On the 24^th, I woke up at 4 am due to two powerful explosions close to home. I figured that the war had started although it was hard to believe that. I packed documents and money into a backpack, grabbed my 14-year-old son and our cat, and headed to work. For a few hours it was relatively quiet, but at 8:15, the shelling started again and has not stopped.

We lived and worked at the hospital and slept on chairs

At first we thought that it would be over soon and waited for negotiations. Everyone remembered 2014 and hoped that the war would be over in a week or two. But the negotiations didn’t yield anything, and on March 2^nd, the Internet, power, gas, and water were all cut off. Sometimes someone would manage to get reception and hope would spring again—there would be another round of negotiations, and then another one. The battles were intensifying and getting closer. There were buildings hit; many wounded civilians came in with shrapnel wounds. We stopped waiting for a miracle; also, it was no longer possible to get out of the city as there was shooting on all the roads. So we kept working at the hospital, and slept there on the chairs and in the hallway of the admin building. It seemed like the rule of two walls was followed, and the walls were load bearing. Some came with relatives, thinking that it was safer at the hospital.

And then an aerial bomb fell nearby and blew out all the windows. The shrapnel sliced through a car parked close by, and it exploded. That dispelled the myth that we were “safer at the hospital,” and we had to go down to the basement. Ambulances were still running, and some people managed to leave.

On February 28^th, we got a complaint about a strong gas smell. Yet the hospital had no gas. We started looking for the source and found a gas pipe broken with a piece of shrapnel in the basement of a nearby pharmacy. After that, our hospital plumbers found the valve and closed it.

There were many buildings like that in the city, so the gas was soon shut off. There wasn’t enough water either, but we got it from heating radiators and used it as non-drinking water. There was a fire station close by, and they would sometimes bring us water. In a few days, they started intentionally shelling that station and, eventually, destroyed it.

There was no power, but the generator that supplied the surgery department was working. We put bags of sand around the generator, and we could charge our phones there. There was no service, so we used our smartphones as flashlights, sparingly, albeit—all the windows were facing the street, and there was a lot of gunfire there…

They started killing us from the very beginning

How did we eat? I started the kettle in the morning, put some buckwheat in a bowl, poured water over it, covered it with a plate, and then wrapped it in a blanket. In a couple of hours, the buckwheat was ready with no need to boil it. Yes, it was not very delicious and kind of bland, but what could you do? I remember us sitting in the basement and I said, “I would give anything for a bottle of Coca-Cola.” And that same day volunteers brought us Coca-Cola. I took a picture of my son sitting there, beaming.

It was so cold that our legs started to ache. We had to get blankets from the hospital rooms; many people got sick. We huddled together for warmth and slept in winter clothes and hats… More than 30 people, nurses and other employees, lived like that, and we had staff from other hospitals stay over—those who couldn’t make it to their own jobs. Everyone got to their departments and worked. Also, there were plumbers, electricians, and volunteers who just wanted to help. The elevators weren’t working. We quickly triaged the wounded people in the emergency room, did small surgeries, and then we had to manually get them up either to the main surgery block or to the departments.

From the very first day there were more civilians than military folks among the wounded, about five to one. People had to leave their homes; they were looking for relatives, getting food or trying to escape. Mostly, we saw people with shrapnel wounds, and there were a lot of children during the first days.

There is a well-known video from Mariupol in which our anesthesiologist Dr. Bilash was resuscitating a little girl. This family, the parents and their 3.5-year-old girl, decided to evacuate. They ended up coming under shelling and were brought to our hospital. We tried to save them, but they died in the emergency room…

It’s no secret that Mariupol was a fairly pro-Russian city, and if there had been some kind of a referendum during peaceful times, I can’t rule out that many people would have voted for joining Russia. But they started killing us from the very beginning. They just came in their tanks and fired—buildings were burning, wounded people were lying on the streets, many people were killed. The opportunities to reach the outside world ran out, and so did our medicine…

Mobilized people from the DPR and LPR with machine guns attacked doctors

On March 12^th or 13^th, give or take, Russian soldiers burst in and started looking for Ukrainian soldiers, saying that they’d come to liberate us. We asked, “From whom?” And they said, “You don’t understand anything. You are being terrorized.”
So, it’s us who don’t understand anything? We had jobs, families, and places to live. And you, the “liberators,” are killing us and destroying our homes. Why? “We have orders,” said the Russians.

Back then, we did not know how they would act. We naively believed that the hospitals would not be touched. They are neutral; we helped everyone. And that’s what we told them, “Come on, you’ll need to have your wounded treated somewhere as well.”

But soon, a Russian tank came and opened fire on the hospital. We had three departments: incoming trauma, two floors of surgery, and ear-nose. And a tank opened fire—the beams collapsed, it was a miracle that some patients survived, but after that, there were no windows, no walls. Patients in grave condition (it’s neurosurgery after all) ended up practically on the street. The Russians took over the admin building, which, of course, was not touched, and their headquarters was at the blood transfusion station.

But the regular Russian army was just the first wave. Then came the mobilized soldiers from DPR and LPR. They were the ones “guarding” the hospital. They were truly something; they would keep getting drunk, immediately broke down all the doors, looted everything they could, and attacked the doctors while holding machine guns. We tried to confront them and tell them that it was not okay to act like that. Back then, we did not understand who we were dealing with. A few times, they threatened doctors with machine guns. “If you try to leave the hospital, we will shoot you.” Then it turned out that not only did they steal everything, they also opened our food storage and started giving away food to score points with the locals.

And then they went through the apartment buildings and basements where people were hiding out and said that they were about to start a massive round of cleansing, looking for spies, Ukrainian soldiers, etc., and then they sent everyone to the hospital. And people from all over the neighborhood started arriving with their children, pets, and belongings. The DPR soldiers ordered us to shelter and feed them. We were appalled. “Feed them with what?! You were the ones who gave away all our supplies.” We couldn’t even take proper care of the patients.

Afterwards, though, they brought a field kitchen and fed the people from the basement twice a day.

According to their leader, they were ordered to fully capture Mariupol by March 20^th. He said, “And then it will all be okay. The new administration will arrive, they will build apartment buildings for you, and give out compensation.”

The DPR Minister of Health invited me to stay and work “with them”

On March 19^th, they raised the Russian flag above the hospital, but the shelling was just as intense. That is to say, they did not capture the city by their deadline. They just kept telling us that Azov was hiding behind civilians, but they were the ones in the hospital with weapons and grenade launchers. And next to them were patients and doctors who were working.

Hospital #3 was in Mariupol—that’s the one that had the maternity ward that was bombed—so all the wounded birthing women with children were brought to us; there was nowhere else to take them.

One day, we discovered that you could get service on the roof. It was dangerous—snipers could get you, but there was a chance to reach someone. And we started going up to the seventh and eighth floors, calling people we knew, looking up news online, and found out that Facebook had volunteer contacts.

On March 20^th, give or take, some big Russian bureaucrats came, that’s what they said. “We are from Moscow.” The DPR representatives came running, the advisors to the head of the DPR, their assistants, etc. Then came the Minister of Health for the DPR with his supervisor, the head of the “republic.” They started thanking us for maintaining the hospital, invited us to stay and work with them, offered good salaries, etc. We refused but said that we would not abandon the hospital until they sent over the new team of medics. That’s what we decided on, and after that, the soldiers didn’t threaten to shoot us.

The replacement crew was supposed to arrive on Saturday, March 23^rd. We arranged everything with the volunteers for the same day. They brought my son and me to Volodarsk. We spent the night on the street; they gave us canned meat and pasta… And then the buses started toward Zaporizhzhia the next day.
Along the way, we passed about fifteen DPR checkpoints—they led all men off the bus, checked their tattoos, blisters, and phones. We were told to remove all photos with scenes of destruction, wounded, all chats with “suspicious” conversations, etc. Usually it takes about 3-4 hours to get to Zaporizhzhia; we spent more than 30 hours on the road.

We had no destination point; we were trying to get away from here. My apartment building was hit; the panels separated, the balcony was torn off, everything in the apartments was smashed, too. And my parents’ building was hit too and there was a fire.

We sent our kid to Israel and his grandma to Russia

Back in the winter, we thought about the Naale program (for receiving a high school diploma in Israel). My son looked through the promotional materials, watched some videos, and then once we left Mariupol, we read in a group run by The Jewish Agency for Israel about the Kdam Naale program for teens under 16. We boarded the evacuation train to Lviv; our compartment had 12 people and a cat. Each compartment had 2-3 pets and we took turns bringing them to kids and adults to pet; it is really powerful therapy.

Then we went to Budapest for our consulate appointment, and that was where our problems started. The consul demanded an official extracted record from my husband’s birth certificate, and you can only get it in a civil registration office in Ukraine. So, I left my son with friends and returned to Ukraine to get the record. And you know what I was told at the civil registration office in Uzhhorod? “Why do you need the extracted record if you have the original, and it takes precedence?” In other words, I spent all the money I had left on a trip to get a strange document, and, to be honest, it felt like a mockery, especially when you are so low physically and psychologically. But thank god, it was worth it. Sasha was accepted into the program and is waiting for his flight!

So we sent our kid to Israel, and his grandma went to Russia; we have relatives in Moscow and the Moscow region. I can’t communicate with these relatives since the war started.

Questions like “How are you doing?” seem out of place, to say the least. Once they said, “It’s okay, grandma survived the war, and grandpa survived as well. Don’t worry, it will all be okay.” And how do you reply to that? That grandma survived the war aginst the fascists and you are now acting like fascists toward us?

Instead of a post scriptum. Three months later.

I settled in Lviv, found a relatively inexpensive place, and am teaching English online. During times of crisis, our bodies activate, and it’s only a few months after the fact that things start going wrong. We suffer from illnesses and kidney issues because of the cold.

I don’t want to leave Ukraine; my parents are still in Mariupol. Sometimes I manage to send them medications and some items with volunteers. It’s funny sometimes. I wanted to send them matches, but all matchboxes have Ukrainian flags on them…

It’s hard to understand what is going on there currently; the folks who stayed say that everything is fine. Here is a specific example. The apartment of a family I know who was in the basement got hit and everything was torched: documents, money, phones, everything they had. And they stayed living in the basement. They can’t get jobs because they have no documents. They can’t get aid for the same reason. But they refuse any offers to leave. “We are fine.” In a basement, during the winter. And there are many people like them.

For us this is unthinkable—children’s performances on a giant cemetery

My parents are more than eighty years old. It’s scary for them to move, not to mention that their apartment would be looted the moment they leave. The building has all its windows blasted out, and the new government replaced only the ones that face the street. My parents’ apartment faces the inner courtyard; they also had everything torn, the balcony has been torn apart, but nobody is rushing to fix it, since you can’t see it from the street.

And many are happy. They are fixing up the theater, etc. For us, it’s unthinkable—children’s performances on top of a giant cemetery, but they are glad. The kids started school; they attend Russian patriotism classes. And you think, “How are we going to live with this after it’s all over?” We are not going to send these people to Russia, and we won’t tell Russia to take them with them, but it makes me uneasy…

And coming back is a financial matter too. If refugees have no money to rent a place to live in mainland Ukraine, and the conditions in Europe can be really tough, as I know from some people, folks return, even to Mariupol.

Now we are finding out that many people died. My parents’ friends, for example. Mom went to visit them, got to the fourth floor and saw that the apartment suffered a direct hit. They burned there. No way to extract them or bury them.

My son’s classmate lost his father—direct hit to the apartment. The kid and the mom survived; the boy was evacuated and took part in a meeting with Zelensky. They were on TV.

We know a family from a neighborhood nearby; they have a 17-year-old girl. The head of the family was also killed. And many people are just hard to contact. We look for each other in group chats, but not everyone responds. We don’t know for sure that they are dead, but there is less and less hope.

Sasha is studying in Israel; he lives in a youth village by Netanya . He is into sports now. I am very grateful to the administration; they care for kids, entertain them, distract them, try to counteract the negative experience of war and evacuation.

I blocked my Moscow relatives. What can they say to me? How everything will be great for us? It won’t. What can I wish them? To have their husbands sent to war? Why get on each other’s nerves?