Some of the city’s residents are relaxing on the beach, while their neighbors can’t imagine returning to normal life after the horrors of this spring, although they are slowly coming to terms with the fact that Mariupol will remain under Russian rule. An independent Belarusian portal wrote about it Mirrorwho asked about the conditions in the city of locals.
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“If the pressure is good, the water reaches us up to the fourth floor. And if not, we go to the ground floor, where there is a fire hydrant with a faucet,” says the 28-year-old man from Mariupol. He adds that people on the left bank of the city are not so lucky, because the water supply has not yet been restored there. So the locals have to get up at five in the morning to stand in line for water, which on better days is delivered in tankers.
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The man describes that at one point he lived in a two-room apartment with 15 relatives. “We survived, thank God. We could leave even now, but we have several apartments here, even if they are in houses with damaged roofs,” he says. According to him, there is a risk that the family could lose their real estate, because the city administration recommends people who lost a roof over their heads during the fighting to find an abandoned apartment and occupy it.
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Rescuers search the ruins of the collapsed buildings in Mariupol
Photo: Alexander Ermochenko, Reuters
It is cooked on the street
Fifty-year-old Vadym describes that there are eight bus lines in the city. It is possible to come to the city without major obstacles from Russia or from the internationally unrecognized separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, but according to the Vadyms, it is “probably difficult” to get to Mariupol from the rest of Ukraine. There are security checks at the exits from the city. Humanitarian aid, such as bread or pasta, is still given out in the neighborhoods, and other food is provided by people in shops or markets. Vadym has to cook outside in front of the house.
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With concern, Vadym looks at the assurances of the Ukrainian authorities that Kyiv will get the city back by military means. “No one here wants to experience it again. It’s not that we want to live in Russia, but we just want to live,” he explains.
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Kateryna, a library worker who has a house in a village about a 10-minute drive from Mariupol, shakes her head at the fact that her neighbors drive to the beach, despite the possibility of running into mines there. It is also striking in Kateryna’s story that, according to her words, the library where she works was flooded by readers during the fighting.
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“When there was no Internet, a huge number of people showed up,” he says. Even now, the internet in the city is not great, the Belarusian portal found out. Ukrainian mobile operators no longer operate in Mariupol, people have to get SIM cards from the provider Fenix, which operates in territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists. There are long queues for cards.
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NO COMMENT: At the entrance to Mariupol, the Russian flag is flying and the sign is in Russian colors, the first ships with grain have arrived in the demined port
Video: AP
“We have little information, of course, there is no lighting here, let alone television,” says Vadym. But there are screens in some places in the city where people can watch the news. According to Vadym, the residents of Mariupol also have newspapers at their disposal. Vadym noticed that they often talk about the shelling of Donetsk, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists. When asked whether the available newspapers read about the shelling of Kharkiv or Mykolaiv, i.e. cities under Ukrainian administration, he replied that he had not noticed anything like that.
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People have no choice
The ruins of houses in Mariupol are being dismantled by its residents themselves. It is currently one of the main job opportunities in the city. Vady was also hired for this job. “I think they have all recovered the bodies from under the rubble. Otherwise we would smell dead. So there are still graves in the yards,” he says.
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Rescuers search the ruins of the collapsed buildings in Mariupol
Photo: Alexander Ermochenko, Reuters
Kateryna also reconciles with the prospect that Mariupol will remain in Russian hands. According to her, people have no choice. “We have nowhere to go, we have houses there. And whether we want it or not, we will return to them, because Ukrainians will not be helped everywhere forever,” he thinks. A week ago, she and her children left Mariupol for the Czech Republic, but she intends to return.
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There is bitterness in her words. “Of course, I’m angry with Russia, but also with Ukraine – it didn’t protect Mariupol enough, we had few soldiers,” says this 42-year-old woman.
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