"Grandfather died, and I have a wound on my back. My sister has the skin on her head slashed. My mum had a piece of flesh on her arm torn off and a hole in her leg"

Little boy Yehor is the author of the tragic “Mariupol Diary”. On the pages of an ordinary notepad, he described the horrors of the war and drew some terrible pictures of explosions, tanks, dead people and destroyed houses.

Yehor’s mother says that their family lost everything when a shell hit their house. The roof was swept away. Children and adults got injuries. Later, Yehor also wrote about this in his diary, “I have a wound on my back, a piece of skin has been torn out. My sister has a wound to the head. My mother has a piece of skin on her arm torn out, and a hole in her leg.”

After a hundred days of the war, the family was able to get out of the besieged Mariupol to the peaceful territory of Ukraine.

Shelling attacks began. We lived near Azovstal [steel plant]. Strong incoming shelling strikes started – we hid in the corridors, hid in the bathroom, until it hit our home directly. The first time it fell somewhere nearby and all the windowpanes in our housing shattered. I also remember that the plaster crumbled off the walls. We cleaned everything and breathed a sigh of relief, I could say, but then it started over again. We ran into the corridor. A shell fell somewhere nearby again. Our door was torn out. Well, not blown out, but it was torn off its hinges, to be precise. The whistling sound continued. Dad shouted to us telling us all to run to the bathroom. I called him, “Daddy, come here to us too!” He said, “I am going to hold the door, as it can go off the hinges.... the lock has been torn off. I am going to hold the door so that nothing flies in.”

Well, the roof... The roof was swept off, the entire ceiling collapsed. Everything was covered in dust. We could not see anything. The children were screaming. Nika shouted, “I have a bleeding from my head! All my blood will pour out now and I will die!” Yehor screamed that he had some kind of stone in his back. I tried to calm them down, even though I was scared myself. They managed to get out haphazardly. My mother was with us. She was also there. Well, we were positioned in such a way that it first reached me and then the children. My mum was hit on the head, but thank God, there were no more bodily [injuries]. When the dust settled down, we started crawling out and saw that dad was lying in the corridor. His posture looked strange. Apparently, he had a hip fracture. I had that dust in my eyes. Scary. Then I saw the grandfather who was lying too. Then our mother shouted to us, “You and Nika, run to grandma Masha!” We ran into our grandfather’s room. Nika sat down there, and grandmother Masha said, “Can you remove the plaster from my feet?” I replied, “What damned plaster do you mean? I have a stone in my back.” Well, my mother removed the plaster and stopped the bleeding we had. Grandpa broke his leg and bled to death in two weeks.

I feel more or less ok. The only thing is my head still aches. They say that this is because of the injury. When the roof was smashed, it fell on my head and it... I have got a scar. The most important thing is that it does not turn into a hematoma, as I was told, as my eyesight could be getting worse then.

Well, thank God, our neighbour helped us. He put the first bandages on the kids’ injuries. Then I said, “Have a look what I have there.” He checked one arm and then said, “Your arm is wet.” We cut the clothes to open it and found that the bleeding almost stopped. We then went to my aunt and uncle. Our walk to them was a terrible experience too. From one side, we heard a plane flying, and in the yards, we heard bursts of machine guns. I did not know: either I should go along one side of the house, where the plane was heard, or over there, under the machine gun bursts. I chose the plane, as I thought the probability was lower. Well, we came there to them. We were lying flat for two days. At that time, shelling attacks just began. Then we were staying in the corridor. They started on the second or third day. I think on the third day the Chechens came and kicked everyone out.

Bursts of machine gun fire started again. We were sheltered there. We were allowed to enter the entrance hallway, but then we moved down to the basement. The next day, when we came out, we saw that my aunt and uncle’s house was no longer there. It was just burned down completely.

I started writing my notes. One day my grandfather died. Here’s a headline. Here you go, you can read it. The war, 3 April, Sunday. I had a good sleep, woke up, washed my face, smiled and read on page 25 that my grandfather had died. On 26 March, I had a wound on my back; a piece of my skin was torn out. My sister had a head injury. My mum had a piece of flesh on her arm torn out and a hole in her leg. Usually I knew what to write. I tracked everything, climbed trees, searched for everything. I just thought that somebody would come to us, find it and read. I wanted everyone to know what would be and what was happening in Mariupol. I cannot draw images like this. Things like angels and teddy bears... When we were covered [under the rubble], they were covered too. I think that Dimka... oh, that is, Danka got cuts by pieces of glass, and Bimka was covered by rubble. Mum... It’s written down here… I wrote down that you wanted to teach me how to cook scrambled eggs. But then it says, everyone would know it.

He kept writing it. Kept making his notes. We did not pay much attention to it. We thought he was drawing something. He likes to draw. And then I accidentally found it. It was such a shock for me. I cried over it. I took it to show all our [family members]. I had to do it cautiously so that he would not see it. Otherwise, we all would be sorry about it. Everyone was crying. Well, it was all so unexpected.

He drew everything he saw, and Uncle Zhenya took a photo of him. When he left, he posted that photo on social media. We did not even know what it was. When some telephone signal became available, he called and told us this. That is, we were in shock. We did not expect it at all.

You feel sorry about everything. Can you imagine leaving everything behind? At the same time, when I went out the gate, somewhere outside, the city seemed just strange to me. It was impossible to be there. It took me quite a long time to think it over. I struggled along. I was going to stay there but still I decided to leave. Then, we could not leave for a long time – there was a problem with transportation. We were ready to go anywhere with any transport carriers. We were looking for more than a month and then we left finally. We passed through the filtration. They didn’t let us through.

We were ordered to return to Mangush. We came to Mangush and they told us, “You will be number seven thousand and something on the waiting list. Those who are going through now are number two thousand and something.” People asked, “Well, what should we do next?” – “Well, come back in a month and find out.” That is, we still had to wait for a month. But then we were accepted faster, as the wounded, and we came to Berdiansk. Four days later, volunteers came for us and we got here on the same day. We did not expect it to happen that fast, as other people stood and waited for three or four days. We were ready to stay in the field with the children; we were ready for anything...

But we managed just in one day. The guys did a great job. We are grateful to them. They took us out of there. We stuck in a swamp, in mud there. I mean our car... We walked across some field. The car was driving and we were walking nearby, as the car with passengers was rather heavy. People talked about all those inconveniences, while I said, “I am ready to go waist-deep in this swamp, but I am on my homeland and I don’t care [about any inconveniences] anymore.”

Yes? We bounced up and down on some hill and the car hit its bottom on the ground. Nika and I bounced. I tried to hold on as best as I could. Then Uncle Artem… Well, there was a hill there, and he drove the car up on it, and I was like this... Well, I was sitting like that, holding on to the seat like that. It was creepy. At the checkpoints, when we heard some men speaking Ukrainian, I was in tears. And an autoreply voice in my telephone that told me “the subscriber’s line is busy”. I was sitting and thinking that it was probably the end. Well, it was calm and quiet. Wonderful. Well, we still were not rested and still sleepy. But we were fine, in general. For now, we are in Kyiv, but maybe someday... maybe we will come back to Mariupol when it becomes ours, when Ukraine retakes it. I really want to.