A tranquil mountainside resort in Ukraine has morphed into a haven for refugees who have lost everything

• A tranquil mountain resort in Transcarpathia, Ukraine is now housing refugees fleeing war.
• The resort's owner ripped out spa equipment and office furniture to make room for air-mattresses.

Nestled among the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine, the Bogolvar Retreat Resort served as a tranquil escape from hectic city life in Eastern Europe.

Today, it's an escape from the warzone.

When the family that owns the resort fled their homes in Kyiv, they knew they were lucky to have the hotel as a place to hide out from the bombings. When she and her parents were safe, Iana Shchubelka, knew she had to do something to accommodate others who had nowhere to run.

"Transcarpathia is kind of separated from the rest of Ukraine by a chain of mountains. It's one of the two regions that were not bombed, so it's perceived as relatively safe," Shchubelka told Insider. "When we saw that the requests for rooms weren't stopping, I realized I had to do something. So I started thinking about all the space that isn't being used that could be converted into housing."

Shchubelka, who had been staying with her boyfriend in the Netherlands, returned to Ukraine to help staff convert whatever vacant space that remained in the hotel into temporary housing.

Starting with the conference hall, they ripped out furniture so there was space on the floor for air mattresses, she said.

"Then we expanded to the spa," Shchubelka said. "We took out all of the massage equipment and salon furniture."

The hotel houses between 40 to 50 refugees each night in the communal spaces.

Private massage rooms have been given priority to refugees with children, so they can have a bit of privacy.

The main resort rooms had already been rented out before the war began, and many of those guests extended their stays when they realized it would be unsafe to return home.

The paying guests — like employees of an IT company that relocated to the hotel — are helping to keep the hotel running as in it's new role as a shelter for refugees, Shchubelka said.

"Some of them are staying long term and others are moving on to Slovakia or Poland, where they have friends," Shchubelka said.

Hotel staff is working to make sure the refugees are as comfortable as possible. The hotel's chef cooks communal meals.

"We're at double capacity now," she said.

During the day, guests walk the property, which is dotted with lakes and trees, and share their war stories or plan their next move.

Here are some of their stories:

Sisters had to bury their mother as air raid sirens rang

Viktoriia Storozhenko and her sister Svitlana Gordiienko woke in their Kyiv homes to air raid sirens and explosions on February 24th.

Gordiienko immediately called their father, telling him that Storozhenko would pick them up and take them to a village outside the city. His father didn't believe that the explosions were real, and thought it was just military exercises.

When Storozhenko picked them up, they saw "scary" bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway, Gordiienko said.

When they arrived in the village, they had set up mattresses in a hallway, where they tried to get back to sleep.

They began hearing explosions and Gordiienko's daughter threw herself over her 3-year-old son, just in case the windows would blow in.

"There is nothing more frightening than hearing a three year old ask if they are shooting again, or whether we will always live here on the floor in the hallway," Gordiienko said.

At 9 a.m., the sisters got a call that their mother, who was in a hospital, had died. It wasn't until four days later that the hospital released her body to be buried.

"So on the fifth day, we went into Kyiv, and that experience shook us up very badly," Gordiienko said. "There were shot up buses, there were men's bodies on the ground, covered up."

The sisters were driven into the city by a hearse, who was speeding.

The driver apologized, but said he couldn't slow down because he feared they'd be a target.

Kyiv, the sisters said, was unrecognizable. Cars and a bus were shot up. Buildings were damaged and surrounded by debris. A body of a man laid in the street, covered with a black bag.

At the cemetery, staff and church employees buried their mother in 10 minutes, before leaving the area.

"They all did their job, but just did it quickly, and would then run away," Gordiienko said. "So it was just about ten minutes that we were burying my mom, and then we, too, jumped in the car and drove away, only dreaming to reach the children again."

"This is a story about when you don't have the luxury of crying for your mom, because you are worried that your children and grandchildren are somewhere else away from you," she added.

Two days later, Gordiienko's older daughter fled to Amsterdam, where she is now looking for work to help support her family.

On the tenth day of the war, the sisters fled with two of their daughters and several grandchildren. First they took a train from Kyiv to Lviv, then they traveled the remainder of the way to Transcarpathia.

They plan on staying at the retreat until they can figure out their next move.

The men and older members of their family remain in Kyiv.

"When the bombings just started, we just rushed into the hallway, but ten days of this is very difficult," Gordiienko said. "Every explosion, you don't understand if it's close, or if it's right on your house."

Victoriya's pregnant daughter-in-law spent 7 days in a bomb shelter

Victoriya Vladimirovna was living in an apartment with her mother in the Alekseevka neighborhood of Kharkhiv, when bombs began dropping.

Her son, daughter-in-law, and two grandsons live in a different neighborhood.

Immediately when the war began, she knew she needed a plan to leave the city, but her mother is ill and she wasn't sure how to leave. Her daughter-in-law is 9-months pregnant, and she worried that the baby would be born prematurely.

"She spent seven days in a bomb shelter with my son and my grandson who is six years old," Victoriya said. "I can't even tell you what they lived through."

The family stayed in the city for several days, but the fighter jets flying above their apartment shook the walls, leaving them in horror.

Eventually an acquaintance and her son drove them out of the city. They spent four days in the car, stopping at night and sleeping at homes around the country.

When they arrived in Transcarpathia, they visited a church that told them that the resort was housing refugees.

Her daugher-in-law and grandson eventually left the country, she said. They are waiting on the birth of her granddaughter.

"When I was driving through the city to leave Kharkiv, I saw this horror with my own eyes," she said. "I saw military security checkpoints, ruined buildings, busted up cars, dead bodies."

"They were civilians," she said of the bodies. "They were standing in line for food, and seemingly the fragmentation from the explosion killed them all."

Iryna fled twice: first to a family summer home and then to the mountains

Iryna Petryk woke up on February 24th to explosions, but she didn't believe her ears.

When she heard the first noise, she went into her 18-year-old son's room, thinking he was trying to sneak out.

When she saw him sleeping, she decided to go back to bed.

Then she got a call and was told that "a was has begun."

Petryk knew she had to get out of Kyiv with her son, but she was not at all prepared.

She had coronavirus, and was bedridden for the week leading up to the war.

After packing as quickly as possible, she brought the car to get gas and then drove her and her son to her parents' dacha — a summer home — in the nearby riverside village of Zazimye.

That's where they stayed from the 24th to March 6, but then they learned that village was surrounded by 120 tanks. So they fled again.

"The authorities announced that everyone who was leaving needed to leave, and everyone staying needed to stay, because they were closing the roads and there was nobody to be coming in or out," she said. "Given that I had my son with me and his friend, we decided to just leave and go anywhere. We just got our things together, in bags, not even suitcases, we didn't have anything else."

The group took a bus to a train station. A train took them to Transcarpathia.

Petryk said that her son was stoic, but his nerves are now getting to him. When they were at the dacha, he was convinced that they'd be able to return to Kyiv quickly.

It wasn't until they arrived at the resort, that the stress is getting to him. When they arrived at the resort, he had a high fever.

"He asks me, 'Mom, mom, are you okay? Are we okay? Mom, I don't want to go to the army, I don't want to be killed.'" Petryk said. "This has never happened before. Maybe his nerves are just getting to him."