On February 24, I woke up from the fact that a friend was calling me. He said the war had begun. He suggested that I move with my family to Ivano-Frankivsk. I refused. It seemed to us that Mariupol was a safe place at that time. Since 2014, a lot of defense equipment and Ukrainian military has appeared.
Then on February 26, air raid sirens began to wail in the city. The suburbs came under fire, but the city center where I lived was quiet. I thought it would be like during the war in 2014 – two houses will suffer, and everything will be over. In those days, many people left. You have no idea how much I envied them.
Things started to get hot. It got worse every day.
On March 1, I realized that it was becoming increasingly difficult to leave Mariupol. Russian troops began to take control of the roads from the city.
On March 3, electricity and water were cut off. I haven’t showered since March 4th. Since then, we can only wash our hands in cold water. Mobile connection is gone. We couldn’t communicate. And we were forced to walk to each other and share information.
Looting has already begun. In the first days of the war, I bought groceries and about 100 liters of gasoline. This is what ultimately saved us. In the early days, I helped people move from the outskirts of the city closer to the center.
On March 5, the gas supply to the houses was turned off. It was the only thing we had left for light and heating. Until it was turned off, we could at least warm ourselves with tea. After that, the nightmare began. At night it was -9C (about 16F) outside. During the day -2 or -3C (28 or 27F). At the same time, we hid from bombs and air strikes in a bomb shelter. We cooked food on the fire. Trees were cut down in the yard. We couldn’t get warm. No words can describe how it was.
People cook on the grill on March 11th.
People charge their phones from a Red Cross generator on March 9.
At first, only residents of our house were in our shelter, but then more and more people began to arrive. There were 100 people, including small children, in an area of 150 square meters.
This is a concrete basement without light and ventilation. As much as they could, they burned kerosene and candles. Luckily we had a toilet.
All this time I was trying to contact people outside the city, charging the phone from the generator from the Red Cross. Many resigned themselves to the fact that the connection was gone, but I was not ready to give it up. From 6 to 9 March there was no connection at all. For a moment it seemed to me that we had been forgotten.
On March 8, the worst began. Russia began to launch airstrikes. First with an interval of a couple of hours, and then every minute. Several times we did not have time to reach the shelter and fell to the ground to save ourselves.
A damaged shop window is seen on March 9.
For several weeks now, the city has been under constant shelling.
I wanted to take my family, but I only had one chance. If we were stopped and brought back, there would not be enough gasoline for the second time. Those who went to the evacuation on March 5 spent the night in their cars and then returned to Mariupol. They returned and were left without gasoline.
On March 13 my friends told me that it was possible to take the old road to Berdyansk. But there was a mined checkpoint and the mines had to be bypassed. We decided we’d rather take the risk than be left to die in the city.
March 14 at 12:45 left a column of eight cars. There was no luggage, only people and animals. There were six people in our car. Along the way, they met mines and carefully bypassed them.
Inside the damaged building on March 13.
A woman pulls a cart along a snow-covered sidewalk on March 9.
At one of the Russian checkpoints, soldiers told us with a grin: “It is your own fault that this happened to Mariupol. There was no need to show off.”
I had to spend the night in Berdyansk. The Russians at the checkpoint told us that the city was under a curfew “Moscow time”. So we didn’t get to leave.
On March 15 we left Berdyansk for Zaporozhye. There were about 20 Russian checkpoints along the way. They checked our luggage, phones, messages, laptops.
After a couple of hours we reached the Ukrainian checkpoint and were free. Now we want to go as far west as possible.
See more photos from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Daria Tarasova contributed to this report.