Svitlana (49)

May 6, 2023, Púchov. The 436th day of the war.

Usually, we first talk, and only after the conversation, I create a portrait of the person who has opened their heart to me. This time it was the opposite. Svitlana asked me to do this. She told me she would surely cry, and she put on makeup for the photoshoot. At that moment, I only knew her name and that she came from Mariupol. A city that the Russians razed to the ground. We spent several hours together. In the end, she showed me photos of her apartment building and the school where she used to teach. Before and after. Although those buildings still stand, it is clear above all that the first one cannot be lived in, and the children will not return to the second one. However, Svitlana wants to go back. But she’s unable to do it right now. I sincerely wish her to be surrounded by loving and helpful people and to continue feeling safe in Slovakia. Her life and the lives of millions of others would be easier if there was the strength to forget. But that is not possible. Please, let us not forget either!

"My name is Svitlana. I lived in Mariupol for over 40 years. I spent my childhood there, graduated from school. I briefly moved to Donetsk, where I attended university. After my studies, I returned and worked at a school as a teacher of the Ukrainian language and literature. I served as the school's principal for the last 4 years. I had big plans and many projects in mind. My daughter is 25 years old and lives in Kyiv, and my 20-year-old son was evacuated with me during the attacks on the city. Fortunately, he is now safe and studying English at a university in Ireland."

"We have known war in Mariupol since 2014. Shelling, bombings, and other horrors were experienced by the rest of Ukraine only in 2022. My children had their first taste of war when my son was in the fifth grade, and my daughter was in the eleventh. They knew what it was like to study when the windows were shaking and explosions could be heard. Mariupol was occupied for two months at that time. The so-called DNR government came, taking control of all local authorities. We didn't know what would happen to us. Thanks to the Azov Battalion, the city was liberated, and Mariupol became Ukrainian again. We managed to push the enemy out of the city boundaries and kept them there for another 8 years. Despite the close combat, our city developed, flourished, many buildings were reconstructed, new parks, squares, schools, and hospitals were built.”

"On February 24, 2022, my daughter called me and said that the war had started. We believed that we were safe because three defensive lines had been established in the east. When my daughter told me that they were bombing Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Odessa, I knew the situation was serious."

"I sent my son to his grandmother, who lived in a safer neighbourhood. Education moved to the online space. We didn't expect that the Russians would attack the Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. We thought that in the 21st century, this couldn't happen because civilization had reached a high level, and a war in Europe defied all logic. We hoped they would only claim Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The mayor reassured us that there was no need to panic, just to endure. In the afternoon, explosions were not only coming from the east; it seemed like they were attacking us from all sides. I decided to go home. On the way, I only bought what I considered essential; I didn't think I needed to stock up for two weeks, a month, or a longer period."

"At home, my parents, sister, and son were waiting for me, saying that we had to flee Mariupol. However, I had a duty to the teachers and students; I couldn't leave. I had to deal with salaries, work plans, access to teaching materials. I waited for recommendations, instructions, believing that I would return there, that the shelling would end, and we would lead a peaceful life again. Transportation was hardly functioning, the whole city was under fire. We thought the war would come from the east, and we could escape to the west. Every day, the situation worsened.”

"Since I hadn't stocked up on food, on the second day, we had nothing to eat. My son and I ran to our house for our last meal, and Ukrainian tanks were everywhere. Our house was located right on the front line where the two armies clashed. My son suggested that we cook soup for the soldiers as a sign of gratitude. I agreed. However, due to the ongoing fighting, we couldn't deliver it to them. We hoped we would be able to do so the next day, but the gunfire didn't stop."

"Our last purchase was 6 dozen eggs. We shared them with friends. Grenades were flying through the air, and many landed very close. At first, we were in the apartment on the first floor. Then we slept in the hallway. We moved mattresses and blankets there, even slept on the floor. We spent the whole day there, waiting for some kind of resolution. But in vain. We were in an information vacuum. We didn't know that troops had come from Crimea, and more soldiers were approaching from the west. The electricity was no longer available in the entire city, and internet and phone connections were deteriorating. I still had contact with my daughter. She had been evacuated from Kyiv to the western part of Ukraine."

"Mariupol is divided into two parts by a river. We thought that when we crossed to the other side, it would be safer because we would be closer to Ukraine. We hoped we could leave from there. My son wanted to go to the centre to a shelter in the theatre or to his high school, where someone might organize an evacuation. I was afraid. The situation was chaotic, and leaving the house was dangerous. There was almost constant gunfire.”

"My son noticed that during lunchtime, the soldiers weren't shooting. Before we dared to go outside, the gunfire started again. We were completely surrounded. It was our great fortune that we were hiding at my mom's place. Older people always have a lot of food supplies."

"In March, enemy tanks started firing directly at homes. We moved into the basements. There was no ventilation there. I thought we wouldn't last even a day. There were about 50 people there. On the first day, we slept on the floor. Gradually, we added chairs and mattresses. We slept fully clothed because it was freezing. When the heating stopped working, the temperature in the basement dropped to zero. We lived in darkness, piled on top of each other with layers of clothing. We ran out of candles for light and heating. Fortunately, there were people nearby who took a battery from a car and connected an LED strip to it. They shared it with us, so we had at least a little light. It wasn't enough for reading, but at least we could see each other. There was no gas, so we had to cook directly in the basement over an open flame. Going outside was dangerous. We heard about people who went outside to make tea near the entrance and were shot."

"My mom didn't go outside for about a month. My father was the least afraid, and whenever the fighting subsided, he would try to find out what the situation was like outside. Next to the entrance, we eventually set up a fireplace where we used to cook. Most often, we cooked potatoes. Over time, I stopped being afraid, and my son started going outside to help me. One day, a grenade landed around the corner of our apartment building. My son was incredibly lucky not to be hit by any shrapnel. After a while, looting started in the city. At first, it was a crime, but later it was about survival. Neighbours found full cans of nail polish remover in a beauty salon. It burned well and didn't produce smoke. They brought some to us, and we could cook twice a day.”

"I remember how, in the early days, my son and I ran home for food and water. It was probably the worst experience. You're running, and gunfire is all around you, darting from entrance to entrance, seeking cover. You see remnants of the city where you've spent your entire life and numerous corpses. Everything was destroyed. We took blankets, and we had a 10-minute run back. It felt like an eternity."

"That was the last time we were home. We didn't take anything that could remind us of our previous life. Photographs, letters, personal belongings, nothing. For Ukrainians, food is the most important. It's said that the fear of hunger is deeply ingrained in us. Stalin caused a famine in Ukraine in 1933, and my grandmother and my husband's grandmother survived it. These memories are passed from generation to generation. You can have empty pockets, but you can't have an empty pantry. This has also passed on to my son. Although he was born in the times of independent Ukraine and didn't know what it's like to starve, he would regularly ask how much food we had left, for how long? We noticed people walking down the street with bags of food. There was a store nearby guarded by soldiers, and they let people in to take what they needed. Taking alcohol was prohibited. We took everything we needed, with the feeling that a bomb could fall on us at any moment. And then it began. Another air raid and bombardment. We ran for our lives, with our hands full of food that we couldn't afford to lose because it could mean our death."

"Sometime around March 8th, it started snowing. We were happy. It was cold, but in that snow, we could wash ourselves and all the dishes, and at least for a moment, we didn't see the devastation. Snow or rain were a blessing for us. We were truly living in inhuman conditions, but none of us fell ill even once. We often used throat gargling medicines as a preventive measure.”

"I told myself that the war in Georgia lasted for 7 days, and Ukraine is slightly larger, so occupying us would take the Russians about 2 weeks. We had a calendar on the wall where we marked the days of the war. My sister had watercolours, and we painted flowers and other beautiful things on the walls. It comforted us. A small joke book we found helped us survive too. We read it in bits and pieces every day and burst into laughter. Others didn't understand what was happening; they thought we had gone crazy, that we were losing it."

"We received information from our radio and later only from the Russian one. We listened to what was happening from their perspective, but we didn't know the real reality. We learned about the bombing of the theatre, where about 600 people, mostly children, died, about the bombed maternity ward, schools, houses. My daughter was in western Ukraine. We had no contact with her for two weeks. I can't even imagine what she must have been going through. We had no way to charge our phones."

"We met a young family, a 24-year-old boy who started stuttering because of the explosions, and his pregnant wife, Dasha. We convinced them to flee together. On my daughter's birthday, we managed to get in touch with her by phone. She advised us to leave immediately through Russia. I was incredibly scared; I had heard many stories of evacuation vehicles being shot at.”

"Shortly after, we encountered the first soldiers - Kadyrovtsy. We froze completely because we hadn't heard anything good about them. They checked our passports and let us through. I prayed that they wouldn't take my son to the front; he was already over 18. Enemies were all around us, men with long beards and weapons slung over their shoulders. We stopped in a village on the way, where Dasha's mother lived. About 50 meters from the house, there was a machine gun nest from which they were firing at our Mariupol. We didn't hear any return fire. By the end of March, our defenders were running out of ammunition."

"To enter Russian territory, you have to go through a filtration camp. There were many people in it, many arrived in evacuation buses or on foot along the sea. When we arrived in Bezimenne, the line of cars started about two kilometers before the village. We stood in it for 4 days. We had no food, and we thought we would reach Russia within a day. Those who didn't have any bribes had to stand in the line for up to 10 days. It was unbelievably cold, and it froze at night. Our entire bodies ached from the cold. When we finally reached the camp, we immediately sought medical help. My son was very sick. I hoped they would give him medication. They examined him, sprayed something in his throat, and that was it."

"We stayed in the camp for several days. Volunteers brought us food and tea. We spent the whole day outside by the fire. We might have been there much longer if one of the commanders hadn't started asking about his girlfriend from Mariupol one day. Dasha had seen her posts on Facebook, gave him her contact, and helped him get in touch with her. As a thank you, he moved us closer to the actual filtration area and parked our car at the front of the line. The worst part of our stay awaited us because filtration meant a huge humiliation and degradation of a person's dignity.”

"My family is patriotic; we value the country in which we were born and where we lived. We were clear about who the aggressor was, who was shooting at whom, who came to destroy us. People often say it's all politics, but for us, it wasn't politics; they came to us with weapons in their hands to kill us. They destroyed my apartment, where everything burned down. Because of them, I had to erase from my phone photos, memories, any mention that I supported our army, that I was a patriot. Also, posts on Facebook, Viber, and other apps. However, I forgot to check and delete contacts."

"There were two tents in the front, one for men and one for women. I was told they would ask us something, register us, and let us through. However, if they found something, the ordeal would begin. I went from table to table; they asked me the same questions everywhere, trying to catch me. During the filtration, they check your family, acquaintances. In the end, you have to fill out a questionnaire consisting of 30 questions - do you have family members in the army, police? Do you know pro-Ukrainian people in your area? If you showed yourself as a patriot, they would mark you as a Nazi. You had to claim that Donetsk, Luhansk, or Mariupol were part of Russia. You had to express a negative opinion about the Ukrainian government. Otherwise, you were an enemy. Each of the interrogators insisted that you say something negative about Ukraine or that you report someone. I was most afraid of the question of why I don't like Ukraine. The only reason that occurred to me was corruption. Fortunately, a young guy was interrogating me, and he didn't ask too much.”

"In the second tent, they were filtering the men. They stripped everyone and checked if they had any patriotic or Nazi tattoos, or any bruises on their shoulders, which would indicate that they had carried a weapon and shot at someone. One man approached me and asked if I was Svetlana from the grey car? I understood that something was wrong with my son. He led me to the second tent, where I saw my son, stripped naked and all red like a tomato. Besides being sick, it was very hot in the tents, and obviously, he felt embarrassed. They positioned me back to back with him, and the barrage of questions began. I quickly figured out why they thought we were Nazis. He received a message from his sister in which she wrote that we should leave the city because it would be occupied soon. How are we occupiers? We came to liberate you! Not even the fact that the message was in Russian helped. I made up an argument that politicians in Ukraine currently required this kind of language, and she could be punished if she didn't use it. On one photo, they noticed that I had a small Ukrainian emblem on my costume. Again, they started yelling that I was a Nazi. I didn't give up; I explained that as a school principal, I had to wear the emblem. They countered that I was a traitor and betraying the fighters in DNR and LNR. I replied that I had two children, and when I wanted to raise them, I needed a good job. Three of them took turns interrogating us. Finally, they said that my son would have to join the soldiers. I burst into tears and said that he was an IT specialist, not a soldier, and that he had health problems. Suddenly, I became a bad mother who influenced her son and didn't want to let him fulfill his duty and be a proud Russian. The questions kept repeating. I didn't know how to get out of this; I imagined that they would lock me up, and my son would go to the front. One of the interrogators started shouting at me that if I really supported the Russians, they would record a video with me where I would express my opinions on everything, and they would broadcast it on television in the evening so that the whole of Ukraine would know my views. Exhausted, I said, 'Feel free to record me!' I didn't care anymore; I just wanted to get out of there safely with my son. In the end, by some miracle, they let us go without recording a video. Probably our young friends had inquired about us with the commander, whom they had helped, and he allowed us to be called.”

"They still detained my son; he had to change his clothes. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life. It turned out they asked him the same questions again, wanting the name of someone with pro-Ukrainian and (in their view) Nazi views. He told them he didn't know anyone like that. He didn't want to betray anyone. At that moment, he remembered his friend, whom he knew was in Europe, and he thought it wouldn't harm her. When they asked him how Russia was betrayed, he told them she danced folk dances and celebrated Ukrainian national holidays. Can you understand how such nonsense was enough for them? They finally released my son; he was very tired. He wanted to stay there overnight, but I knew we had to leave. In the queue, I saw quite a few familiar faces; after all, I was the school principal. You never know who will slip up when pressured. I never hid my pro-Ukrainian position. It could have happened that some parent or child accused me of Nazism. The interrogation process even extended to children as young as 14. Furthermore, I was a teacher of the Ukrainian language and literature, so if they wanted to, they could find a reason. During the filtration, you could experience all sorts of things. There were cases where children were separated from their parents and taken somewhere into Russia."

"At the border, I exchanged hryvnias for rubles. There wasn't a long line at the customs, maybe 10 cars, but to my surprise, we had to go through a similar process as in the tents, although much faster. This time, we were screened directly by FSB members. When we crossed the border, my son started jumping with joy in the car. My cousin was waiting for us, who came for us in a car. We said goodbye to our young friends. We thought we were safe, but about five minutes later, Russian traffic police stopped us. A complete car search began. They found a yellow piece of paper in my son's jacket pocket. They started looking at it with interest, saying that bullets were wrapped in such papers. You wouldn't believe how furious I was. Really? Bullets? My son remembered that he had it from school, where they wrapped buns or cakes in them. My son kept his cool and exclaimed, 'For God's sake, won't I even have peace in Russia anymore!? We fled here from the war, and they're still terrorizing us. I thought it would be safe here, and I would be free!'... They let us go.”

"We went to visit my old mother, whom we hadn't seen for eight years because we couldn't travel to her once the war began. Grandma hoped that we would stay for at least 2 days. We had lunch, and then we left. My son was very uneasy being in Russia. He told me that when he sees a police officer, he feels like he has to undress. We continued our journey to Moscow to meet my brother, who would take us to the Latvian border. There, my brother's friend lived, and we were supposed to meet him at the border, and he would help us get to Slovakia. We spent the night at a checkpoint. The FSB was checking everything. Russians were passing through the border quickly, but Ukrainians had their passports taken and had to wait for hours. We were exhausted. Eventually, the police came, returned our passports, and told us to 'go.' We crossed the border, and there were signs in Latin script everywhere. When I saw that, I burst into tears. All the emotions I had been holding in since the time we were hiding in the basement came pouring out. I knew I was safe and free."

"In Slovakia, we finally had access to information. We watched television and found out what was happening back home. Finally, I could get in touch with my friends and colleagues from Mariupol and learned their sad stories, how they had nothing to eat and often had to deal with injuries. The city's emergency services weren't functioning, and when the injuries were serious, people were dying. I heard about acquaintances who died while trying to find food or water. They were shot on the streets. It was a period of total terror and fear that affected everyone.”

"My son had this tick that whenever there was shooting and he was stressed, he would make a clucking sound and lean against a wall. He did this for a long time after we left Ukraine. Our neighbours had a six-month-old baby who cried when they took it outside for the first time because it wasn't used to the daylight and sun. When we were leaving the city, it was completely destroyed. There wasn't a single undamaged house. When we caught a signal on the ninth floor to call our daughter, there was smoke everywhere. It looked like autumn fog through which you could see the burnt-out houses. If a house started burning, especially after the Russians began using new munitions that caused fires, there was nothing you could do about it. Firefighters practically ceased to exist. People tried to move furniture away from the walls so that the potential fire wouldn't spread so quickly, but it didn't work because the fire even spread through sockets and the smallest openings in the apartment. Fortunately, our apartment building didn't burn down, but it had no windows left as the daily explosions shattered them. Even if you had your own basement, it didn't mean that the DNR soldiers wouldn't come and kick you out to set up a base. This happened to my parents just a few days after we left."

"Fortunately, they had a cottage. They spent the entire summer there, growing vegetables, and my father caught fish. In Ukraine, you don't need any permits; everyone can catch as many fish as they want. Their apartment, which was 8 km away, they had to check every day because they were afraid of it being robbed or occupied by someone else. When autumn came, the heating wasn't working. The new administration did distribute space heaters, but they worked so poorly that my parents had to sleep in their winter coats. My mom's sister came to visit them, but the living conditions were terrible. The apartments were cold even during the day, prices were high, and medical care was provided, but nobody knew for how long. We managed to convince all of them to leave the city. Now they live in Trencin, Slovakia, and dream of returning when the city is liberated.”

"Son wanted to continue his studies at a university. At that time, there were no agreements signed between schools and our countries, and he didn't know Slovak, so it wasn't possible in Bratislava or Zilina. He said he could only communicate in Slovak here, but in English anywhere in the world. So he left for Ireland for a few months, but his mental state wasn't improving there. He still had those ticks I mentioned earlier. When he returned to Slovakia, fortunately, they stopped. He said he felt at home here because he wasn't alone, unlike in Ireland. He managed to recover here. We hoped to return home in winter or January, but it's still not possible."

"The war didn't only affect us; other cities were also destroyed. However, we had been preparing for war for almost 10 years. We had already been occupied once. Other cities like Berdiansk or Melitopol were occupied within a day or a few days, but we actively defended ourselves. We were a large city with half a million inhabitants. Three defensive lines were built to the east of the city, and the Russians arrived from there even later than from the west. There were many military units defending us, and that was the reason for the destruction of our city - our indomitable spirit and refusal to surrender. There isn't much left of the city. My acquaintances sent me photos of our school, our neighbourhood, the theatre, etc. Everything was destroyed or at least severely damaged. They also visited our apartment. It had completely burned down. The only things that remained were metal structures and metal shelves from the library where I had about two hundred books."

"Most of my colleagues didn't stay in the city. The school no longer exists, and most of the teachers and students are scattered all over the world. Some returned to Ukraine or even to Russia after some time. Almost everyone there has family ties.”

"The history of our region and city has always been complex. The city was officially founded in 1778, but before that, there were Cossack settlements, Tatars, and Greeks in the area. The city was developed as a port under Catherine the Great with numerous factories. Azovstal also grew on the foundations of ironworks from the tsarist era. Mariupol experienced rapid development. It was a beautiful city full of parks and fountains. As soon as Ukraine gained independence, many churches were built in the city, which were destroyed during Soviet times. It wasn't until 2014 that darkness began to descend upon us. Even after the liberation of the city, we were shelled. My son almost lost his life. He used to play basketball and had a morning practice. It was a Saturday, and he didn't feel like going. Luckily, he stayed home, and a rocket hit there. During another shelling in 2015, 31 people lost their lives. However, the city managed to move forward. A huge music festival was organized here, attracting people from all over Ukraine."

"What we worked so hard for is now in ruins. I ask myself whether we'll have the money for repairs, who will do it, and when? Will they build new apartments for us right away, or will we have to wait another 10 years? For now, we have to find a place to live. If I were younger, it would be easier. But I'm here, and as long as I have the strength, I'll keep working. We would like to take out a mortgage to buy our own apartment.”

"I think that humanity doesn't learn from its own mistakes, and wars will repeat themselves. We didn't believe that something like this could happen, especially between Russians and us. We had some experience, but we didn't expect a major war; it was beyond our imagination. It made no sense. We thought Putin was just making threats. He is an unpredictable person with access to nuclear weapons. Among Russians, there are people who understand that it was a mistake, but especially the older generation believes the propaganda they hear every day. It's all absurd. And in the meantime, people are dying under rockets, tanks, and drone attacks. I don't know if one can live with the awareness of supporting the slaughter of a once-close nation. Taxes from every purchase go to armament, so everyone living there is essentially supporting the war, even if it's just buying bread for breakfast.”

"We are a strong nation. My brother and daughter think that Kyiv is a safe city. They have the entire government and command there, so they believe it's well protected. I cannot bring myself to return there yet. I've developed some sort of phobia. I am happy where I am, and above all, I am safe here. My son recently confessed to me that his conscious life is all about the war. He doesn't remember a time when we didn't experience war in Mariupol, a time when he didn't have to hide from flying shrapnel or wait in a basement during an air raid on a summer day when he should have been playing on the street. I feel very sorry for him, and I hope the war ends soon, and we can return home.”

"I want everyone to know what happened to us, to understand how important it is to fight for peace! All the children in Ukraine are children of war. In Slovakia, I work with children in a family setting, and I see their happy, carefree faces, while I imagine our children somewhere in the dust in a basement. But I believe it will end soon! Glory to Ukraine!"