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On February 24, I was at home. I was a design engineer at Metinvest, Ilyich Plant, and we worked remotely.

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We woke up at about 5 o’clock in the morning because of continuous explosions. The window faced east.

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I saw that everything was lit up in the distance. I turned on the TV, and there was nothing there, just a concert. I could not understand what it meant.

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It lasted for two hours. But anyway, everyone believed that it wouldn’t be long, a day or two, or four at the most. That was the feeling.

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And then I had to work all the same, it was okay, some people went to work,  but I worked from home. The second day passed, and on the third day,

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everything became clear — the war began. It was just a shock. Then, our people began to gather and write that clothes, underwear, bedsheets,

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and towels were needed for the wounded. I started to collect those things and take them to the Halabuda collection point in midtown.

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It was already clear that something terrible had begun, but I still could not believe it. At that moment, I was alone in the house. My son was in the military,

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and he was at Azovstal. Until the moment when the light, water, and gas were cut off (it was March 2 or 4), I had been keeping a diary. First,

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the electricity was cut off, then the water stopped running because the electricity had been cut off, and the gas disappeared by the evening.

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Then, people started going out to the streets because no one had gas and there was no heating. It was warm at first in the early March, and February was warm,

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and then it got colder, it was 14 below zero. It got cold in everybody’s house. People who lived in a multi-story building came to me and asked to stay overnight in my house because they didn’t have heating.

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The heating was turned off even earlier. They had Kostyk, a little boy, four years old, he turned five in March. And then they stayed at my place because they had nowhere else to go…

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I had a heating stove. Then, children who lived in the neighborhood started coming to my house. Their parents brought them because they had to find food somewhere.

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People started looting stores and setting them on fire. It was cold, a cold wind was blowing, and morale was low. The war was getting closer and closer.

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Planes were raining bombs on the city, and mines were flying everywhere. I used to visit my sister who lived on Kirova Street, and once got hit by mortar fire.

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It happened when I was near the zoo, and I had to drop to the ground. There is the Gurov Park, and then the zoo. I got there on my way back.

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Mines were exploding nearby, and I could hear the whistle, so I knew whether a mine was flying high or low, so I just fell to the ground.

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The second time was when I went to the hospital on Sechenova Street, and it was shelled by Grad missiles. A young woman’s leg was torn off. She was on the street.

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She had a small child, a baby. I found out about it later because I saw her neighbor, who stayed with the baby. I don’t know what happened to her afterward.

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The locals took her to the hospital, and the neighbor was looking for her. In the morning, she went out to find semolina for her baby, and she was hit by a shell.

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She was badly wounded. And that other girl took care of her baby. A building across the street was also hit by Grad missiles, and it was ruined.

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Another house on Demidova Street was hit, and the whole family was killed, four people, two adults and two children. The neighbors rushed to look for the police to ask what they should do.

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And the police said: we don’t know, bury them in the yard. So, the neighbors buried them in the yard. Then, it started happening in numbers. People who died or were killed were buried in the yards

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The nine-story building on Metalurhiv Street was hit, and two people were just torn into pieces. They were running to the store when a missile hit them.

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Then, that nine-story building was shelled, and the upper floors were completely destroyed, and the entire building just burned down. I think one section was left,

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and when we walked past those houses, there were shards of glass everywhere. Schools were destroyed. The fourth school was not damaged, but schools Nos.

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34 and 42 were ruined. School No. 42 was hit at the beginning of March. It was a phosphorus bomb because the flames were strong, very strong. The residents rushed to put it out,

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and the Ukrainian military came and said, no, you won’t put it out until it burns out. So, they put the fire out in their own way. Then, I saw those burned-out buildings.

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On March 27, there was fighting on my street. We saw Ukrainian servicemen in the morning, and those young guys were totally exhausted, skinny, and hungry.

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We brought them tea. We didn’t even have bread. They said, “No, we don’t need any.” We could barely make them take it. And then there was a whole day of fighting.

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I moved the children who stayed with me to the basement. They stayed in the basement all day. A serviceman was killed, and when those orcs came, they didn’t allow us to bury him.

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They wouldn’t let us bury him for 16 days. Guys and women went to them, and I also went to them and asked for permission to bury this man.

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They brutalized his body and stripped him completely. They took off his helmet, bulletproof vest, and boots, took everything from him, and put all those things on themselves.

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When they came to me for the first time, one of them was wearing that helmet, and I knew it because there was a blue tape. Ours had blue tapes,

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and they had white ones tied to their arms and legs. I did not understand at first, how it could be that a Ukrainian serviceman was standing next to them since the Russians had already entered the city,

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and that man was just standing next to the others wearing white tapes. And this is how it turned out. I was wiping the window sill when I saw a sniper rifle pointed at me from my neighbor’s yard.

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I said, “What?” – “Get out.” I went out. “Are there any men in the house?” I said, yes, there are. I had a house full of children and adults, maybe 17 people. Then, they came in and searched the place,

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but they didn’t loot much. They were tracking down men. Kolia, the young husband of my neighbor, they had three children, and they… He had a tattoo of a bat,

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which he had foolishly had done a long time ago. So, they started mocking him, blindfolded him, put him on the ground, started shooting near his head, screaming,

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“Are you a scout?” The second time, when they came to search my house on May 15, those orcs already knew that my son was in the military.

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So, they smashed everything and took away everything they liked (they took power tools and everything else they could carry away). Around April 7,

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I took my sister from Kirova Street because her apartment was completely ruined. She is also a factory worker, retired, she is 73 years old.

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I took my sister to my place because there was nowhere for her to be, and I was already on my bike. We started the day by riding. First, we walked some 1.5 to 1.7 km to get water.

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There was no cell signal, and we could not call anyone. Kyivstar signal could be found in some locations until March 25, approximately.

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We had to go out to the water well to try to catch a signal, but again, it was impossible to charge phones. We found the battery and charger from the car, and attached as best we could.

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We kept the phones switched off, so the batteries would not die. We made calls only as a last resort. No one could reach us. We also didn’t have any radio. We found an old radio,

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but we needed batteries. They ran out quickly, and we couldn’t buy them anywhere. And there were profiteers who charged 60 hryvnias for one battery. Anyway,

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you had to get money somewhere too. I had money on my card, but no banks or ATMs were working. There was no bread, nothing.

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I had some flour since I was in my own house. I also had sugar, flour, cereals, and potatoes, and we survived on that. We baked pies. I didn’t have a car, 

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and there was no way to get out. I talked to my colleague, and she told me that her car was intact. The apartment was hit by a bomb,

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so we agreed that we would go to Berdiansk first and then to Zaporizhzhia. We loaded our stuff into the car and since they were afraid to go on their own,

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we thought it would be better to leave with the evacuation buses. We thought we would follow them. Once, we went to a meeting point, but no one came.

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That was after my sister and I went there on our own, and the next time we went with my colleague’s family. We were told that there would be evacuation buses on May 7, at 5 pm,

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and they would be picking up people from Azovstal, so we went there again. When we got there, we saw over 20 cars and about 400 people. There was a list, and people wrote numbers on their hands.

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So, we got there and waited. Finally, two buses arrived and they had DPR numbers. There were servicemen and two armored vehicles. We asked if we could go with them, join them.

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They said, yes. People were afraid to get on those buses, they didn’t know what it was. We thought we would go to Zaporizhzhia, but we were told that the buses would be heading to Bezymenne,

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where we would have to pass the filtration camp. We took a risk and followed these buses. When we arrived in Bezymenne, those buses stopped near the filtration camp, and we were told to keep going,

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so we drove on. And then they just cut us off, saying that Mariupol residents should join a common line. There were three thousand people waiting in line.

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People were waiting there for five days. There were tents, big military tents. All people were angry. They told us, “You can leave your cars, go through filtration,

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get on the buses and go.” And then they wouldn’t let us do it after midnight. One man was shouting at everyone. Early in the morning, around four o’clock,

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the buses with Ukrainian license plates arrived, and there were a lot of them, like six or eight, a lot. Those people were the only ones who got on. The buses were empty.

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We asked the Red Cross for permission, but they just walked away from us and hid behind the servicemen. There were also correspondents from the Russian TV because it was the last evacuation bus with people from Azovstal.

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They wanted to talk to people who were at Azovstal, but they were allowed to approach only those people who left Mariupol. I saw that the bus was parked aside,

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and people from Azovstal were being filtered only after one o’clock in the morning. We waited there the whole night, but we were not allowed to pass. In the morning,

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when the buses had already left, I learned that disabled people did not need to wait in line. We moved to the front of the line. They said they would take disabled people, but not me.

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I told them that we came in the same car. It meant that they would leave me behind. And then they gave me their passports, and I went through filtration. Filtration involved fingerprinting,

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and they also took my palm prints. You go into the tent from this side, they fingerprint you, take your prints, and make a photograph. Once you are done,

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you go to the next table where all your data is recorded and phones are checked. That man took my phone and asked for my Ukrainian number. 

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I said that I did not remember because we did not make any calls for three months, so I might have given an incorrect number. They said that it didn’t matter.

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They looked at my passport and told me to go over there, to the emergency rescue team and psychologists, but they called them something else,

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and then come back here. I went to the emergency rescue team. They gave me a document confirming that I had passed the filtration.

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While I was standing in line, the psychologists (there were five of them), were asking questions, and it was like a test. “How do you feel about Ukraine?”

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The possible answers were positive, neutral, and negative, I decided to leave because all of them were busy. I approached one of them and was told that I could go.

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He said, “Wait, we don’t have your data yet.” I stood there waiting because I gave him my phone and my passport. I waited there for about five minutes, and then he called me up and said,

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“So, Nataliia Leonidivna, do you love Ukraine?” I said, “So what?” He looked at the phone, at the passport, and said, “Go.” I do not know what it was,

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maybe he saw an avatar with a Ukrainian flag on it, or perhaps it was a provocative question, I do not know. Because by that time, I had already deleted my profile,

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and there was nothing in my phone, and my last name… There were numerous people who shared the surname with me, so I am not sure that he could have found my profile.

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Most likely, I was not in the database, although I had information, we were told that our relative, Ivanchenko, who had already left and was in Donetsk,

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turned me and my sister in. He told the authorities that our children were members of Azov. Probably, they made no connection.

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They mostly took advantage of the fact that some people ratted out other people, as it happened to me on the 15th. Then, well, we got through that filtration.

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It took about 25 minutes or half an hour at the most. Everyone was distressed, so we got in the car, but we had to get a pass for the car, and we drove to Vynohradne.

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When we drove by, we saw a big excavator digging trenches and something was dumped there. Most likely, it was corpses. What else could they have damped in the cemetery?

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We were a long way away, but we could see something being dumped from a truck. So, we got a pass for our car and returned to Mariupol,

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and we saw a church that was razed to the ground near Vynohradne. On May 8, we returned to Mariupol because we thought we would go to Berdiansk. We returned home,

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and then these people decided that since they had passed filtration, they would not go anywhere. My sister and I started looking for a way to leave again. By that time, I had bought a Phoenix telephone card,

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so I used to go to Port City by bicycle. It was possible to connect to the Internet there, so I kept calling everyone I know and looking for a way to go to Berdiansk.

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I was told that it was impossible, that people were waiting there for several months. Going to Zaporizhzhia was also not an option, and no other alternatives existed. The thing is that my sister has a disability,

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and she cannot walk more than 50 meters. What could we do? Let’s say, I could spend a night in the field, it’s no problem for me, but it would be impossible for my sister. Although, when we went Port City,

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she did not drink water for 10 hours, so she did not have to go to the restroom. We waited for all those long hours there. Around May 15, when my house was searched,

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they started checking people’s passports on the streets. They had already come to us. I was at Port City at that time, making calls and trying to find a way for us to leave.

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Olha kept trying to find volunteers. They said, “Pay us, and we will try to get you out of there, but we don’t give you any guarantees.” We cried from despair. When I came home,

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my sister told me that our house had been searched. They came when my sister was home alone. Some people were leaving, while others were looking for firewood. Everything in our house was smashed.

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She said they had checked our passports. I said that everyone had gone away, and I had to look for something to eat. I avoided receiving humanitarian aid because I didn’t want to show my passport.

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But I still had some food at home. They returned later because someone at the top told them that a serviceman lived in this house, so they came running, shouting that the Azov commander lived here.

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They acted as real savages. They were smashing everything. I didn’t realize right away that they had stolen something because everything was smashed. We were told that there would be evacuation buses on May 7,

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at 5:00 p.m., and they would be picking up people from Azovstal, so we went there again. They took all the money from my wallet and just left it there. My sister had a medal that was awarded to her father during WWII,

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so they took even that medal. They took away everything they could and said they would come for me soon. It was May 15, and they said they would come on the next day to get me. In the morning,

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I went to get water. It was already 11 o’clock, and there was a line. I went there by bike, and when I checked my telephone, I saw that there was a cell signal. I called Olha,

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and she told me that volunteers would come to pick us up at midday. And it was already 11:53 a.m. I rushed home and told my sister, Lora, that volunteers would be coming any moment now.

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The thing was that when our house was searched, they emptied all the bags that we had packed in advance. I told my sister, “Grab anything you could.” When the volunteers arrived, they told us,

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“We’ll take you to Novoazovsk, to the border, and then you  will be on your own.” – “What do you mean?” – “That’s it, we were paid to get you to Novoazovsk only.

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I called my friend, Natasha, and told her that I would not go to Russia. She said, “You have two choices: either they come for you, or you take this risk and cross the border, there is no other way.

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So, we left. They said: one person – one bag. So, they took us with two bags to that stupid border, to the DPR. We showed our filtration documents, and we had a wheelchair,

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so I pushed it. When we arrived at the Russian border, there was a customs officer. He picked that filtration paper with two fingers and said, “Remove all that useless staff from your passport.” I said,

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“We suffered so much to get those documents.” – “I said, everything useless.” That was the attitude towards those documents, and those people back in Mariupol were so proud of them. So, we crossed the border and went to Taganrog,

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where a priest met us. We lived with a family of religious people, and they transported us. First, we went to Belarus, then to Kovel, and finally, we got to Kyiv. It took us 13 days to get to Kyiv.

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My son was killed at Azovstal. He died there, in Mariupol, on April 15. When we were in Mariupol, every day I saw that [Azovstal] plant, which was black all the time. They rained bombs on Azovstal,

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and bombed [the Ilyich plant] all the time. I saw those explosions, I saw the concrete slabs falling. A tank used to come to our street and shoot at Azovmash, at the tower that had Azovmash written on it.

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They just fired at that tower, which then resembled the tower from Donetsk airport. There was some certainty in life, you understood: you had a job, you had a family, your son got married, and there was joy.

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You planned something for yourself, collected something. When I retire, I would do this and that. I had plants, I had a pet. You could laugh, you could fight, you could do anything you like.

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I feel that I was uprooted. There’s nothing else. You don’t know how to go on, what to do next, or how to live. You try not to think about anything. In Mariupol,

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I did not have any dreams, not a single dream all that time. It was dark and scary, and I started having panic attacks back in Mariupol. There were no lights there,

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so when it got dark, everyone went to bed. We didn’t light candles, we didn’t light anything. As soon as it dawned, you would get, run to get water, firewood, or food.

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All the time, I tried to exhaust myself so that I could sleep all night. There was no other way.

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And now I just don’t know how to go on living, I have no job, I have nothing left.