Blockade diary: a woman who survived. Mariupol. Completion

Kostiantyn Golubtsov

Updated: March 27 2022 at 03:17 pm
Source: Надежда Сухорукова

Nadiya Sukhorukova is a journalist from Mariupol. From the first days of the war, she published posts on her Facebook page , where she filmed a poignant chronicle of events. This document, similar to the writings of Anna Frank and Victor Frankl, may serve as evidence of Russia's crimes against the civilian Ukrainian population.

March 18 at 5:05 pm ·

#mariupol #nadezhda My neighbor said that God left Mariupol. He was afraid of everything he saw. She reported this a week ago, and the day before yesterday, just before our departure, she ran into our basement compartment with a message that the house was on fire, one from ours. "It has some strange orange flames," she said. "I've never seen anything like it. Pray girls."

We did not know then that in half an hour we would leave this city and this reality. We sat and prayed. I read "Our Father" and for some reason forgot the words. My husband taught me this prayer. I haven't seen him since the start of the war. I am guilty before him. Because she went to visit her mother, and then she could not come to him. I really want to hear his voice. I want another little chance. To say the most important words. Which for some reason did not begin to speak, while there was a connection.

Every day in Mariupol we waited for everything to improve. We believed that the war was about to end and everything would be the same. Just a week ago, we were still out on the street. Once, between the bombings, we went to the Red Cross at Torgovaya. My friend's daughter recently gave birth to a son. They named him Nikita and he lived in the basement. We hardly took him outside because of the bombings, and the week-old child did not see the sun at all.

For his sake, we drove in a friend's car with the inscription "Children". This inscription did not protect against anything. On the way, we met the same car, with the same inscription, only broken and burned. She was hit by a shell and she was standing on the right lane. The ride was very scary. But some of the houses were still intact. The maternity hospital had not yet been set up, my colleague's husband had not died, and in our area there were lonely passers-by walking through the streets.

The street where we arrived was no more. There were ruins. Instead of a large store, a huge pit. Down from it not a single whole house. I didn't recognize this part of the city. The people who cleared the rubble said that an aerial bomb had fallen here the day before. The guys from the Red Cross collected glasses. The girl was surprisingly calm and to my question: "How are you?", She answered: "Everything is fine" and smiled. It was so weird. We haven't smiled in days.

There was no formula, no diapers. We were told that they were transferred to the hospital. We decided that we would go there tomorrow. A friend's daughter said that an amazing person. He and his doctors and nurses lived there around the clock, did not go home. Firstly, it was dangerous, and secondly, there was no replacement. And the women gave birth. Without electricity and water, in a cold delivery room and under bombardment. When the department ran out of food, the doctors began to give their supplies to the women in labor. Everything they had. The head physician brought cheese and sausage sandwiches. There was no bread. There was simply nowhere to buy it. There was absolutely nothing to buy. At first the shops were closed, then they began to be robbed.

There were no pharmacies. They were also robbed. My heart pills were running out and a harsh alternative loomed ahead. Die from a projectile or from cardiac arrest. Both of which I didn't really like. An unknown woman helped. A neighbor of our friends. I think her name is Lena. She gave away some of her medicines. Is free.

When people ran out of water, it began to snow, then rain. Mom said: "Nature helps us." Shooting in our area was not so intensive then, and two categories of neighbors gathered near the entrances. Some cooked food on a fire, the second with buckets stood under the drainpipes.

We were still talking to each other then. And I found out that water from the city water canal is brought to the corner of one of the streets every day. An ordinary Mariupol resident carries it in a huge barrel on his own initiative. He comes every day, and then stands under shelling and fills people's bottles with free drinking water. People periodically run away from there when they shoot hard and it becomes dangerous, they swear with each other for a place in the queue, and the water carrier silently fills the cylinders with them.

I don't know the name of this man and I hope he gets out of hell alive. Because I really want him to read these lines and hear my thanks, which I didn’t have time to tell him then.

March 20

#mariupol #nadezhda I go out into the street between bombings. I need to walk the dog. She constantly whines, trembles and hides behind my legs. I want to sleep all the time. My yard, surrounded by high-rise buildings, is quiet and dead. I'm no longer afraid to look around.

Opposite, the entrance to the one hundred and fifth house is burning down. The flames have devoured five floors and are slowly chewing on the sixth. In the room, the fire burns gently, as in a fireplace. Black charred windows stand without glass. From them, like tongues, curtains gnawed by flames fall out. I look at it calmly and doomed.

I'm sure I'll die soon. It's a matter of days. In this city, everyone is constantly waiting for death. I just wish it wasn't too scary. Three days ago, a friend of my older nephew came to us and said that there was a direct hit in the fire department. The rescuers died. One woman had her arm, leg and head torn off. I dream that my body parts will remain in place, even after the explosion of an air bomb.

I don't know why, but it seems important to me. Although, on the other hand, they will still not be buried during hostilities. This is how the police answered us when we caught them on the street and asked what to do with the dead grandmother of our friend. They advised to put her on the balcony. I wonder how many balconies are dead bodies?

Our house on Mira Avenue is the only one without direct hits. He was hit twice tangentially by shells, windows flew out in some apartments, but he was almost not injured and, compared to other houses, looks lucky.

The entire yard is covered in several layers of ash, glass, plastic and metal fragments. I try not to look at the iron fool who flew to the playground. I think it's a rocket, or maybe a mine. I don't care, it's just annoying. In the window of the third floor I see someone's face and I twitch. It turns out that I'm afraid of living people.

My dog starts to howl, and I understand that now they will shoot again. I stand in the daytime on the street, and around the cemetery silence. There are no cars, no voices, no children, no grandmothers on benches. Even the wind died. There are still a few people here. They lie on the side of the house and in the parking lot, covered with outerwear. I don't want to look at them. I'm afraid I'll see someone I know.

All life in my city is now smoldering in basements. It looks like a candle in our compartment. To extinguish it is nothing to do. Any vibration or breeze and darkness will come. I try to cry, but I can't. I feel sorry for myself, my family, my husband, neighbors, friends. I go back to the basement and listen to the vile iron rattle there. Two weeks have passed, and I no longer believe that there was once another life.

In Mariupol, people continue to sit in the basement. Every day it gets harder for them to survive. They have no water, food, light, they cannot even go outside because of the constant shelling. Mariupol residents must live. Help them. Tell about it. Let everyone know that civilians continue to be killed.

March 21

#mariupol #hope Do you know how scary it is to part now even for a few minutes? I keep telling myself that I'm not in hell anymore, but I keep hearing planes roar, startle at any loud sound, and pull my head into my shoulders. I'm scared when someone leaves. There, in hell, not everyone who left returned. Until the house of our acquaintances was bombed, a lot of people gathered there. Many ran between shelling and told what they saw on other streets.

The fragile girl Anya from the fifteen-story building came every day. Her parents lived near the school on Kirov and she was very worried about them. Couldn't transfer. For them, the distance of two stops was insurmountable. Her apartment is under the roof. The planes that bombed the city seemed to be circling just above the attic.

Every day, Anya went to her parents under shelling. Mines whistled around and lay down next to her. She fell to the ground and covered her head with her hands. She was very scared. The path was not very long for peacetime, but during the bombing almost impassable. Anna walked along it twice, back and forth, and saw how everything changed. Just yesterday, entire houses became ruins overnight. They stood pierced through with black eye sockets of burned-out windows.

I considered her a hero. She visited her parents and came to the house on Osipenko to breathe before returning to her apartment. She drank water, stood in the doorway and was silent. Sometimes she brought precious diapers or cream for Nikita's week. The baby lived in the basement of this house after his birth. It looked like a yellow chicken. He was sorely lacking in the sun.

Anya changed every day, just like the city. It became more and more transparent, and dark circles around the eyes more and more. Anna didn't eat anything. She said: “I can’t shove anything into myself, it doesn’t fit.” She did not talk about what she saw during her trips. There were many children with us and Anya did not want to scare anyone.

When they began to beat us non-stop in our area, I began to go to my parents every few days. I thought that she was so fragile and transparent that the fragments simply did not touch her. After the shell hit the house of our acquaintances and we moved to another basement, she was never seen again. She is now in Mariupol. She has no car, old parents and several cats.

On March 11, my friend's husband died. The day before, they came to us and dreamed that they would meet after the war. Vitya, my friend's husband, a cameraman from God, but a silent man, this time firmly promised that we would definitely meet after the victory. And then he didn't keep his word.

A day later, when everything rattled and clanged, as if a giant glass was being cut with an iron saw, an airplane hummed close, the children were in the basement, and the adults lay on a long sofa and covered their heads with pillows. I was still confused. I still don't understand why. I thought a pillow would save me from a bomb. At that moment, 13-year-old Sasha ran into the house. He shouted: "I'm Sasha! It just flew into our house. It's kick-ass." We asked: "Where is mom, is everyone alive?" He replied that everything, only dad fell asleep, and mom digs him out.

Then it turned out that dad fell asleep forever. The best operator, a very bright person, a loving father and husband, calm and kind, lay with a broken head and an unnaturally bent leg in his own apartment on the ninth floor. It was impossible to bury him. Get it too. A few days later, the entire entrance, along with Vitya, burned down. The house was again a direct hit.

There, in Mariupol, many things were not important. We ate from the same plate so as not to waste water on washing, slept on mattresses all together, it was warmer that way, wore hats and rushed to everyone we met to find out the news from the neighboring yard. We forgot that there are shops, that you can turn on the TV, chat on social networks, take a shower or go to sleep in a real bed.

Today it became known that less than 40 thousand people left the city during the entire blockade. There are still hundreds of thousands of people in hell. Every day it becomes more and more difficult for them to survive. Please help them. Tell the truth about my city.

March 21

#mariupol #nadezhda People, tell me what are you doing? Do you think you can profit from someone else's misfortune? Do you want to earn all the money in the world? In all areas, apartment prices are fabulous. Are you sure that money is worth human lives? Are you sure about that?

My beloved Mariupol residents still live in basements. In the cold, without light and water. Their houses are shaken by explosions, their lives are worse than hell, they lose loved ones and cannot bury them.

They share with each other the latest medicines, products, warmth. People, please think! As long as Mariupol stands, as long as it defends itself, you are safe. Mariupol residents are suffering and suffering, dying under bombs, and you are pulling money from them?

What do you do, who do you want to earn? I assure you for two weeks in the basement, I did not spend a single hryvnia. There was simply nowhere to spend them. No one snatched the leftover food from anyone's hands. Everyone shared. My friends and relatives, my neighbors and even unfamiliar people helped in any way they could. Is free.

When we arrived in Mangush, a very nice person settled us, 16 adults and children, a dog and cats, in his beautiful house. We slept in warm beds, washed in the bathroom and ate from different plates at the set table. I asked "How much does it cost?". He replied: "Who do you take me for?"

And his fellow villager sold to hungry people in broken and shelled cars, in dirty jackets, with their heads and hands bandaged, with children tortured from sleepless nights, feta cheese and cottage cheese for five hundred hryvnias. While we were waiting in line for the passage, we bought it because we really wanted to feed the children.

The day before we left, our basement ran out of food. We ate cold buckwheat soaked in water. I was afraid that my dog would not get it and gave my portion to her. For some reason I was sure that this night would be our last. She didn't want Angie to go to the rainbow hungry.

The neighbors in the basement also shared cookies with our children for free. It never occurred to anyone to ask for money for this. It was totally absurd.

You know that for ten days a family of four, of which two children, hosted 28 Mariupol residents in their home. Because their housing was either destroyed by shells or was at the epicenter of explosions. They fed people from their stocks, gave water, the opportunity to hide from the bombing. And they didn't take a dime.

And when a shell flew into the roof of this ark, they took everyone to the basement of the garage to sit out the especially terrible shelling.

Arrival at the house happened in the afternoon. We didn't want to leave the rooms at first. It seemed to me that the sound was so strong that our ark would fall apart. But he persevered. Fifteen people continued to sit, covering their heads with their hands and listening to the whistling and grinding outside the windows. There was an impression that everything was torn around the house.

A few minutes later the neighbors came running and started shouting: "Are you alive? You don't have a roof!"

A fire roared over a two-story house without a roof, and neighbors and strangers put out the flames, collecting rainwater from the old pool, under the shells of GRADs.

Imagine, they risked their lives just like that. Or they could ask for several thousand hryvnias for services. Just like those who are now cashing in on my friends and neighbors. Are you afraid? Are you afraid of anything?

My friend's mom put a huge brew on her head and climbed into the fire to save my dog. I wonder how much I should have paid her for this? In what currency?

All this time there was a terrible shelling, I was afraid to leave the garage. I was scared. I turned out to be the most useless person in extreme conditions. I just stood there, looked up at the sky and prayed. I have never prayed so much before.

I have a good memory, but at that time I again forgot the words of the prayer. I just asked: "Lord, please, let us be alive. One more day, please. But if you can't, then okay. And still try. I will never offend anyone again, just don't kill us, Lord"

How much do I have to pay him now for letting me live? What will be the price in wartime?

Today I learned that the occupiers dropped a bomb on the bomb shelter at the Art School on the Left Bank. More than three hundred people were hiding there. Mariupol continues to be destroyed. Please, Lord, help people stay alive.

March 23

#mariupol #nadezhda I will never walk along Prospekt Mira with a dog again. I will never again open my apartment with a key and will not be angry that the key is stuck.

I will not be able to walk around the spring city and take pictures of how beautifully the trees bloom on my Left Bank. Recently I found old photos of my two-story wooden houses. They are covered with February snow and look like fabulous. I want back. I want to Mariupol. I didn't say goodbye to him.

My husband, my friends, my neighbors, my life stayed there. By what right was it destroyed? By what right was tomorrow taken away from me, separated from my loved ones, deprived of the opportunity to live my own destiny?

What did I do to the Russian pilot who released air bombs on my city? He made two passes. First there was a terrible roar of the plane, and then a terrible blow. We counted in the basement and, after the second explosion, sighed with relief. Forgive me, even then we understood what it meant from an explosion and convulsions at home. We understood, but cravenly prayed that the bomb would fly past.

I know how many steps from my house to the next arch. I counted them, and when I ran under shelling. 42 steps. It was easier for me that way. Count steps, not explosions There was a concrete column in the house opposite. I pressed my back against her, and shells were exploding around. It was my island of safety and one day it was taken. There was a girl standing there. And I had a panic. I just froze in place and stood like that for a while. For some reason, I was not killed by fragments and was not torn apart by a mine. It's not meant to be.

I really want to return to my city, so much that I dream about it at night. Not broken, not mutilated. And the one that was before. These snow-covered houses and yards have happy children.

It was the snowiest day in February and the kids were sledding. A few weeks later, the first bombs fell on the city. They were thrown off by a Russian pilot. I imagined his face in the basement. Focused and attentive. He wanted to hit right on target. When the plane entered the second circle, I looked into his eyes and asked him not to kill us. How can he continue to live?

Yesterday I was told that after the central district they were shooting Primorsky. When we left the city, it was almost intact. Now it is leveled to the ground. Please stop this. Give people a chance to get involved. May as many people as possible be saved

Below is Torgovaya Street after the bombing. This video miraculously survived. I took pictures when we went to the red cross. I'm sorry that it was uneven and not everything worked out, but I was scared and I'm a bad operator. And there are snow-covered houses on the Left Bank. I found them on my phone. These houses were built by captured Germans. My husband and I walked there a lot after my heart surgery.