A Non Hero in a Van. Heading to the Ukrainian Border to Bring Hope
Riccardo is keen to point this out: "Don't call me a hero. I just drove all the way to Poland and back. The real heroes are those who enter Ukraine and go to bring aid right into the war." Hero, maybe not, but willing for sure. Because Riccardo Cavanna, a 51-year-old entrepreneur from Novara and Bocconi alumnus, did not limit himself to following, stunned like everyone, the news of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, but he immediately rolled up his sleeves and took action to bring help to the people.
The message of a customer and friend who has a biscuit factory in Ukraine gave it there: "I could not contact him, then he wrote to me that the situation was difficult, that they were allocating part of their production to the soldiers at the front, but that the population also needed other things: generators, medicines, medical equipment". So Riccardo set it in motion: he first involved friends, colleagues of the Bocconi Leva89 alumni association of which he is one of the founders (and which has already collected more than six thousand euros to be allocated to the Ukrainian people), then an increasingly wide circle that also embraces the Novara motorcycle club and the citizens of the Rizzottaglia district in which he lives. Within a few hours, between Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 February, many were working for the operation: "We were based in my garage. Thanks to the support of the neighborhood we collected more money and clothes, we had a generator as a gift from a local company and the Novara motorcycle club provided us with two eight-seater vans."
On Friday 5 March, the departure. In the two vans there are five people: two members of the motorcycle club, "who wanted to join us" and Riccardo with two friends, Matteo Patriarca and Martino Graziano. The destination is a donation collection center in Poland, on the border with Ukraine.
On the way, stopping for the night in Slovenia, they had the first glimpse of the drama of the war: "The hotel where we stopped was providing assistance to the first refugees. There was a woman with two small children, her face taught with fear, but a dignity so great that she accepted aid only with difficulty."
However, it was not the only stage of the mission. "In Italy, before leaving, we came into contact with a network that is organizing transfers of people from Ukraine. After that, through the mayor of Novara, I contacted a priest who is dealing with helping the Ukrainian community." Once the network was created, the idea was to unload the material at the collection point and then go to another border town, two hours from Przemyls, to pick up 8 people to take to Italy.
A difficult return journey and not only for the uncertainties of the trip: "They were four women, with two teenagers and two girls. It was a terribly silent journey: although one of the women had lived 8 years in Italy, she did not speak. We learned that she still had a daughter trapped in the siege of Mariupol and was terrified." The weight of the war lifted a little only on arrival, when that same woman lets herself go with a big hug. "In the following days the girls sent me messages of thanks, they were very sweet," says Cavanna. "Now part of the group is in Verona, part has been welcomed in Verbania."
A journey concentrated in a few hours, round trip from Poland almost non-stop. Riccardo, Matteo and Martino did not have the opportunity to investigate the situation. What they saw, in the place where they met the group, "There were thousands of people arriving, dozens of buses, a lot of confusion." And, during the trip, they also discovered several jackals ready to take advantage of the situation: "The woman we met in Slovenia asked if she had to pay. We have learned that there are those who offer these trips to Europe for 150 euros".
With his activity as an entrepreneur, Riccardo knows Ukraine well. "I had and have several clients in the country. I was in Kiev in the aftermath of the Maidan Square protests in 2014. On the plane, arriving, I had met the correspondent of La Stampa Domenico Quirico. I asked him if I should worry, he replied 'You know my story; if I am here it is because the situation is critical'. On that same trip I met other customers and I perceived how even then it was a people divided in two. These days I have a pro-Russian client who writes to me to tell me his version of the truth and another, from the opposite front, who writes to me from under the bombs."
Returning to their trip, Riccardo reiterated that he does not feel special: "After all, we only drove," he says, "a gypsy adventure among friends." A gypsy who, however, has helped many people. "I had to do something that wasn't just a click on PayPal," he concludes. "And staying at home talking about geopolitics on social media is too easy."