«Everything turned out fine; I believe – God truly exists»

I was born and have spent my entire life in Mariupol. Before the war, I worked in organizing cultural events, held positions in the city’s cultural sector, and was involved in youth policy in Mariupol. I really enjoyed this work, as I have been involved in culture since I was 15, which is why I chose this career path. The city hosted many cultural events for residents of all ages.

I also had a favorite hobby – singing in the folk group ‘Maksimum’ at MPC ‘Ukrainian House’, where I also practiced dancing.

I loved Mariupol very much; it inspired me and gave me strength. My favorite places were Ploshcha Myru (Peace Square), Hurov Park, and ‘Veselka’.

«Vova! The war has started!»

When it all started, I got a call around five in the morning. It was my friend. She said just one thing: ‘Vova, the war!’ At first, I didn’t understand and asked her to repeat it – everything felt unreal, like a dream. She told me to turn on the TV and check the news. I saw that every channel was reporting the same thing… Russia had launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It was completely unexpected and shocking. My first thoughts were about what to do and where to go. Like many others, I assumed it would just be some occasional shelling and then calm down – we had been through this before. Mariupol residents were already used to hearing distant explosions from time to time, but no one imagined it could escalate on such a scale.

After absorbing this morning news, I remember calling my manager to ask if we were working that day. She said yes, of course. So I started slowly getting ready for work. But after a while, I received another call telling me not to go – the Skhidnyi district was being heavily bombed.   

«We tried to help in every way we could»

After the fighting began, I stayed in my two-room apartment for a few more days; it was in the Bakhchivandzhi market area. At that time, there was still electricity, phone service, and internet, and the shelling wasn’t intense yet. Gas and heating were still working for a few days. But the tension was gradually rising as the news grew increasingly grim. Sartana and other nearby villages started to be heavily shelled, and people from those areas were being evacuated to safer locations.

Near my building was a large dormitory – three blocks of Mariupol State University. People from the suburbs started being housed there because their neighborhoods had become extremely dangerous, and many houses were completely destroyed. After that, the shelling became loud even in my own area.

While there was still communication, my friend and I volunteered as members of the city youth council. We collected and distributed humanitarian aid from across the city. We tried to help in any way we could, delivering warm children’s clothing, food, and other supplies donated by local residents to the people evacuated to the university dormitory.

My house is gone – it was completely burned down. The two city cultural centers where I worked were also destroyed. In one of them, ‘Chaika’, there was a shelter where many people had sought refuge. After a subsequent shelling and a direct hit, the building was demolished, and people lost their lives.

«When we climbed out, we saw that everything around us was destroyed…»

Soon, explosions started on our own streets. From the window of my bedroom, I could see the private houses nearby, and I watched shells fall there. There was fire and a lot of smoke, because no one was left to put out the flames, and there were no resources anyway. My house stood on a hill, so I could see everything as if it were in the palm of my hand. It was terrifying.

At that time, I had relatives from Sartana staying with me. We discussed the situation and decided to leave the apartment, as the shelling was getting closer and closer.

On March 2, the phone lines went down, and we moved to my mother’s place in the city center, near the Drama Theater. Next to her building was a temporary detention facility (previously called a pre-trial detention cell). That’s where the first aerial bomb hit around March 4-5. Our building was heavily damaged by shrapnel, and the neighboring building was completely destroyed. Then bombs started falling from another direction. They shelled the area intensively with Grad rockets. And above us, shells were constantly flying toward the Azovstal plant. They flew so low that the sound was terrifying. Planes were circling above as well – we could see them clearly. When a plane passed overhead, you counted to ten, and then it dropped a bomb. Everyone knew that just hearing a plane meant you had to hide immediately.

I remember one particularly terrifying moment after we had moved to a garage basement, as the shelling became so intense that staying in the house was too dangerous. The garage was made of cinder blocks, about 5 by 4 meters, and there were 17 of us inside – neighbors and relatives. One morning around four o’clock, the Grad rockets started hitting, and one shell landed just a few meters from our garage. The impact was so loud and powerful that the garage walls collapsed and nearly destroyed the basement itself. We were buried under debris and barely managed to get out. When we emerged, we saw that everything around was destroyed… The summer kitchen in the yard was completely wrecked, and two cars in our yard had exploded from the blast wave.

Life under fire

We had no other place to go, so we continued to hide in the same basement. Before this, we had managed to make it a little more livable. The space was extremely cold and damp, so we hung blankets on the walls.

We were very lucky that my mother had a small stove, a “burzhuyka,” in the summer kitchen. We moved it down into the basement, extended the chimney outside, and managed to heat the room a bit. We cooked food, like many Mariupol residents, over an open fire in huge pots. We collected and melted snow, gathered rainwater, and later traveled to a well near Azovstal for water, which many people relied on. There were many bodies and blood around, likely from those who had also gone to fetch water and were caught in the shelling. Still, people kept coming because water was essential, and there were no other options. At first we used a car, but when it was damaged and we ran out of fuel, we had to go on foot.

Every day the basement could have turned into a mass grave

I left the city at the end of March. Every day, we held on to the hope that it would all end soon, that we just needed to wait a little longer. Our disbelief that something like this could happen in our time, combined with complete informational isolation, kept us in place and prevented us from making the decision to leave. We didn’t even know if it was possible to get out, where to go, which routes were open, or which areas were intact.

The only source of information at that time was word of mouth. We talked to neighbors. Someone’s son walked from another district and described the destroyed streets, saying that the Primorsky district was gone. Someone’s daughter-in-law from the Kalmiusky district shared what was happening there. That’s how we managed to get any news at all. Sometimes, we could catch a signal near the well in the City Garden when fetching water. One time, I managed to call a friend in Kyiv. It was hard to hear, but I understood. She told us to hold on a little longer, to stay strong, that it would soon be over.

But the ring around us was closing in, and the enemy was getting closer to Azovstal. The shelling grew louder and more intense. Every time we were in the basement, it became more terrifying, knowing that each bombardment could turn it into a mass grave for 17 people. After the bombing of the Drama Theater on March 16, we waited another week, hoping it would soon be over. But things only got worse. They started shelling everything, everywhere. Shells fell on neighboring streets and houses. We realized we had to escape the city. My mother refused to leave, saying she didn’t want to abandon her home, that she would die there. My older brother stayed with her. I, along with relatives from Sartana, left. Thankfully, their car survived, and that’s what we used to flee.

As we drove, the shelling didn’t stop. Explosions fell behind us, over and over. It was terrifying.

«Sumyatin, are you here? I’m so glad you’re alive!»

We didn’t know where we were going; we just drove straight. First, we went to the Philharmonic, then to the Primorsky district, and finally headed toward Berdyansk. By that time, the whole area was occupied, with enemy checkpoints everywhere. At the first one, they asked if we were okay, which felt strangely humane.

On the way to Berdyansk through Mangush, there was a huge line of cars, and we spent two days in it. I remember one moment clearly… As we slowly moved toward the Mangush checkpoint, a man**** – probably a local – approached our car. He knocked on the window and asked if there were children with us. My nephew was with us. We said yes. He opened a bag, took out a loaf of bread, broke it in half, and gave us a piece. The smell of that freshly baked bread stayed in the car, and I’ll never forget it. It was still warm, and we ate it hungrily.

Every checkpoint involved a thorough, even meticulous, check of our documents, as they were searching for soldiers among civilians. I stayed in Berdyansk for about two weeks, then moved on to Dnipro. Escaping occupied territory was incredibly difficult. I really believe that God exists; I was very lucky. While in Berdyansk, I posted in a volunteer chat looking for someone who could help me leave or had a spare seat in a car. By chance, my colleague – a vocal teacher I worked with at the Chaika Cultural Center – was in that chat. She wrote, “Sumyatin, are you here? I’m so glad you’re alive! A relative of ours is coming, and you can go with us”.

A few days later, we set off. At one of the checkpoints, there were DNR fighters – it was the scariest one. They checked everything: the car, our belongings, documents. At that moment, while standing half-undressed under the barrels of their guns, my colleague’s husband’s phone caught a signal and started receiving messages. One was from his mother: “Watch out for the Russians!” For a second, I thought we wouldn’t make it out alive. They let us through, but I was terrified that we’d be shot in the back as we drove. Everything turned out okay – I keep saying, God really exists.

After that, there were so many checkpoints that we lost count. The road was completely mined, we weren’t allowed to use lights, so we moved slowly and carefully. After the last checkpoint, we drove across a mined field and saw another checkpoint – but this time, our flag was flying. At first, we thought it might be a trap, a trick by the enemy to make us reveal something important. But when we stopped, we heard our native language. People greeted us warmly, told us to take care, and told us we were home. At that moment, I exhaled.