurant in western Tokyo where a mother and daughter are making borscht using beetroots donated by a farmer on Hokkaido island. (Varenyky, including varenyky stuffed with strawberries are also on the menu; Megumi compares them to gyoza).
The restaurant is now on the point of closure. “We didn’t think it would last this long either”, citing waning public interest in the war as one of the reasons for Nadiya’s current situation. (Translator checked the restaurant’s website before this Dispatch went to press; it’s now temporarily closed, with plans to re-open under a less specifically Ukrainian guise later in the year.)
Another Tokyo café – the Cocorogoto café – run partly as a charity project offering psychological counselling and therapy, continues to serve borscht and what Megumi calls ‘Odesa Salad’ (From the description of the salad – a cake-like construction consisting of layers of smoked salmon, potato and beetroot –Translator suspects this is more generally known as Shuba). But only alongside a range of other European and American foods local customers are familiar with, “so our Japanese customers don’t get bored”.
It’s not always straightforward to make genuine Ukrainian food in Japan, the article notes. Fresh beetroot is often substituted for canned; pork liver paste is replaced with chicken liver paste; dark rye bread has to be bought frozen.
Nineteen-year-old Artem – one of ten Ukrainian refugees working in the Cocorogoto café – has found his Japanese language, non-existent when he arrived three years ago, has improved dramatically as a result of his work there. He dreams of being an engineer. His fondest wish – impossible under current conditions – is to see his family. His father is in the army. He video chats with his mother in Ukraine every day.
But watching television is impossible. “If I see footage of an explosion, I’ll worry”, he explains.
Original story by Takayama Megumi in Japanese published 9 February 2025, available here under the title ‘ロシアによる侵攻からまもなく3年 日本に避難するウクライナ人たちの現実’.
Mainichi Shimbun (毎日新聞社) is one of Japan’s leading daily newspapers. While mostly in Japanese, it does have some English-language coverage here.
