Hello everyone who reads my blog. 😎🖤🔥
Today I decided, every time I write a post, take a photo at the end and attach it at the beginning of the post.
I want you to understand what's going on inside when you try to share it.
While the photographs don't convey much, they don't show bleeding wounds that are darling that won't heal.
Mariupol had been under siege for more than a month.
I worked for a charitable organization for 6 years, I often worked with the military. Many of the military became my good friends and acquaintances. Many of them are no longer there, many are captured by the Russian army.
Mariupol is the most important port city, the metallurgical center of the south of the Donetsk region and one of the priority targets of the Russian army in this war. By capturing Mariupol, Russian troops will be able to secure a direct land corridor from Crimea.
These days, when we were there and a month after we left, Mariupol became one of the worst hot spots on the planet.
Excuse me, I cannot write a diary and paint every day in Mariupol. Because time in the city has absolutely stopped. You survive, you don't know what day it is today, you don't know what tomorrow will bring. You only have TODAY! Only this moment.
The city was no more, it was razed to the ground and we were witnesses of this.
The biggest problem was that we were cut off from civilization. Turned off EVERYTHING! They took EVERYTHING! We were absolutely isolated, and the worst thing is to remain under these bombs, under the rubble. Although NO! The worst thing was to get shrapnel wounds. Why? There was no help, hospitals did not work! We were our own doctors.
Our shelter was the basement in my mother's house. It was bought by some entrepreneurs and all summer long it was deepened and dug out by workers. When we got down there, it was a big, dark, dusty and damp anthill. There were many moves. There were about 100 people in the basement. We treated and dressed the wounds ourselves. And if the injury was serious, you could only pray.
I can only tell you what we did, what we felt. Because all the days were the same. When the four of us started to survive: me, Mr. S., mommy and godfather ... the situation in the city only got worse and worse.
Morning:
We woke up at 5-6 in the morning, sat down to have breakfast with crackers and fish that we had left, then it was meat that we marinated in vinegar, it began to disappear.
"Mr. S." or the godfather went down with a cauldron of water to the fire and heated the water for tea. At the table we decided what to do today. We split up into 2 people. Someone went to collect firewood. Someone went to collect medicines, look for food, candles or batteries for flashlights.
Once every three days the men went to fetch water. It could be dialed in the center when a car arrived or go to the spring. But one day the Ukrainian military put their tank next to it and we realized that it was no longer possible to draw water there. Because wherever there was Ukrainian equipment, Russians dropped air bombs. I'll tell you honestly, both sides didn't care that there were people in the city. For them, we have become "forced losses."
I remember how the Ukrainian military drove up, we ran up to ask where it would be best to be. They said they were in shelters in the city center. But by the 15th day of the war, Ukrainian military equipment was everywhere and we became a target for Russian aircraft.
We were alive, although we had already said goodbye to life many times. The four of us talked a lot, tried to joke, laugh. But we were in hell. We are being bombarded with hailstones, bombs and mines. Not a single building remained. The whole city was on fire. And there was no one to extinguish it. We ourselves found fire extinguishers and tried to extinguish.
Mom and I cooked at home, "Mr. S." and the godfather roasted everything on the fire.
More and more often we went down to the basement, began to live there.
Air bombs fell very close, we understood that it was time to leave.
Everything changed when one day, we were sleeping in the basement, "Mr. S." hugged me like always. The explosion sounded very close, the whole house shook, it was dark in the basement and someone shouted: "Everyone is alive?!"
Yes, everyone was alive, but very soon one man, a neighbor, ran in and shouted: "THE HOUSE IS BURNING!!!"
Mom's apartment was in the first entrance. An aerial bomb fell into a store nearby, but the shock wave spread the fire to my mother's house.
The sixth entrance was on fire. People tried to extinguish it themselves, "Mr. S." and the godfather took the elderly out of the entrance, many were in shock, they were at home when the shock wave threw them into the walls of the apartments.
One man ran to the place where the fire engines were. But another man who was there said: "There are no more fire trucks! The whole city is on fire. There are 2 vehicles left, but they are now extinguishing fires, the rest of the vehicles have been taken by the military."
You know, this strange feeling of animal fear and misunderstanding. You look at a house that is on fire, the fire does not stop, people cannot put it out on their own, but there is no help. No water, no fire engines.
You just watch how the house is dying ... apartment after apartment is burning, entrances are burning out.
This is a photo from the video of what my mother's house looked like from the street.
That morning, when my mother's house caught fire, we realized that it was time to leave the city. We began to discuss a plan of action. We were faced with a choice: either die in the city, or die getting out of there.
I'll talk about the plan and how we left in the next part, it's complicated. Because you have to remember all the details. But I feel like it's getting easier.