On 16 March, Kostiantyn and his family were walking up Kuindzhi Street in Mariupol. They were about a hundred metres away from the Drama Theatre when they heard the roaring of an airplane and then saw some smoke. An air bomb hit the theatre building. “It was terrible. People were coming out covered in blood, asking to have their head wounds stitched up. But we are not doctors. Every day was like a gambling for life or death,” Kostiantyn recalls.

For me, as for everyone else, 24 February began early in the morning. We woke up against our own wish, someone earlier and someone later. I remember it was at 05:20–05:21.

We woke up to the sound of an explosion. As we had been taught in life safety lessons, in case of any unclear situations, you need to turn on the TV or other source of information. I switched on the TV and learned that the war against Ukraine began.

The war by the aggressor, the war from the barbarian state, which is not at all scrupulous about its choice of means and methods of warfare, and which does not take into account the civilian population of another country. That is, trying to achieve the results, which they drew for themselves in their sick imagination, by all means. I learned it and the first question was, “What to do now? Shall I go to my work or not?” Then we got in touch with our management. At first, they told us that we needed to go to our work. Then we were told to stay at home, stay where we were. Later, we were asked to come and pick up our workbooks. Therefore,

I went to my work. We already had a packed grab bag just in case. Well, as it turned out, it came in useful for us later. I went to my work, collected my workbook, and then I went to the store and bought some bottled water. I also bought some food and other items, although by that time the queues were of about 100 people per one checkout. I went to buy a portable cage for my parrot and returned home. We got in touch with my wife’s sister and agreed that we would temporarily move to her place, to her district... Kirova micro-district or the so-called Kirovskyi housing estate. We collected some food and some possessions and put everything in the car. The car I had was Zhyguli of the seventh model. We put the parrot in the carrier and left. Well, we thought there was no point in staying in the left-bank part of the city because we already heard the sounds of incoming artillery strikes in the neighbourhood. It was impossible for our child to sleep there.

At that moment, we did not know that those strikes hit absolutely far away. But still we felt fear for our son’s life and health, as well as for our own, so to speak, so we decided to move to Kirova micro-district.

We moved there and stayed there with my wife, our child, and with my wife’s two sisters. The first days in Kirova micro-district were more or less calm and quiet. Except for the situation with Orbita store when Grad MLRS hit there. Basically, we still went to food stores from time to time to buy some food to stock up. By the way, there were already some problems with deliveries of drinking water that was sold on tap into bottles. It was good when a house had those water filtering units and we could get some filtered water for our own needs. We did not touch the water. Basically, we lived in this mode until the power supply went off.

I know that on the left bank, electricity supply was cut off earlier, while here, and probably throughout the city, it happened on 2 March. By the way, I remember that my father-in-law came to us then. He came by public transport. I remember that when I went out into the yard I saw that garbage was still collected. That is, I noticed some... some attempts to maintain the life in the city and for me it felt like something reassuring, in a sense. Yes, the war started, yes, they were shelling the city, but it continued to live on in some way, although, on 28 February or 1 March, I think (I don’t remember exactly), Silpo food store on Shevchenko Boulevard burned down. Well, we bought some food there the other day and the next day we came and found it burned down.

Basically, telephone signal disappeared. I remember I went to the left-bank part of the city several times. I helped the city council’s deputy Dmytro Zabavin to deliver some food and hygiene products for children, for the maternity hospital. He bought those at his own expense and for contributions from other deputies of the city council. Basically, I saw what was happening to the left-bank part of the city gradually.

That is, our house was hit by an incoming artillery strike, to the next entrance section. A mine flew to the fifth floor – a woman’s leg was torn off there.

Well, I did not see it but I heard the story from the neighbours. I came to pick up some food from the freezer and pick up some more warm clothes. Incoming artillery shelling hit the neighbourhood then. I remember how I stayed in the basement for some time. Well, we lived through the beginning of March pretty okay, through the end of February and the beginning of March in a more or less calm and quiet mode. By the way, we were doing quite fine in terms of food. We tended to stock up on food and sought to always have some stock of baby food in jars, some mashed potatoes and some meat, so that we had it in reserve for our child. In fact, this helped us very much because approximately until mid-March, our son could have that preserved food and not feel any shortage of anything, which could affect his health. The first signals for us were burned down Orbita and Silpo food stores.

When we went out the next day or the day after, in the absence of power supply, in search of open food stores, we saw that real anarchy broke out in the city.

Well, there were some people…, I don’t know if they were some provocateurs who ran around and smashed the shop windows, thus urging people to get involved in looting. People themselves went crazy, realizing that surveillance cameras were not operational and that the police were now busy with completely different priority issues. Well, it was just an all-out plundering and ransacking of everything possible.

We saw some horrifying pictures how men were fighting over a gasoline power generator.

People were carrying refrigerators, washing machines, well just everything they could, from Amstor shopping mall that was located near the Kalchik River. There was an abandoned kitchen stove with a broken oven glass lying around. Some people broke the oven glass and discarded the stove. It was just lying there. People were rolling shopping carts with alcoholic beverages. That is, we, in fact, slipped into some kind of Stone [Age], well, not the Stone Age but into some kind of Middle Ages, when some inconceivable barbarism started off. In fact, it was very scary. Well, we understood that most likely there was no rule of law in this city anymore. And roughly speaking, if someone decided to settle personal scores with you, or someone did not like you, then they would go unpunished, by and large. Once every two days, my father-in-law came to us, first [by bus] and then he went on foot. He told us about the situation there. We would get in touch with our relatives by phone.

When I came to my mother to the left bank, on 28 February or 1 March (I don’t remember exactly now), then her phone’s battery was running almost flat. There was no electricity supply in that district anymore, on Leningradskyi Avenue where she lived. While near the Square, my mother-in-law still had electricity supply in her flat, and so we took my mother there to have her phones charged. Meanwhile, they also talked to each other and exchanged some news, and then some escalation began there. The area of Mendeleeva and Pashkovskoho Streets came under severe shelling. Once my father-in-law came and said that they had been sleeping in the basement for several days. It was on 4 March, no, on 6 March. He came (he walked from the left bank to us, to Kirova micro-district).

He came and said that they had been sleeping in the basement and that my mother-in-law was in a very depressed state. So we decided that the next day we would go together with him and would pick up my mother, my grandfather and my in-laws.

That we would all move to Kirova micro-district because it was relatively calm there. On 7 March, I waited until he came to us in the morning and we drove off by car together. I drove along Pashkovskoho Street to Leningradskyi Avenue and it was actually a terrible sight. There was no ninth floor in the Youth House anymore and every second building on Pashkovskoho Street was damaged by incoming artillery shelling. Burnt cars, dead bodies on the streets... Well, it was a real horror indeed. And piles of broken glass on the roads, hanging down broken trolleybus wires, and electricity wires from power poles. Well, it looked just like in the Resident Evil movie, roughly speaking, when some post-apocalyptic scenario unfolded.

We picked up my family members and brought them to us, to where my wife and I lived on Meotidy Boulevard. My family members said that they would stay there because they had a lot of belongings and their cats. She said that everything suited her there. “You have nice and friendly neighbours here”. “Well, as you wish, basically.” I tried to convince them a little bit. Then, we went to pick up my in-laws and the three of us went to Kirova micro-district. As there was no telephone signal, I remember that on 8 March, I went to the left bank again and delivered some food there. And my last trip to the left bank was when the old automobile bridge behind Kommunalnyk was blown up. The metal pedestrian bridge was blown up too and only the post-bridge remained intact, across which people were still allowed to go from time to time, thank God.

I came there and brought a fairly large amount of food. By the way, my father-in-law is a very thrifty person. He had kilograms of cereals, lots of canned food, a lot of everything.

As I said, basically, we did not experience any shortage in food. I delivered the food and bought some blocks of cigarettes from my neighbours who got them somewhere. I bought two blocks of cigarettes from them (for UAH 40 per one pack). As this product was almost nowhere to be found, it was a hard-to-find item. It could be exchanged for anything or you could even exchange it for some service. Therefore, I took the cigarettes to my mother to the left bank and said, “Here is your currency, just in case. I don’t know when I will come next time and whether I will come at all.” As it turned out, no, I would not be able to come because my car stalled, by the way, when we were driving to the left bank. It stalled in the middle of the Azovstal embankment, and then, miraculously, a neighbour, who was passing by, picked us up on a tow truck and took us to our destination there and back. I mean, he drove us… First, on his own vehicle and on the way back, we went on his vehicle and he also towed my car and we drove off. In Kirova micro-district, we cooked our food on a common fire in the yard. We went for water together with our neighbours. We took water at Novoselivka. Well, that was a place within a walking distance from Kirova micro-district, as I understand. That’s what it’s called. To be honest, I mix these old names up in my mind now.

That was in private houses area on the way from Kirova micro-district to the 21st micro-district. We took water there from some water wells.

From time to time, we could hear some incoming and outgoing artillery fire there. For some reason, it did not really scare people that much. I must say, Grad MLRS rockets landed in our yard. Once there were four direct hits on a neighbouring house. I did not have any information about the dead but there were some casualties. They were taken to Ilyich Steel Works, to the military hospital. We scouted around looking for some other stores. By the way, on Kuindzhi Street, in the direction of the Drama Theatre, a man was selling some olives, olive oil and soft cheese, and he had some beetroot for sale too. We bought some beetroot and some soft cheese. Well, the prices were obviously higher than in peacetime but it was good to have this food for a change...

On 15 March, we went to the Drama Theatre to find out anything about the evacuation. We found out that there were a lot of people there, found out that there was a telephone signal there. We saw how a guy of about 17 years old phoned his friend who left Mariupol in a convoy of vehicles on the same day, and he was already in Berdiansk. This encouraged us and we decided that the next day we would come to catch a telephone signal and call our friends and acquaintances in the government-controlled territories [of Ukraine] to find out how to leave and what to do in general. On the morning of 16 March, we walked along Artema Street, along Kuindzhi Street to the Drama Theatre. I remember that I was complaining because we were going very slowly. “I understand that we are going uphill but let’s move a bit faster.” Basically, we were some 100-150 metres from the Drama Theatre.

Already then, approaching the place, we heard the roaring of an aircraft and then we saw a rising cloud of brownish-dirty smoke. Well, it was not smoke but all sorts of technical dust, construction debris, and so on. Well, I realized that a bomb that the plane dropped hit somewhere in the area of the roundabout. When we came up and saw what really happened to the Drama Theatre, it looked really terrible.

We saw how people were coming out of there all white from plaster, covered in mud and dust, and injured. People were asking, “The wounds need to be sewn up. People are injured. Someone’s head needs to be stitched up.” I said, “But we are not doctors, we cannot do this.” “Where are the doctors? How to find the doctors?” In short, the situation was really terrible there. We then phoned our relative and got some information from him. Surely, we told him about what happened to the Drama Theatre. Basically, we needed to look for some means of transport among those people who were going to leave. That was the conclusion. I told him that my car was not in the running order.

He said, “Well, either you repair it or look for some other vehicle in order to leave.” We came back slightly upset by hopelessness and started to think what to do next. We were thinking about some possible options. I think, on the same day, in the evening, a plane dropped two bombs in the area of Kirova micro-district. Before that, it dropped some bombs too that landed between our house and the neighbouring one. That time, our window glass on the balcony shattered. And now one bomb fell nearby, and another bomb landed right onto Gratsiya supermarket. The shop was on fire for several days. People rushed to its warehouses and collected whatever they could find there. Not to mention the fact that we knew that russians or the so-called “DPR” soldiers, who the hell knows who is who there, they were approaching and were in the area of Novoselivka. We understood that our neighbourhood, our micro-district was in the line of fire. As Kirova micro-district was separating an offensive line from the 23rd micro-district to Azovstal plant, where, as we knew, our military were located, and their equipment and vehicles were positioned. We knew that they conducted some retaliatory military operations from Azovstal in the direction of the enemy. And when...

Well, we knew... We had a relative who lived in the 21st micro-district. Well, there was a person who walked around three city districts, probably, amidst the hostilities, during the siege of Mariupol. He came to visit us from time to time, so to speak, and I would give him something. Thus, he told us that there were already checkpoints there. So at that time, we were already aware that the russians were moving closer to us.

When on 18 March the military began to occupy…, our military began to occupy the floors of a neighbouring house, a 12-storey building, which overlooked Metalurgiv Avenue, we realized that we were in a sector where all and any sorts of shells from any type of weapons would definitely be coming, including air bombs, probably. Without any delays and dressed just in what we had on, we hurriedly moved towards Kalmiuskyi district. Our child then took just one toy at his choice and my wife left in her pyjamas. I put on my pants on top of my pyjamas, as well as two sweaters, a jacket and a hat. All the documents except our passports, birth certificates, diplomas, medical documents, even the child’s vaccination card. Basically, we literally left all the things, including some jewellery, because we decided that we needed to take out our women first, and then my father-in-law and I would come back to collect our things.

In order not to be burdened with bags during our movement, we decided to go light-handed first. That was an ill-considered decision and I still reproach myself for it, as I left my parrot behind. I left him a lot of food and poured some water for him in hope that I would be able to come and pick him up in a day or two.

However, as it turned out later, the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine tried to enter our flat too, where we had been staying, in order to take up a firing position. However, the entrance door to our flat did not budge, so the lock was knocked out and the door simply remained hanging on the hinges. That is, the hinges were in the wall, the door was hanging, and there was no lock. It could not be opened as it was rammed inside. We tried to open it using a crowbar, we tried with a hammer too, but the door was jammed. And we realized that everything that we left inside our flat in Kirova micro-district, including the parrot, unfortunately, was not [to be recovered]... My father-in-law still went there and tried to come round about it. He is a high-altitude fitter by profession and has some skills how to work at height. However, shelling was quite intense there and incoming artillery strikes were very frequent. That is why he did not venture to climb into the flat from outside, through the balcony.

- Kostya, we have a couple of minutes. Well, at least two or three minutes, and that’s it. Because it will be a lot, right?

- Let me just get on with it then.

We visited a relative at Ilyich Steel Works. We were there from 18 to 21 March. The situation there was just creepy at that time, as artillery shells came in every day. Every day people died, our neighbours, two people were killed on one day, and two more died on the second day. We were already staying at Ilyich Steel Works but we still went out to get some water. We walked around and checked the situation in the neighbourhood. We made a decision, as we realized that every day was like playing with death. It was just a gamble for our lives and logically it did not make any sense to stay there any longer. So we decided to leave on 21 March. In the morning, we packed up our things. Before that, we spent 24 hours in the basement because we thought that a bombing warning had been announced. We got ready and headed off across the bridge to Metalurgiv Avenue. We turned in the direction of Amstor, which is near the Kalchik River. We went on through the green zone and reached... what’s the name, I think it was Bakhmutska Street, where the fuel station was, if you go in that direction.

Well, when we were there, we came under fire. Some snipers started shooting at us. They probably shot at us not to kill but rather to correct our movement because the bullets flew by with a whistling sound. We could hear it very well. It was very loud and our ears were blocked.

And one of the bullets…, I don’t know where they shot, I could not tell the flight path. One of the bullets pierced my wife’s hand with a fragment. I was carrying our son in my arms and she was walking behind me. It pierced her hand. We all hid in the private houses’ area. We put a bandage on her hand using our handkerchiefs and a change of underwear for that purpose and ventured to run towards the 21st micro-district, in the direction of the russian checkpoints. There were a lot of them there. At the fourth checkpoint, they called in their Z-car and took us to the regional intensive care hospital in the 17th micro-district. Naturally, there was no electricity there. Only the surgery department had some power supply. They examined her hand – it turned out there were no splinters inside it. They plastered it, bandaged it, and sent us home. They told us to change the bandage every two days. We went to our relatives who had a car and since we managed to clear the debris of their damaged garage, we got that dusty car out of there.

We were able to leave by that car in two rounds. First, we took out my wounded wife with our son, my sister, and me, and the rest of the relatives left on the second round.

We drove in the direction of Berdiansk for about half a day and spent several days in Berdiansk then. There was a complete crisis there at that time. Almost nothing was available on the shop shelves. Just some sausage and bread. Well, that was what we ate there. In Berdiansk, we got on one of the buses that travelled to Zaporizhzhia in a convoy. The trip to Zaporizhzhia took us 32 hours. The convoy, which was the first one standing near Vasylivka, spent the night in the field. After that, we came to Zaporizhzhia. We had her bandages changed when in Berdiansk. We are grateful to the doctors there who did not succumb to the intimidation from the invaders and continued to provide medical assistance to everyone without exception, while the invaders demanded that only the wounded russian military be served there. Right on the day when we went to have her bandage changed, a large landing ship was blown up in the port.

After that, we came to Zaporizhzhia, thank God. Well, by the way, when we reached the government-controlled territory, our child was taken to the hospital. He suffered from dehydration. Well, his body weakened because the regime that we had tried to maintain in peacetime was not observed at all. So we had to go to the hospital and get some drips. We stayed in the hospital for several days getting some drips because our health was terribly affected. I still remain optimistic. I tend to look at things with optimism more often. Yes, they took away everything from us but we have remained [alive] for some reason, for some mission.

Those who left Mariupol, they are needed on this earth for some purpose, and I think that if we hold on, if our country holds on, this is needed for some reason. I think that the help of our Western partners… Well, on the one hand, some people say that it is limited, while others say that it is coming in sufficient quantities. Basically, I believe that we will be able to end this war at the negotiating table but as a party that has liberated its territories.