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I lived on Latysheva Street in the Cheremushky neighborhood of the Prymorskyi District, which suffered the most damage.

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I lived with my grandmother and three cats. Sometimes, my boyfriend stayed with us. I woke up that morning at about 6 o’clock.

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I was a homeroom teacher of seventh-form students at school 33, located on the outskirts of the city, in the Selyshche Moriakiv neighborhood.

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I was getting ready to leave for work, as I had to come to the school a bit earlier than usual because my students were responsible for hall monitoring on that day

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I had to come to the school, distribute everyone between posts, give them tasks, and so on. Once I woke up, I opened the Telegram,

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and read the news that Russia crossed the state border of Ukraine. Quite naturally, I was shocked because I had never believed that Russia would invade Ukraine

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despite all those talks about a war that remained on the agenda for so many years. It was simply impossible for me.

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I thought that all those narratives are used to frighten us, so I was very skeptical of those threats. When I was having breakfast (it was about seven in the morning),

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I heard a deafening noise of an explosion. It was so loud that the windows in our apartment were shaking,

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and alarms were activated in the cars parked near the house. I jumped, dropped my breakfast, and ran to the corridor.

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I had no idea what was going on until later when I read in a local public group that the airport had been attacked, Despite the air strike and the war that started,

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I, being a responsible employee, decided to go to work. But then a received a message from the school principal saying that we would have to work remotely on Thursday and Friday,

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so I stayed at home. I packed all the backpacks, took my documents, and was ready to leave should I need to go anywhere, or something like that

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My relatives who live in Yaremche called me immediately and suggested that I should come and stay with them because they understood that the fighting was imminent,

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and the situation was dire. Nevertheless, I refused.  This was not the first time that I refused to leave Mariupol because I thought that the city would be spared.

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I believed that the situation would be quite similar to what happened in 2014 when there was some shooting and everything worked itself out,

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and I would continue to live in my city, in my apartment. So, my grandmother and I stayed in our apartment on our own until February 25 or 26,

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or so. Then, my boyfriend, who lived on Peremohy Square, joined us. We thought that everything would be over by Monday. He stayed with us over the weekend,

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and after that, he was unable to return to his apartment because the district where he lived was shelled, and it was not safe anymore to go to the left bank

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Public transport stopped running, and taxi fares skyrocketed, so it was impossible to do anything in this situation. Then,

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there had been three of us in that apartment until March 1, when my mother and stepfather moved with us, as they had to leave their apartment in the Eastern District because of intense shelling.

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It was a good thing that the neighborhood where they lived was located on the opposite side of Olimpiiska Street, which was not exactly the Eastern District.

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It was where the Nine Microdistrict was, or the Roma neighborhood as it was colloquially called. They moved out because they were told that intense shelling was quite possible.

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They got frightened and decided that our district is located further away from the Eastern District, which has always acted as a border between Ukraine and Russia.

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Once again, everybody thought that Russia would invade from that direction, so they moved with us, and after that,

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there were five of us living in the apartment in the Cheremushky neighborhood. As soon as the war started, my stepfather joined the Mariupol Area Defense Forces and served until March 16, 

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when every member was ordered to either leave the city, go to Pokrovske and do whatever they considered was in their best interest, or join the units that were preparing to defend the city.

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On 1 March, the heating supply was cut off. It happened after the power was cut off twice that day, and was not restored on the next day. It became clear to us that the situation would continue to deteriorate,

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and we would freeze eventually. But we were lucky enough to have gas, so we filled the bathtub, every bucket, bottle, and so on with water just in case, because water pressure drops in multi-story buildings soon after the power is shut off.

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On March 2 or 3 we went to buy some food for the last time, so we made our purchases in a small shop located near our house, close to the hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. That shop was selling the remaining stock. 

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We had our own stock as we purchased quite a lot of food products once the war began. Also, my grandmother had a habit of keeping a stock of various grains, and we also had vegetables, but no frills.

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When we got to the shop to check what they had in stock, we discovered that they had already started rationing food by selling one loaf of bread or one pack of buckwheat to one customer. So, we bought some food and returned home. 

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It was freezing outside, and the rain was pouring. We were unable to get warm either inside or outside. On March 4, our neighborhood was shelled for the first time, and since Mariupol was already under siege,

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a missile fired from Manhush direction exploded in our yard, Several sections of our house were damaged, and one of them burnt down completely. Fortunately,

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nobody was killed or wounded, but the fire was so huge that we feared that other sections would catch it. A fire brigade was not able to put down the fire until late in the night, but finally succeeded.

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I was terrified to stay in Mariupol because it dawned on me that there was no single safe place left in the entire city. That day, when the emergency rescue service and fire brigade arrived,

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they came to each apartment and insisted that all the residents should go to the basement because it was safer there. So, we stayed in the basement until night and then returned to the apartment.

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The windows were shattered in the kitchen, and the window on the balcony in the leaving room cracked. We decided that we would continue to stay in the apartment because the basement…

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The basement was not equipped to serve as a bomb shelter, there was not enough space considering the number of people who were hiding there, so it was very crowded. That night, when we were falling asleep,

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we heard a plane flying above our heads. My boyfriend Sasha and I woke up, looked at each other, and I said, “Sasha, probably we should hide in the corridor.” That was the moment when I understood that we would be bombed eventually.

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In the morning, my stepfather suggested that we should move to the Drama Theater. He worked there and now, being a member of the Area Defense Forces, he came there quite often.

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He was told that there was a safe bomb shelter, that people were starting to gather there, that we could hide there, and wait for an evacuation. So, first thing in the morning, we moved to the Drama Theater and stayed there until March 16.

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In the beginning, for me, this trip appeared to be an adventure where we had to shift home. In extraordinary situations, the human mind is ready to look at everything through a prism of magic.

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Once we arrived at the theater, we received a small room where with stayed until the end, So, we got settled eventually. My mother is a doctor, so when the theater superintendent,

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who was also appointed the bomb shelter superintendent when the war began, and other volunteers were looking for a doctor who could help with establishing a first-aid station, she agreed in a heartbeat.

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My mother worked there with several nurses, and then another doctor came, and they started to work in shifts. So, they worked shifts until the Drama Theater was destroyed in an air strike.

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I observed the life in the Drama Theater changing gradually. People kept coming, and the place was getting more and more crowded. People slept on the floor in the auditorium where all the plays and concerts were performed

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and elsewhere in the building. I saw how a field kitchen was gradually created, as in the beginning it was just a few cooking pots and a small fire, and everyone was cooking for themselves.

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Then, an idea came into somebody’s head that people should join their efforts. There were volunteers who cooked meals and volunteers who maintained order, and the so-called theater security unit was established.

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The Drama Theater functioned as an enormous group of people or rather a single large organism amid the Russian army surrounding the city and daily air strikes. Air strikes were getting more frequent.

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A plane was coming closer and closer. We heard explosions every day. It sticks to your memory when you look out the window and hear some whistling sound, a plane or missile flies by, and then you see a bright flash in the sky.

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Then, three or four seconds later you hear an explosion. On the one hand, you sense relief that it was not you who was hit. But then, on the other hand, it dawns on you  somebody else could have been killed or wounded, 

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some other people who also wanted to live. People who wanted to live but were gradually deprived of everything. My mother worked at the first-aid station from dawn till dusk, as a lot of people came there with all kinds of poisoning and wounds

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Every day, when she returned to our room, she told us stories of the people who came to her for help. But it was a family from Pokrovske that my mother remembered best. Pokrovske is a settlement,

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the former name of which is Shliakh Illicha, and it borders Cheremushky. It was an elderly couple: the man was missing several fingers, and the woman was also quite seriously wounded. They came to this theater,

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they hid there while waiting for an evacuation, and they received medical assistance there. My mother was upset by the fact that while they were peacefully sleeping, their house was hit by a bomb and destroyed,

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and their only son was killed. They lost their child and their home, and suffered wounds on top of that. Closer to March 16, I started getting a sensation that something bad was about to happen near the theater,

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as the fighting was getting closer and closer. We did not have any information. We had only a tiny radio, so we could catch some Ukrainian or Russian channel and listen to the news about what was happening around the world.

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Word of mouth, on the other hand, was spreading quite fast. In the beginning, servicemen would come and tell us what was happening in the city. Then, when they stopped coming,

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people who arrived from other city districts and neighborhoods told us stories about the invasion and fighting. Bombs were falling closer to the theater, and when an air strike hit the area near the subway just next to the Drama Theater

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on the night of March 15 to March 16, it became clear to me that planes were getting closer and closer. It was quite likely that they could hit the theater itself. Not long ago, before this air strike,

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I talked to a good friend of mine who lived in the same neighborhood, Cheremushky. He and his friend were also hiding in the theater while waiting for an evacuation. He witnessed the air strike on the maternity hospital because he just happened to be in that neighborhood,

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and he told such horrific stories. When the theater was attacked from the air, he said that we would probably be next. I had some kind of strong, unpleasant premonition and experienced a panic attack just 10 or 15 minutes before the air strike.

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It seemed to me, that mentally ill people have some voices in their heads. I also began to hear some voices saying that the theater would be bombed. I reassured myself that it was just self-hypnosis, that nothing like that would happen,

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that everything would be fine, that everything would be okay, in particular, considering that the word “CHILDREN” was written in big letters in front of us, in front of the theater. We will be safe, and everything will be fine.

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A few minutes after that wishful thinking exercise, my friend came in, and we looked at the windows in my room. They were completely broken and cracked. Shortly before the air strike, a mine exploded near the theater on March 12 or 13.

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That’s why the windows were cracked, and the theater superintendent requested that these windows should be covered with cloth, wood, or something like that, so that, first of all, we black out the windows, and secondly, we protect ourselves.

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Following the air raid that happened at night, the windows that were still intact shattered, and my friend came in to see what could be used to board them up. We were deciding what we needed to get from the stage,

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but literally half a minute later there was a very loud explosion, and my friend and I immediately fell to the floor. I was lucky that my mom was not at the first-aid station at the time. She felt terrible in the morning,

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her blood pressure spiked, so she was sleeping in the room. We immediately pulled her off the bed and onto the floor and lay there for a minute or so. When we got up, there was a column of dust and dirt, 

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many people were running in panic, calling each other for help, and I was standing there. I was not shocked but rather had a strange and strong sensation of calmness, which I could not understand… When our neighborhood was shelled,

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I panicked, I was scared when shells flew over the theater in the direction of the Army, Air Force, and Navy Volunteer Society building, I was scared when I heard a Russian fighter bombing the city, I was scared,

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but when it all happened to me, when it happened near me, the only sensation I had was absolute serenity. I calmly got up, shook myself off, and immediately looked around… My mother got up, my friend got up,

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and we were asking each other through all this fog whether everyone was okay, whether everyone was alive. Then, my friend’s friend ran into the room and looked at us. A piece of the wall fell down, it was gone,

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it just fell where my boyfriend and I slept at night. I was also lucky that we… My boyfriend was not even close to the theater at that moment. We looked at him and saw that he was bleeding all over his face.

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He was a security guard at the theater. When the bomb hit, he was standing at the window where hot meals were distributed. That is, food was prepared in the field kitchen, then these pots were brought to the theater, 

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and meals were distributed one serving per person in the cloakroom. He was helping to prepare for this distribution when this tragedy happened. When he ran into our room, and we saw that he had been wounded,

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we tried to control the bleeding and help him. My stepfather arrived some 20 minutes later. He was terrified because he thought that something bad had happened to us, that we were dead. He arrived at the theater after their area defense unit was disbanded that morning.

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 So, when he was coming to the theater, he did not know what had happened there. He helped us get out of the room. Then my boyfriend came, and neither of us could utter a word, we just stood there in total silence, 

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staring at each other for some 20 or 30 seconds, in shock. He was shocked because he just realized that bad things had happened, and I was shocked because bad things happened around me, but I survived amid all that chaos.

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We slowly left the theater and helped a few wounded people who were near the theater. My friends and I helped to carry one woman away from the fire. She was lying on the ground where the back wall of the theater was burning.

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A man who had pulled her out of the rubble was standing next to her, and we helped him to carry this woman to the lawn. A first responder arrived in his car. He collected the wounded and probably took them to the hospital.

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We stayed there for another half an hour, and I managed to take a few photos. After that, we decided to go back to our neighborhood, to Cheremushky, even though we had been told more than once that Cheremushky was gone, 

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that it was completely destroyed. When we arrived, we realized that although some buildings in the neighborhood were damaged as a result of air strikes, but it was basically intact, as was the rest of the city,

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where single bombs were dropped. We stayed in our apartment, but on the night of March 17 to March 18, the neighborhood was shelled again, small high-rise buildings and dachas on the nearby streets were damaged.

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That very night it was decided that we would leave in the morning, and no one thought that we would leave forever, that we would leave for a long time. The idea was that we would leave for a few weeks. 

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Then we harbored hopes that Russia would not take Mariupol, that some auxiliary brigades would arrive, that some auxiliary forces would come and that everyone would be safe. Unfortunately, it never happened.

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When we were about to leave, my boyfriend refused to go until he has found out what happened to his parents. We lost contact with them at the beginning of March, and rumor had it that their neighborhood was terribly damaged by the shelling.

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He said that he would stay in our apartment with our pets, that we would meet anyway in a few weeks, that everything would be fine, and that nothing bad would happen. This departure was probably the hardest thing in terms of saying goodbye to this apartment,

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and I had a feeling that nothing would ever be the same. You look around, examine every room, every little thing, pet your furry friends, and reassure yourself that in a week or ten days, we will be back here, and everything will be fine.

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That day we left. We drove for nine or ten hours because of all the checkpoints, and when we finally arrived in Berdiansk in the middle of the night, I started feeling a terrible longing for my home, for what was left there.

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I terribly wanted to return, but I realized that I could not return there just like that, and we were doing the right thing, that we were leaving temporarily. My boyfriend and I talked every day until about the beginning of April,

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while it was still possible to get a cell signal near a Nova Poshta office near our house. We talked and exchanged messages because the mobile Internet connection there was very poor.

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He told me that he had made friends with all our neighbors, that everything was fine, and that our cats were also fine. I was not able to get in touch with him the next day, he did not respond to my messages, 

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and since we were far from each other, I realized that he turned off his phone and sometimes recharged it in the basement. Our neighbor’s car was destroyed by the shelling, and he removed the battery and used it to recharge the phones.

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I carried my phone with me all the time because I realized that he could write or call at any moment. When he didn't get in touch on the first day, I felt something was wrong, I thought that something bad must be going on.

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Local groups started writing that our neighborhood was being shelled, that the neighborhood was gone, and that our house was gone too. I was in a terrible shock, I didn’t understand what was happening.

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It was a miracle that on April 6 or 7, my boyfriend wrote a few kind words on Telegram, saying that he was fine and that he missed me terribly. I immediately started trying to call him, but I couldn’t get through.

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I didn’t realize that he had managed to escape from the city and was most likely staying somewhere out of town. We were able to talk on Telegram. He told me that he was in Manhush, that he had met some locals and stayed there.

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He said that our house was destroyed, and our military guys told those who were hiding in the basement to run away because it was getting too dangerous. He says that when he was running away,

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the neighboring houses were already burning, burning down, and the fire was raging in the first and second sections of our house. Later, when he came to our apartment a few weeks later to check what was going on, the apartment was gone.

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I asked, “Did it burn down?” He said, “No. It has been destroyed by a missile, so half of the apartment is gone, everything was reduced to rubble, and everything was, in fact, destroyed.” 

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He told me that rockets were fired at the neighboring house, how they destroyed everything, how the door flew out when a missile hit, and two of our three pets jumped out into the street through the broken door,

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and how shots were fired at houses from tanks, mortar guns, and so on. They targeted our house. This became clear back at the beginning of March, when, as the Russians claimed, “we don’t target civilians,

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we just hit infrastructure and various bases.” So, it was all a lie because they were shooting at everything. They were hiding behind different excuses: it was a NATO base, or an Azov warehouse, or some other ridiculous excuse.

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Another friend who visited us lived near a spring. When we returned to our neighborhood, he would come to our house and help us collect and bring water. One morning, it was March 17, he came terrified.

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Although he was not a cowardly man, he was not himself. When asked what happened to him, he told us that while he was walking, going up through the village of Kirovka,

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through our neighborhood and approaching the hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a building was hit by a missile. He escaped by a miracle because he jumped behind another house.

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The missile that was fired from the direction of Manhush flew through that multi-story building and hit the first on-family house that was standing on the street. He said that the shelling continued,

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even though multi-story buildings were not targeted anymore. In the morning, we went together to the Ford spring on Lvivska Street to get water. As far as I remember, there was always a spring there.

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When we were going there, it was very scary because we could hear the fighting within the city, just outside Cheremushky. While we were walking, every sound scared us, and we thought that we might get hit by a missile any minute. 

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When we were walking to the spring we saw a lot of people coming to the spring and going back, waiting in long queues because everyone wanted to bring home some water. During those walks, we discussed different subjects. 

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I said, “You know, it seems to me that society has rolled back many decades. I have never thought that such a tragedy would happen in my hometown where I lived happily and peacefully (this is the 21st century, after all),

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and that people would have to survive in such conditions. It’s just a huge tragedy.” Unfortunately, no one cared what century it was or that people were suffering. Probably the most unpleasant fact that struck me was that those neighbors,

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people who lived in the same neighborhood, in my city, now claim that it was Azov that destroyed Mariupol, that Ukraine bombed itself, and that their lives were perfect. One woman said, literally,

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that our house was destroyed because we had Ukrainian literature in our apartment. Well, as the saying goes, the madness grows stronger. As I see it, the further it goes, the worse it gets, the more terrifying it becomes.

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I went to Mariupol in August. I saved some money, so I came to Mariupol hoping that my boyfriend would leave with me because he really wanted to leave. I also planned to search for my cats that were lost and to see what happened to the apartment,

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to salvage, if possible, at least some of my belongings. Thank God, I found my in-laws. I was looking for them for two months on all social media and in in-house chats. I posted their photos, asked if they were alive and well.

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When Russia had already occupied the entire Left Bank, a Russian volunteer brought bread and distributed it on Peremohy Square. I identified my boyfriend’s mother in the photo where this volunteer was distributing bread,

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and it was a happy moment. I immediately told my boyfriend, “Mom is alive, she’s fine, she’s alive.” He was just incredibly happy, and a few weeks later he was able to find some friends, who had friends and so on,

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who could get him to the Left Bank for money. He finally came to his parents, they finally saw each other, and he was finally able to meet with them. I came back in August, and we stayed with their friends because their house was also destroyed.

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They are now renting a house in Mariupol, and we stayed there. We also moved some of the things that we salvaged from our apartment. Although I now live in the place where I spent my entire childhood, I still want to go back to Mariupol,

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to my home, where I had everything I could wish for, and where it was unfortunately taken away from me. Ukraine must win because, as fairy tales go, good defeats evil.

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Evil must be punished. I believe in this, in this theory, in this idea, and of course, it will not happen as quickly as we wish it had. I read the news every day and I hope…

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Well, I hope that one day there will be news about Mariupol and that our army has made progress in this direction.

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I understand that it won’t happen overnight, but our military has to get there eventually.