Braving freezing temperatures and cold morning chill, Igor, a 58-year-old refugee from the restive eastern Lugansk region, is queuing in front of a humanitarian aid center in the historical part of Kiev for clothing and food.

"I am ashamed to receive humanitarian assistance, but I have no other choice. I left without a single source of income, because I can not find a job," Igor, who preferred not to give his last name, told Xinhua.

Igor, who left his home village not far from Lugansk city in December, is one of about 1 million refugees internally displaced by the conflict in eastern Ukraine. He is now seeking better life in other parts of the country.

"When I moved to Kiev, I thought that it would be easy to find a job, because it is a metropolis, the capital of our country, but soon I realized that no one is waiting for me," said Igor, who lives in a temporary living facility for displaced people outside Kiev.

He hoped that the conflict in the country will end soon and he would be able to return home.

"I'm really looking forward to returning home, because there I can at least feed myself without the support of other people," Igor said, holding a plastic cup of hot tea to warm up his hands.

Igor, an agriculturist, was engaged in cultivation and sale of tomato and cabbage seedlings to earn his daily bread before. Nowadays, he is forced to come several times a week to an aid center, offering assistance to displaced people who have nowhere else to go.

"Every day, about 200 families turn to our center for help," Alesya Litvinova, chief coordinator of the Kiev humanitarian aid center, told Xinhua.

"People most frequently asked for housing assistance, but unfortunately we can not help them..., it is the task of the government," Litvinova said, adding that employment is the second vital issue for the refugees.

"We have individual volunteers who are engaged in employment, and there is a special employment center, so we've found jobs for a fairly large number of people," Litvinova said.

Besides, the center, which relies on funds and humanitarian aid from individual donors, offers food, clothing, medicines, household items and furniture for the displaced people.

"Kiev residents support us very actively, so we have the opportunity to provide refugees with almost all kinds of assistance," Litvinova said.

CAUGHT BETWEEN HAMMER AND ANVIL

Higher-income displaced people from eastern regions are also helping their fellow-countrymen, showing solidarity.

"It is my duty to society and to my own conscience to help people in need," said Olga Mironova, a 40-year-old businesswoman from Alchevsk town in Lugansk region, who moved to Kiev.

Mironova, an owner of a big variety store in Alchevsk, regularly sends money to the bank cards of volunteers who work with refugees in several Ukrainian regions, although her own incomes fell dramatically in the recent months.

"All my money is invested in the business, which is now idle. Our family lives on the money that we managed to save earlier, my husband has found a job, but his salary is not really big," Mironova told Xinhua.

Being used to residing in a big house in Alchevsk, the former businesswoman lives in a one-bedroom apartment on the Kiev outskirts together with her husband and a nine-year-old son.

"My heart breaks into pieces, because we can't even take our dog from Alchevsk, because the lady, who rents a flat to us, does not allow pets. The mother of my husband takes care of the dog," Mironova said with tears in her eyes.

The despaired woman said she is looking forward to returning home, because she feels like an "alien" in a strange city.

"Some Kiev residents are angry with us, because we take their jobs away. They tell us to go defending our homeland instead of staying away from the conflict," Mironova said.

On the other hand, she pointed that many people in eastern Ukraine are calling the refugees "the traitors, who betrayed their homeland".

"It is really frustrating to hear that. I moved to Kiev not because I was looking for 'sweet life', but because I was afraid of the life of my son, afraid of full-scale fighting in my town, which is now full of armed men in camouflage," Mironova sighed.

She noted that the refugees from eastern regions have "found themselves caught between the hammer and the anvil" after moving to other parts of the country.

"I do not care who's to be blamed for this conflict, I am not a politician. I just know objective reality -- my small homeland was destroyed, and factories and mines were closed. People have nowhere to work, and many have nothing to eat," Mironova said.

Meanwhile, she stressed that she is willing to return to her home city one day.

"Anyway, I want to go back to Alchevsk, my home is there, my life is there," Mironova said.

ECONOMIC HARDSHIP AND MORAL PRESSURE

Tatiana Novitskaya, a 34-year-old school teacher, who fled Donetsk to Kharkov with her husband and two children in September, said that her family is experiencing "deep psychological problems" after the departure.

"We had many quarrels with our parents and friends due to political differences. And now, we are experiencing a lack of companionship," Novitskaya told Xinhua by phone.

The woman said that she is especially worrying about her sons of five and seven years, who missed their friends and schoolmates very much and asked every day about returning home.

"The children were enrolled to the school and the kindergarten without any bureaucratic troubles, but in moral terms they are suffering, the boys are disoriented in a new environment," Novitskaya said, adding that, besides the moral stress, her family is also experiencing economic hardships.

"I still have not found a job and could not support my family financially. In Donetsk, apart from my regular employment, I taught private lessons for children, but here nobody knows about me," she said, adding that her husband makes a little money working as a taxi driver.

Despite losing key sources of income, Novitskaya's family continues paying the mortgage for an apartment it has bought in Donetsk.

"This year we got a new flat on credit and made a good renovation for it. Although we can not live in this flat because of the war, we should pay a mortgage loan to the bank," she said, pointing that her family prays for peace in Donetsk everyday.

"We want so much to return home, we want our friends and relatives to come back there, and we want to have a normal job and life as it was before, but we understand that our life would never be the same any more," Novitskaya said.