Natalia (71)

May 8, 2022, Zilina. Day 73 of war. 

She sat by the bed and crocheted beautiful blankets. When I approached her, she did not hesitate for a moment and told me the story of a family that managed to escape from Mariupol. Her own family. For a while, her husband tried to join the conversation, but he could not break the thread of her thoughts. Thanks to her, I know how to make a candle. And also how difficult it was to leave Mariupol. Her husband wondered why they didn't meet more people from their town. Maybe they boarded the train that was supposed to take them to the Russian "refugee camp" in Vladivostok.

"To give you a better idea, the basement of an 8-story building is full of various communication lines, pipes, and other equipment. We covered the pipes and tubes with boards so that mattresses could be placed on them. We filled every joint with foam and taped curtains to the windows and doors to keep at least some human-generated heat in the room. Of course, you cannot cook in such conditions, you have to cook in front of the entrance of the block of flats, on an open fire. In addition, you have to watch whether a plane is flying over or a tank is not moving close by. On the next street, where the family was cooking in front of their door, a plane dropped a bomb on them. All died, two children and 5 adults. From then on, we started cooking on the mezzanine in case something fell on our street, so that we would have at least some chance of survival. In such conditions, you will also learn how to make candles, since you have no light in the basement. You take a can, pour oil into it, put a piece of potato in it, put cheesecloth through the potato, which absorbs the oil, and you have a home-made candle. We had 2-3 of them and thanks to that we didn't trip over each other in the dark.” 

"The Russians went through the city and turned it into emmental cheese. First, the tanks fired at the lower floors, then they attacked the upper floors with airplanes, and finally set the houses on fire. On March 21, it was the turn of our block of flats. We could only hear the shells penetrating deep into our apartments, and we were gradually deafened by the roar of falling mezzanines. All this caused a fire in our basement. There was panic. You could get out of the basement only through a single opening, which was about 80 x 80 centimeters big. At once, everyone, young or old, tried to get through this hole, holding the most important things they could take. One larger woman even got stuck, they couldn't get her out. They were pulling her from the outside, pushing her from the inside, and she just screamed that she couldn't feel her legs. She was finally pulled out, and the others jumped out of the basement after quickly, in fear. Fortunately, no one was killed, but you cannot imagine the stress we had to go through. I managed to take a bag with food, my daughter took 4 quilts. That was all we had left. Meanwhile, our apartment was already on fire, we had nowhere to go. In a situation like this, you have nowhere to run because the basement is on fire, your house is on fire, and bombs are exploding all around you, blowing into thousands of pieces, and you don't know which one might hit you and kill you. There were no firefighters, no doctors, nothing and no one to help you, you have to help yourself. Shops, schools, pharmacies, everything is destroyed.” 

"We were helped by an acquaintance, with whom we could stay. We were in a situation where we had no electricity, no water, only a roof over our heads and the sounds of flying mines, rockets and planes. You wake up in the morning and go to see where the smoke is coming from and where the gunshots are coming from. The worst time was when my husband was not at home during the attack on our block of flats. When he came looking for us, he didn't know where to go. He was looking for us for 3 days. Only when our part of the city was under the control of the Russians, who had patrols posted everywhere, 2 soldiers in front of each entrance, only then did I go into the city to look for him. I found him a few streets away. An acquaintance of ours also helped me in the search, who wanted to find him on a bicycle to make it faster. However, the soldiers started shooting at him. Although they only shot above his head, they wanted to scary him. I will always remember the white face he had when he came back. We ended up staying with our friend from 21 March to 7 April. It was impossible to leave the city because it was surrounded. Even those who tried to leave often ended up shot in their cars. I was very afraid to leave, we didn't know who we would run into. Our soldiers let people in cars go, but the Russians didn’t." 

"The Russians checked the fleeing people in detail. Especially men. They had to strip naked. They were looking for our Ukrainian soldiers. If you hold a gun long enough, you'll get calluses, and you'll often get bruises on your shoulder from slinging your gun. They let us go, but they registered all of us in some database. We managed to get from Mariupol to Taganrog in one day, others were not so lucky, they traveled for up to 3 days. This is where the filtration started. They took our fingerprints, all our passport data, we had to delete all photos from Mariupol, as well as contacts of all acquaintances. Only when they checked us did they let us go. However, many Mariupol residents were sent back. This is how we found ourselves in Russia, where we did not want to go, we always only talked about the fact that if there is a possibility to leave, we will stay on the soil of Ukraine.” 

"In Taganrog, we were supposed to get on the train that was supposed to take us directly to St. Petersburg. They told us to board the train on the right. Good thing we didn't listen to them, because in about a week news started to appear that the Mariupol people were in Vladivostok, and the journey from Taganrog to Vladivostok takes exactly one week. I can't confirm this for sure, but it makes sense to me. We did not stay in Russia, although I have a sister in Vladivostok, and my husband has 2 sisters living between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Finally, we took a train to Rostov, from there to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and from there we took a bus to Estonia. Next we went to Warsaw, to the Czech Republic, and finally here. My older daughter, who fled from Kyiv, was already here, and she managed to unite our family here.” 

"I could never have imagined that we would live to see this. We lived in a beautiful city, we built it. There were fountains, flowers everywhere, and today it's just a dot on the map. No one photographs it anymore, no films or documentaries are made about it. The DNR completely destroyed it, they argue that AZOV fighters were hiding in the houses. We have never met any AZOV soldiers in our homes."