Note: This week I’m sharing with you a longer two-part story. It is Zhenia’s story of surviving for a month in Mariupol with his family before escaping. It is a bit longer than most of the future stories, but it’s one that needs to be shared completely. All photos in this post were taken by Zhenia.
My name is Zhenia, and I am from Mariupol. My house, together with my city, was destroyed during the war.
Almost all my life, I have spoken Russian and I have lived in a Russian-speaking environment. But now I hate this language and try to speak Ukrainian.
On February 24th, we woke up and understood that the full-scale war had begun. Russia invaded Ukraine. In my street, the morning was quiet. We went to the shop to buy food and noticed that near our building there was a Ukrainian tank. Soldiers told us that the war had begun. We entered the shop, and there were huge lines. From February 24-26, the lines at the shops and pharmacies were long. Then I started to realize that the war had broken out and that it could impact us.
My mother was in the Lviv region at the time and called me to tell me to flee from Mariupol with my family, but we didn’t have the opportunity to escape from Mariupol, so we bought the required food and medicine necessary to stay our city. On March 1, gas, electricity, and water were turned off. We could no longer prepare food and we also lost all mobile connection. We were literally cut off from the outside world. But still at this point we could not realize the full scale of the war.
I was together with my wife, Victoria, and my son, Mark, who is 8. We stayed at our apartment until March 2. That day was the first bomb attack on a residential building on my street. The direct missile hit on the first floor; it was ruined and the fire began. Two firetrucks arrived and put out the fire. Then we started to recognize the disaster of the situation.
Ukrainian soldiers helped us as they could. They opened the shops, so people could get some food and water. We lived in the suburbs of Mariupol, which became a frontline for the war. There was a market where we were able to get some products.
On March 2, we decided to stay in the basement because we were afraid of bombings. We lived near a shop, "Zhyguli," where there was a bomb shelter. With our neighbors, we started to bring the needed food, water, medicine, and warm clothes to the basement.
On the afternoon of March 3, the active phase of the war began. There were constant shootings and bombings. It was hazardous to be outside. We were forced to run to the shop to get food. Russians destroyed our fire station and food shop on March 9. At that moment, I discovered that there were no rescue services in our district.
During one of the bombings, the heating pipe was wrecked. We started taking the water from that pipe as there was a lack of water. Every time I ran there to get some water, I started to notice crosses in the courtyards and graves. I saw a man digging graves. In such difficult circumstances, mainly elderly people with health problems died. They were buried in courtyards between our four buildings
Mariupol had a population of 500,000 people. Around 150,000 managed to leave the town, while 350,000 stayed in Mariupol. These people did not have enough food or water. It was impossible to bring humanitarian aid there because of constant shootings. We were forced to acquire food and water by ourselves. There was no help and we had no news about what was actually happening.
We started to adapt to the new circumstances. Our soldiers made automatic gunfire every time there was a danger and we had to go to the shelter. They warned us about the start of a shootout or bombing. There was a grill near each building entrance, and it was the only way for us to cook the meals. We even had some type of routine: one man opened and held the entrance door, and the second man ran out and stirred the dish. If there was any gunfire at all, they immediately ran into the basement. That’s how we cooked. We always cooked together because it was really risky to do it on your own. Everyone from our building had brought all the food to the basement. So we had stocks at the beginning.
Many buildings were on fire because of the bombing, and there were no fire trucks to stop the fire. One evening, we went out of the basement and witnessed that our district was on fire. Our building was lightly damaged; only the windows were broken. So we continued living in the basement. Our soldiers put the public buses on the road to barricade the streets. Soldiers allowed us to take the batteries from the buses to power the lights and charge our phones.
There were two boys and two babies in the basement. For children, it was especially hard to stay in such conditions. We tried to do everything possible to help babies find formula, milk, and provide the kids with some sort of toys.
One day, Ukrainian soldiers came to our basement and said that they could evacuate women and children to the Drama Theatre. It was an official bomb shelter and they said it was much safer than a simple basement. I asked my wife whether she wanted to go there, but she decided to stay with me. A few days later, we found out that the Drama Theatre was bombed and completely destroyed. All 600 people, mainly women and children, were killed. The Drama Theatre was a shelter for women and children; it was not even a military object. Nevertheless, the Russians attacked it. Still, I can’t understand their aim.
I found one place where there was a mobile connection near my apartment. From time to time, I ran there to call my mom to say that we were alive. It was extremely dangerous to go out of the basement at this point because of the constant bombing and artillery shootings. The number of graves in the courtyards was rising. Many people were killed as they were just cooking outside the buildings.
We tried to separate children from seeing this, but it was impossible to stay all the time in the basement without sunlight. At the beginning of March, there were a few moments when children were outside, they even played together. But after the first air strike near our house, which caused a crater of almost 2 meters, we mostly stayed in the basement. This explosion destroyed my friend’s house and much of an eight-story building next door. They survived in the basement, but it was at this moment I realized that the situation was really miserable. I told my wife: "We will get out of here and come to the west of Ukraine.” My mom was waiting for us there, and this belief helped us survive the next couple of weeks.
On March 12, at 10:50 p.m., when we fell asleep, there was the first air strike that hit our apartment building. It was such a strong explosion that even the ground in the basement vibrated. There were clouds of dust. All the men ran out of the basement with extinguishers and we started to put out the flames. All the doors inside the building were completely destroyed. When I was on the 5th floor putting the fire out near my apartment, there was a second air strike. It was also really heavy. All the windows flew away. I fell off the stairs and covered my head with my hands. When I stood up and headed down the stairs, I fell down a hole in the stairs. I don’t remember who lifted me and helped me get to the basement.
In the basement, there was panic as people found out that the building was almost destroyed. We had to go to the other basement across the street. Our soldiers helped us evacuate from one basement to the other. We are really grateful to them. I took my son, my wife, and my backpack, and we got out of the destroyed building. We were not fully aware of the tragedy that happened there, at our house and basement. At one moment, we stopped and observed the terrifying view. Our home was destroyed; it was on fire. All the cars were destroyed and it looked like the apocalypse. Our child was crying his eyes out.
Once my wife and child were safe, I returned to my basement to help other people evacuate. The shootings continued. People were crying. My aunt’s, who is 110 kg, legs gave out, so we carried her to the safer basement. Also, there were dead bodies all around. There was a man who died of a heart attack and many other people died because of heavy injuries. We carried the dead bodies into the basement as well. The shootings were getting worse and worse. For the next few days, we could not get out to cook. We cooked in the basement next to the dead bodies that were in the basement.
A few days later, when there were fewer shootings, we started to carry the dead bodies from the basement to our courtyard. The soil was frozen, so it was difficult and time-consuming to dig graves. We put the bodies in one place and covered them with blankets.
After March 12, we stayed in the basement all the time because of heavy shootings. It appeared that all these events—staying in the basement, shootings, burying our neighbors—were not the worst. My child observed this and realized all the tragedy. He saw his bombed house. There were kids and babies with us. They did not deserve to see or experience this tragic situation.
Our mayor and police left the city before the fighting got tough. I still cannot understand why they did not help to evacuate women and children. In Mariupol, it was hell. Our authorities left people without any help. There was not any humanitarian aid and our mayor ran away from the town, and he should be responsible for his inaction. Our soldiers could not fully defend our city because they knew that there were thousands of people in basements.
I will tell you everything for you to find out the scale of the tragedy that was in Mariupol--how difficult it was to see people crying because of all the death around us.
When the airstrike hit our apartment, the whole building was destroyed. Seven people were covered with debris, and they died in that basement. One of them was a young man. His mother was outside; she was crying desperately. She asked at least to see his dead body, but we couldn’t make this happen because he was trapped.
We stayed in the basement of the neighboring building until March 20. I saw with my own eyes one horrific event. The family – a woman, a man, and a child (nearly 7-10 years old) tried to escape in a car. We were cooking near the entrance. As they were driving not far from this building, the car exploded as it hit a mine. The man and the child died instantly. The woman’s legs were cut off. She was still alive. She was shouting, "Help me!" Soldiers took her out of the car and drove her to the hospital. That car with two dead bodies was left near our building.
After March 20, our soldiers left our district and were relocated somewhere else and we were left on our own. Russian soldiers came into town with most of them being from the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). A couple days later a drunk Russian soldier with two guns came into the basement. There were 214 people in total there. He told all the men to stand near the wall and forced us to take our clothes off. We were in our underpants and the soldier checked every man to see if any of us had patriotic tattoos. He threatened us and was especially rude to a man with disabilities. The soldier grabbed the man’s cane and laughed as the man fell and called the man a drunk pig. That was the moment when I realized that total chaos and lawlessness had begun.
I want to add, that when our soldiers left us, we decided to be more attentive because the Russians were cruel and illogical. We took steps to make sure we had nothing that would be suspicious or make the Russians angry at us. I understood that no one could help us, so we should do everything possible to survive. There were no soldiers, no authorities, no police.
Tune in on Thursday for the second part of Zhenia’s story, I will be sharing his account of their escape from Mariupol and the journey that they took to safety.