My son called me on the morning of the 24th “Dad, the war has started!” I received my pension the same day and managed to take out almost the entire amount. On the 27th, I spoke to my ex-wife for the last time. She was visiting our son in Kharkiv region, and then the signal cut out. We gradually began losing power, gas, electricity, phone, and then Internet: a total blockade, a camera obscura, if you will. At first the explosions were far away, but it was hardly pleasant for us to hear. Then they kept getting closer and closer, until the bombs were exploding practically next to our houses.


Our house left in ruins

I lived close to the Oktyabr production plant, where apparently some Ukrainian soldiers were located. Our house, one of the last Stalin-era apartment buildings, was basically sheltering the plant. Basically, they left it in ruins, and Russians simply burned out the apartments. The building had holes going all the way through. You could stand by one wall and see the next street.

Before they broke all the windows, I stayed in the apartment during the day and went to the shelter at night: it was a little quieter there, after all. We lived in darkness, with a candle or a little oil lamp. At first we cooked food on open fires in our shared courtyard, and then when things got really bad, and the explosions were happening nearby, we moved the fire pit to the building lobby. We chopped wood, fried, boiled, and roasted food there…. There was a shortage of wood by then: we had chopped up all the furniture from apartments.

Then we started getting humanitarian aid from Russia. But there were terrible queues and . I personally went to the field kitchen for 2-3 weeks. You needed to get up at the break of dawn to get in line, and they would give out food twice: buckwheat, rice, and potatoes. They would add a few cans of meat to a huge pot, just some jelly-like substance. So mostly we made food ourselves and then wiped off the plates with toilet paper to save water.

When all the windows were blown out (and it was a cold March), I basically moved to the basement. Sometimes I would run outside: to chop some wood, cook something, whatever was necessary. I slept fully clothed for two months, like in that Soviet song: how many months since I took off my shirt; how many months since I unbuckled the belt... I covered myself with multiple blankets.

People adapt quickly. It would be impossible to survive otherwise. You start getting used to things, even children were brought out for walks. There was a girl, about four years old: she wasn’t afraid of explosions, or of the noise from planes and helicopters. There were 20 square meters for 11 people – extremely crowded.

There was a fire pit by every section of the building. We used them to cook food, and used big crates from Russian shells as wood. I saw a bunch of these crates – each one was marked up and indicated the type of shell. I don’t know anything about it, but the date of manufacturing was surprising to see. The most recent ones were from 1984-1986! And many were from the 1970’s….

We counted eight bodies in the yard, including three children

I used to go get water (2-3 kilometers from my house): tie a bottle to the wheelie bag and off I would go. There would be shells above me and bombs falling close by. I would always think of this old song: “if death comes, let it be quick” (from the song He Was Ordered West). And by the well there was a white van with a sign that read “volunteers.” I peeked into it: there were four bodies inside, and blood dripping from the door. They were there for a week, then someone took them away. (I saw this van in a documentary about Mariupol six months later). I saw a soldier with his head bashed in, with a bloody brain exposed. I don’t know if he was Russian or Ukrainian.

The corpses of civilians lay by the roads for a long time. I was walking down our Artem Street downtown and saw two bodies. I asked around, and people said the woman’s body had been there for a month.

The scariest date was March 12th, my birthday. I was stupid enough to stand with my back to the window while my next door neighbor and I were chatting. Then there was an explosion, and the blast shattered the entire window on my back. Everyone rushed to the shelter, and there was a bucket with tools by the entrance (spades, brooms, and rakes). Anyway, while everyone was rushing down, someone tripped over it, and it all fell on the stairs (about 15 steps). It was a miracle we didn’t break any bones. Only one person was injured, and we bandaged him up.

Then it was quiet for approximately ten minutes. I got up to my apartment, and suddenly I heard a woman screaming outside. I ran out and on the front steps there was a small bundle, already covered with a blanket, with some clothes. And the woman’s husband was there: “this is what was left of Larissa,” he said. I It was her sister screaming: she and Larissa led our apartment association. Then I counted eight bodies in the yard, including three children: two 14-year olds and one 10-year old. All dead.

One woman was with us in the basement. We talked a lot about history, and she shared her books. She was also killed that day. Her knee was shattered, and she lay in the middle of the yard with her leg twisted out. Those were my first tears. I turned 70 that day. My birthday gift was that I stayed alive. As they say, lucky me! I should probably be glad.

Over two months my mental health significantly deteriorated

This young man of about 20 lived with us in the basement . He had a face wound from a bone fragment that had cut his upper lip, blown out several teeth, and wounded his tongue. We called for a doctor, also from our apartment building. He came, but there were no tools and no medications. Anyway, he pulled the teeth out with his bare hands and even managed to sew up the tongue. He used vodka as an antiseptic.

Every yard had a small cemetery. How did we bury people? It’s hard to dig a standard grave, especially since we didn’t have all that much to eat. So we would dig about half a meter, put the body the best we could, cover it up with earth, and make a little mound. Sometimes you could see limbs sticking out, of course. The relatives would look for a piece of plywood and write the name and dates. Some people would write down a poem…

There were a few feeble older people in the shelter who essentially had to be carried in. Some died a “natural” death from the stress. There was this couple who were really good people. The woman once brought me a few boiled potatoes and a jar of hot water. I also tried to do something for them. My birthday was March 12th; hers was the 13th, so we exchanged small gifts.

Once I was sitting outside with her husband during a shelling, and she went down to the shelter. Perhaps she wasn’t feeling well. She didn’t make it to the morning. She was about 50 years old. Her husband said she had never complained about anything being wrong with her heart. I don’t know. We tried to help her, but there were no doctors, so…. He dug a small grave and buried her. He was stricken with grief: he kept going to the mound, he would sit down or lie down and cry. When they were getting me out, we waved to each other. If we could have hugged each other goodbye, I probably would have started crying.

Altogether, my mental health suffered a lot during those two months. I became sentimental, started crying easily, and my memory got worse. I never once washed up, or shaved, or brushed my teeth properly. I took an improvised shower maybe three times: washed my hair over a little bucket, and the water was black.

We lived like half-animals

We saw the Russian soldiers regularly. They would drive straight into our court yard in their APCs, tanks, and AIVs. Some of our women threw themselves at them. I don’t think it was sincere, but still.

One day I was walking down the street and a soldier called me over. I tried getting the passport from my pocket, but he waved me off and got a pack of cigarettes. I don’t smoke, so I traded it later for a can of meat. We used to have a little grocery store in our building. After the shelling started, it got closed down, and the owner moved to Kyiv. The Russians would use it, coming over often, especially for the free booze. One got a bunch of little vodka bottles, 250 ml each. He went out, looked at me, and gave me one. Under Stalin, people called prisoners of war traitors, but people just tried to survive. You could call me a traitor: I took from the hands of these soldiers. We lived as we could, as half animals. Moral humiliations are terrible.

We rarely interacted with the soldiers themselves. They occupied our houses and apartments. At first they would stay in the lobbies: they were scared that the Ukrainian army would suddenly appear. I didn’t empathize with them, but I also didn’t hate them. I was born in Russia, in Samara. Among my friends are Greeks, and Jews, and Germans. I am Jewish on my mother’s side, and Ukrainian on my father’s side.

These soldiers also weren’t living such great lives! They would ask for water and other stuff, and if you brought them a bottle of vodka, they would be ready to kiss you. We had a well in the yard, so we got non-drinking water there. I told the Russians: you must have tablets to clean the water. They said, yes, we had them, but they ran out a month ago. I asked: and what about your canned food? Do you still have any of the vegetable stew? They said, no. They ate the same repulsive porridge from the field kitchen that they gave to us. I noticed that they were all wearing different shoes: maybe they had looted them , or found them , or taken them from humanitarian aid packages, but they had different shoes and different hats. Everything was dirty and worn out. Their leadership didn’t really provide for them.

I call Mariupol a tragedy of the three A-s

The morning of April 25th a man came to our basement and called out my name. He took me to Bilosarayska (a resort area on the Azov Sea outside the city) Kosa. Even though I had lost 10 kg, the main thing I appreciated was not food, but a hot shower. It was the first time I took a proper shower. It had been so long since I had last shaved, they jokingly called me Hemingway and Karl Marx. And when I shaved and cut my hair, I couldn’t recognize myself. I had changed so much.

Then they moved us to Berdyansk. It was all through the Jewish community; I was part of the Hesed programs. Then we were brought to Crimea, to the village of Nikolaevka. I started getting better, although my mental health remains messed up, and I don’t know when it will get better. Many of my friends and neighbors died, after all.

In Crimea, they put us up in a small hotel with the help of some Jewish sponsors. They treated us well and cared for us. At one point, the woman who was cleaning got me off-balance. She cleaned very well, but one day she came wearing a T-shirt with the letter Z, maybe she just didn’t think about it. And then this family came from Moscow. Unlike us, they had come for a vacation and paid quite a lot by Mariupol standards. They were a good family with two children. The woman was very nice. And the son (about 10 years old) was wearing a t-shirt with Putin’s portrait and a sign: if you hurt me, you won’t live more than three days. They seemed like nice people, and they didn’t get that there were refugees there, who had lost everything…

On June 1st, they got us on a plane from Mineralnye Vody to Tel Aviv. They gave us a warm welcome, and provided us with everything: people brought clothes, shoes, and even books. I’m obsessed with literature, and have read quite a lot over my 70 years. I live in Netanya, and the people here are very kind and offer help. I have not seen any pro-Russian people here. My nephew lives in Hadera, however, says that Russians started this whole thing so Americans wouldn’t get to Ukraine. But I didn’t see any Americans in Mariupol, while I saw Russians every day.

I call what happened with Mariupol a tragedy of three As: Abyss of H ell, Apocalypse, and Armageddon. I keep thinking of the historical analogies: when we were isolated it was like the siege of Leningrad; our house that was in the line of fire was like the Pavlov House in Stalingrad. And of course the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. And Cato the Elder, who kept mumbling Carthago delenda est (Carthage must be destroyed). These are terrifying associations. Someone really wanted to destroy Mariupol and I think that Putin is in line for a new Nurenberg or Hague trial.

I recently saw a video clip saying that the city is coming back: the streets are being cleaned, and the stores and hospitals are reopening. People have gotten used to things, and it’s understandable. Not excusable, but understandable. If the Ukrainian army decides to get Mariupol back, there will be new shelling, and people will start hating Ukraine. They have survived so much, and finally gotten back to a semblance of normal life, even though it’s worse than before. People from Donetsk and Luhansk said that their life is poorer than in Ukraine, including in Mariupol.

What else can I say? Honestly, I want to forget a lot: these memories are bad, full of grief and tears.