- “My husband was killed, probably by a shell”...
Yana with her husband Misha and a
toddler son lined in Prymorsky district in Mariupol, not far from the airport.
Misha was working at the seaport, Yana at the local bakery. On February 24 the
family moved with their relatives in the center of the city, to be away from the
bombings. Over time, cellular connection, electricity, water and gas were cut
off. On March 4 Russians started bombing center of the city. The worst happened
on March 13.
On March 13 it was very quiet, that’s what I call very quiet –
when the bombings are far away in another district. And as usually, the men were
chopping wood. My mom went downstairs to help out, then she went back…I am sitting
in the hallway with my child, he is sleeping. It was around 2-2.30 pm. Men were
cooking food, my mother was coming back to the apartment and that’s when the
hell has started. From this day, from this moment.
The bombing was so heavy, I was shielding my baby with myself, my mother
fell, my granny hid somewhere too. But I do not understand what is happening,
my husband is outside. And here Misha’s father runs in and tells me that he was
injured. He says “He’s wounded, I do not know what to do”. I ask “What do you
mean?”. I get hysterical and start to scream. I run to the staircase. I see a
man with the daughter near him – they were killed instantly by the shells. A
shell hit the yard near the house. So my husband was injured, the neighbors
brought him in and sowed him up just on the first floor of the house’s entrance
– without anything, they applied some whips, I do not know, they would not let
me see him. I am still breastfeeding and they would not let me: they said You
do not need to see it”.
I am standing on the second floor and he is lying on the first and
screaming “Yana, I love you! I love you and our baby boy.” He was already saying goodbye to me.
And the neighbors told me to bring bandages, a thread, a needle. I rushed to
pick up everything, gave it all to the neighbors and they ran down on the first
floor. They shout out “He’s getting cold!” and I run to grab a blanket. He’s
lying on thefloor in the entrance. They covered him with the blanket and
brought inside the apartment. When he was brought it he was all covered in
blood, his head and legs bandaged. He was still in shock, so he did not feel
the pain and was smiling. He was lying and saying “You’re gonna be alright”.
And I reply “What do you mean ‘we’, you too!”. And he says “No”. The neighbor tells me “He has
tears in his abdomen, I guess there are shells inside”. I reply “Shit”.
Neighbors closed the door and we’re sitting and crying. His mother is crying, I
am crying, my mother is crying and he is lying there smiling…Well he was…He was
a positive person after all.
And half an hour later the shock passed and the hell began – he
just started screaming, crying, saying “Yana, please bring me a gun, bring me a knife, do something,
I am in pain! Dad, bring me the gun or do you like watching me suffer?”. I say
“No, but I can’t bring it.” He says “I’ll do everything myself”. “No, - I reply,
- you’ll survive, what the hell!”. Then neighbors brought some medicine,
painkillers, ampulla. Every hour they made injections but nothing helped. He screamed,
cried, said he was suffering, that he was in pain. “I have a shell in my
abdomen, I feel it moving, I feel sick, it hurts”. On March 14, dad says he
needs to be taken to the hospital. But how? Everything was bombed to pieces. At
6 am in the morning he went to search for someone and our neighbor from the
first floor said he would take him to the hospital.
They went to the hospital. And that’s it, I haven’t seen my him ever
since. My dad and
the driver came back said that the hospital was nice, there were doctors, it
was clean there and my husband had had surgery. On March 15 our neighbor drove
to the hospital then came back in the afternoon and said that he had passed away
in the morning. On the morning of March 15 he was gone.
Since that moment our district has been bombed constantly, every
day. Every day,
every afternoon, every evening… The doors to our room were blown out when we
were sitting in the hallway. My mind just went crazy… The baby was screaming from the
explosions, it was a nightmare. Of course, the windows were blown out too –
they bombed us every day.
On March 23, our entrance was directly hit. The metal door just got twisted up,
the cornice was gone…Before that we had gone down to the basement. But, you
see, there everywhere is dust, garbage, dead cats. It was unbearable and I have
a one-year old kid, who can barely walk. He could not step over those stones, glass,
he fell on that dust. I say, “Mom, I won’t stay here anymore, the last thing we
need is catching some type of disease.” We stayed there overnight and I came
back to the apartment. Come what may, really, I wanted the bomb to hit our
building and all of us at once, I just did not want to live.
On March 23 the entrance of our building was hit and on March 27 –
the roof. From the
fifth floor you could see the sky…When the roof was bombed, all neighbors started
to say that was the last straw, we had to do something. My bags, of course, had
already been packed. I hoped that someone would come because people were looking
for me – my friends
and friends of my husband but they could not get to us – the bombing was really
bad.
My neighbors and I decided that we should go to the other side, to
the 17th district. So-called DPR forces had already been there and they did not
bomb that area that much. We packed only necessary stuff. My mother-in-law is paralyzed so
she said she would not go anywhere, she would stay here. Her husband, Misha’s father
also said that he would not leave her and would stay here, with her.
Ans we fled…I had my son wrapped
up in a blanket and tied to me so I could grab at least one bag and hold him
with one hand instead of two. It was a nightmare, real hell. The bombing started
and I heard a shout out to me: “Run!”. Oh God…I run, holding a baby, with this
backpack, I run into some shelter so I could at least have some walls behind me
because the snipers were shooting there...My granny was walking with the
stick…My God, I was already saying goodbye to my life. I was shocked, as I had
not left house for a month. 9-storey buildings were all burned…5-storey
buildings were all burned, there were corpses lying at the bus stops...One was lying
with his face covered with a cloth and he already turned purple. Fuck, we all
saw that…We ran to the other side and thank God they were not bombing that area
that much.
We went to the hospital in the 17th district and they told us that yes, people
were being evacuated from there to Volodarske [a village in 28 km from
Mariupol, named Nikolske since 2016], you had to sign up and wait in line.
And my grandmother who stayed at her
cousin’s place said too difficult. That’s it. I said goodbye to
her too. My mother will not see her mother. So we went to this hospital and we
figured that we won’t make it. My mother says: “Let’s try to find an owner-driver
maybe. And I see a man, who’s getting in his car, ‘Zhiguli”. I run to him and
he says he can take 2 more persons. It cost 100$ per person to get from Mariupol
to Volodarske…
We got into this car, look what I wore…It is important. I took the
bare minimum of clothing with me. I wore my husband’s pants, black trekking sports pants and I had
a bandana, a dark green waist bag and a dark green buff scarf. Trekking books, a
backpack, a sleeping bag – we are tourists and we go camping so I have all of
that and all of dark green color – well, because it is for tourists.
So we are driving in that car,
coming up to the first checkpoint and the driver says “Be quiet, do not say
anything until I tell you to do so, they are very angry, so keep quiet. If they
ask something tell only the truth.” So we’re coming up and another hell starts.
We’ve already survived one and, shit, here is another one.
I get out of the car with a baby
in my hands, a soldier is looking and pointing a gun at me.
- Holy shit you are pretty where
did you get this bandana and a military buff scarf, who are you?
- What do you mean who I am. I am no
one, I do not understand, what do you mean?
- It is my husband’s bandana
- And who’s your husband? He’s a
volunteer fighter?
- No, - I say. – He’s an ordinary man.
- And where’s he?
- He died, he was killed.
- Who killed?
- I do not know, he was killed by a
shell…
- Ah, I think that can be us who
killed him!
And they were laughing, do you get it? My mother is crying, my son began to act out…And they are laughing at her…they are so mean. One of them asks:
- Who is he?
- He is no one, he just worked at the seaport… We are just tourists.
And he replied:
- We are tourists too.
Another soldier says:
- I would undress her actually, let’s see what she has, go, show
your knees.
They thought I was a sniper, they
are standing on their knees.., And I did not see my legs for a month, we did
not wash ourselves for a month except as with the wet wipes, we did
not change our clothes, it was cold, +5 C degrees…He looks at my knees and
asks:
- What’s that abrasion that you have?
- Bruises, - I say. – we were
sitting in the hallway.
- Any tattoos?
- Yes, I have tattoos.
I show a clever and an anchor.
- What’s that anchor, I don’t follow?
- I do not have a father, he was a sailor,
so I decided to get a tattoo in his memory.
- Ok, I see.
And they started to check all
wallets, all documents, checked my bags. I say: “Here’s baby food, here are
clothes…”. “Don’t use your babe as an excuse, I do not give a shit…” Then he
took away my phone, opened photo gallery, saw my photos of our camping trips,
tents, backpacks, and said: “Well maybe you are a tourist”.
I told them when they searched me: “okay shoot me right here, I do
not give a shit. You killed my husband, really, do whatever you want.” I was scared that they would take
me away and my mother would be left alone with a child. That was scary. I really
thought they would not let me go. My mother was hysterical and they just
laughed about it, do you understand?
He tells me “We have lived like that for 8 years so now you will live
like that too”. But they did not live like that in Donetsk for 8 years. Well, then
they let us go and drove off. Our driver tells me: “Throw away your bandana and
a scarf, what you’re thinking?” I threw it all away in a window just because I
was scared, I panicked.
I would like to come back but I understand that’s painful. I want to go back to Mariupol as it
was before. I do not need any Europe. I want my old city. Everything was nice there,
the city was developing – there were parks built, a beautiful pier set up near
the sea. Everything was just beginning. There was a new university being built
at the center. It was planned that students would enroll there soon. I mean, I
would like to come back if it was… how much time has passed? They completely destroyed
the city in a month and a half. Now it is a ghost city because there are corpses
everywhere and everything is broken. There is nothing – no schools, no
hospitals, nothing.
When a neighbor told me that my
husband was gone – he did not get a death certificate. So I do not know if he
was buried or not. Do you know what I have? When the bomb hit us, he recorded a
farewell video. I have a farewell video.
