To escape from Mariupol.
“Don’t choose a house – choose your neighbors”
In 2014, the village where Mykhailo lived was occupied by Russia. But the man did not stop openly supporting Ukraine, so he soon became an enemy to those around him. In the spring of 2022, he came to Mariupol to find out the fate of his family.
“They started writing denunciations against me back in 2014”
I lived in Donetsk region, practically on the border: it was about four kilometers to Russia from my village. The Russians occupied everything around us back in 2014, and although there were no hostilities nearby, I immediately felt the changes. Everything became gray and alien, and people quickly became different. Because the propaganda was working powerfully. Putin immediately gives everyone a TV set and a remote control, installs antennas to broadcast it all. But Ukrainian television almost never reached us. The signal was very poor, and I didn’t understand why no one had been able to fix it in so many years. In this sense, Ukraine was underperforming specifically.
I didn’t accept the new procedures. At first, I tried to communicate with people around me, hoping to convince them that what had happened was not good. However, I quickly realized that these efforts were pointless. They started writing denunciations against me back in 2014, and even once dragged me to the FSB for interrogation. Fortunately, they let me go. Apparently, they decided that I was too old and did not pose a danger. But the attitude towards me in the village became openly hostile.
My daughter, four sisters and a bunch of nephews lived in Mariupol. From time to time I went to visit them, and every year the difference between life in the “deneer” and Ukraine became more and more noticeable. At least for me.
On February 24, I turned on the TV, and the Ukrainian news said there was a war. I was completely broken. When you don’t understand what awaits you, it’s a difficult feeling, words cannot explain it. For some time, the TV worked, I watched speeches by Ukrainian politicians, I remember Arestovych and his “two or three weeks”. It was somewhat uplifting. Mariupol was still holding on when the TV signal was cut off. We had radio and mobile Internet, but they were also unstable. Soon I lost contact with all my relatives in Mariupol. We knew what was happening there only by hearsay.
In May, I found myself in Telmanovo, I saw how soldiers from Azovstal were being taken away. The buses were traveling in columns, and instead of seats, they had stretchers – they were carrying the wounded. I also saw civilians being evacuated. I don’t know where they were being taken. I remember their eyes as if they were empty. I met a woman and her daughter in a store. The little girl bit off a candy and put half of it in her pocket and said: “This is for tomorrow.” That’s how children left, accustomed to stretching a candy for two days. How much did that child go through to learn this? What the Russians have done in Mariupol is a crime against humanity.
“It was scary to see it, even scarier to imagine how it happened”
In early July, I went to Mariupol. I did not want to, but my friend persuaded me. Together we decided to find out what happened to his and my relatives. We entered the city from the eastern side, over the sea. The first few houses along Morskoy Boulevard remained intact from the church (here we are talking about the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel – Ed.), but everything else was destroyed up to Azovstal. You could just freeze at the sight. There were broken Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers on the roads. Obviously, our guys had given them a good smoke.
We saw crosses everywhere in the yards, people had to bury their loved ones right under the windows. It was scary to see all this, even more scary to imagine how it happened.
At that time, the bombed houses were being demolished. Their remains were demolished by excavators and piled into trucks. The rubble was not dismantled, and those who died in their apartments stayed there. As I passed by, I saw a human hand and something else that looked like pieces of bodies. It was horrible. Dump trucks were coming and taking it all away, as it turned out later, to a landfill. I noticed that the trucks were from the Belgorod and Bryansk regions of Russia. The city was filled with people from Central Asia and the Caucasus, who were working on dismantling the buildings.
On the street where one of my sisters lived, there were only two boxes of houses left. The sisters hid in basements together – somehow they survived everything and stayed alive. My daughter’s husband died, and she ended up in Russia. My friend’s family burned down everything, his wife was captured by Chechens, but her parents ransomed her. This was the news we were waiting for.
My sisters persuaded me to stay in Mariupol. But after everything I saw… I remember how blooming Mariupol was before the occupation: boulevards and piers, everything was bright and beautiful. And now everything is in ruins. In addition, my sisters believed that the city was destroyed by Ukrainian troops. I told them: “Yes, with Russian planes, Russian missiles, and Ukrainians were shooting.” But you can’t prove anything to them. A bus with a huge TV was already driving around the streets and clogging their brains. I left Mariupol thinking that I would never return there again.
Then I went to Volnovakha, I wanted to find out something about my friends: who was alive, who was not. There was no connection there, it was impossible to call. I found my friend Sashko’s house, or rather its ruins. Volnovakha was almost gone. There was no point in staying there, so I returned to my village.
“I didn’t hide my support for Ukraine, and I was hated for it”
Among my fellow villagers, I did not hide the fact that I supported Ukraine, and they hated me for it. How can you hide it at all? You talk to a person and they are talking about the nonsense they saw on TV. It seemed to me that they had no thoughts of their own. Like parrots, they quote Solovyov, Skabeeva, and Kiselev. And sometimes they not only repeat, but even believe in all that nonsense. Propaganda works well – we must admit it. After February 24, the tension around me increased significantly. Living among people who literally want to kill you is somehow uncomfortable.
I decided to get out to the government-controlled territory. I started saving money and in November hired a carrier. By agreement, the route was through Telmanove, Donetsk, Luhansk, through Russia to the Kolotylivka checkpoint. But on the way, he was informed that the crossing was closed and he would have to go through the Baltic States and Poland.
I was stuck at the Russian border for 10 hours. Our group was brought to the checkpoint at 5 p.m. and released at 2 a.m. There were six of us, all of us had our documents taken away, the doors were handcuffed, and we could only go to the toilet. I had very few belongings, just a change of underwear and documents, so there was nothing to check. Instead, they interrogated me thoroughly. I think they saw the protocol of my interrogation back in 2015 on the computer, so they picked on me.
They made me fill out a questionnaire. The Russian officer asked: “Why didn’t you write anything in the box about whether you approve of the AFU?”. Because it was a provocative question, I answered. “So you are in favor of Ukraine?” he continues. “Yes,” I said.
I was surprised, but the reaction to my words was zero – his face was like stone. Back in Soviet times, I used to talk to KGB officers, and this was the same school. He asked the same questions in a circle, and I answered the same way. I don’t know how long it lasted. They took me out into the corridor, and after a while they just returned my documents and pushed me to the Latvian side. Then there was Warsaw. Then I finally got to Ukraine. I left Telmanove on Monday at four in the morning, and at two in the morning on Friday I was in Lviv.
I lived in my village for many years, and I liked it there. But I had to leave all my property and all my farm, because it is extremely difficult to live among people who want you dead. I don’t think I will ever return to that village. Even if Ukraine regains its territories, those people will still be there. When I think about what happened to me, the proverb “Choose not your house, choose your neighbors” comes to mind.
Автор: Іван Станіславський. https://lb.ua/society/2024/03/07/601992_uryatuvatisya_z_mariupolya_obiray.html