Stories that you confided to us
I remember that day, it was July 27th. It was a very hard day. I live in the city center, near Victory Square, Independence Square. There is a public garden across the road. Very often children with mothers, old people walk there. On this day, at the beginning of 12 [hours] of the day, a lot of [shells from] "Grad" fell down ...
I wish the peace would come faster. To those who have a house left, could return home. I wish people would treat each other well and help to ensure that there was peace.
First [the shell hit] the bus stop, it’s two houses away from us. The shell, which we have heard, and began to run. The second fell directly in front of our entrance [exploded] in these old ladies with babies ...
It was very hard. We had the apartment broken very badly with fragments.
We saw the dead, completely burned down. A child on a bicycle burned completely... Right like that burned on a bicycle. Strollers burnt ...
Thank God, there was a friend who had a bus. He drove to Urzuf. And we called him right away. He reserved a place for us. The next morning, we barely climbed in. It was terrible ... people fought, crowded, tried to leave. Many even asked that they would simply take the children out.
We stayed in Urzuf for a week. We understood that all this will not be over so quickly, even after a month or two. We sat down, thought there must be somewhere to go, some place to settle, to ask at least some shelter for a while to be able to somehow settle at least.
We arrived to Mariupol, on the street of Bohdan Khmelnytsky 24. We were told at the station that there is a Center that receives immigrants. There were a lot of people there. Some people were put to gyms, some people were settled in the hospital. Ordinary [local] people came and said that they have a summer residence or something else - they accepted people.
We lived in e- boarding school No. 2. It was a very dense settlement. Metinvest people came to us, installed stoves, brought food.
At first I did not want to take it. “I thought: “There are those who need it more.”
And about a week later, the social service brought sets - they distributed them. We signed the paper and got them, and I think it was a good help, because I can afford to set aside some money for my children, without buying the buckwheat and rice, and direct the money to buy the supplies necessary to go to school.
Life was slowly getting better, as they say, but for the time being. At one “wonderful moment”, when we lived there for half a year, they started to evict everyone, they started turning off the water for us, the director said: “We have our own children here.” Everyone who could afford to rent an apartment, left, but there remained out of three hundred families only six of 52 people. We had nowhere to go.
We tried to rent a house, but people said that we had too many children or named such a price that we simply could not handle. Then the observers from Kiev arrived.
We are still friends with them. They arranged a round table in Mariupol [on which a solution was found]. The next day they turned on the light because they said that children should not suffer. And they said that they would finish building the hostel and put us all there. We were one of the first ones to enter this hostel.
I wish the peace would come faster. To those who have a house left, could return home. I wish people would treat each other well and help to ensure that there was peace.
When quoting a story, a reference to the source – the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation – is mandatory, as follows:
The Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/
