On February 24, at approximately 5:15 am a bomb fell pretty close to us, and plaster from the ceiling started falling. I usually get up early, and my 9-year-old son woke up from the explosion, so I had to calm him down, explain something… We lived in a private house on the Left shore, where everything started. Back in 2014, the village Sorokino was made into a buffer zone; there were shots fired every now and again, but they didn’t reach us. And the last couple of years were completely quiet.

There was a rocket sticking out of the asphalt

On the 24, about 10 minutes after the first explosion, a rocket fell on the next street. A direct hit to the house killed the family, and in our house the windows shook, and the ceiling lamps in the bedroom and the kitchen fell. That’s when Sasha actually woke up: he got terrified and started crying. Until then it looked as if I didn’t believe in what was happening.

At 6 am the power was cut. I went outside: there was police, an ambulance, and the fire rig by the demolished house. My friends lived right across the street; their windows were blown out, and the slating came off the roof.

Then the shellings became more frequent. My older son, who lives separately, came over. We weren’t sure what to do with my parents: my mom is bedridden, she had a stroke last fall. Eventually, the parents decided to stay: no one would hurt them they thought. And my kids and I went to the city. The older kid went to his friend, and the younger one and I went to my friends’ place. And every morning I came to visit the parents: change the diapers, bring medications, feed them. There were hits, the sound of rockets, but I kept coming while I could….

Once as I was approaching our neighborhood I couldn’t help but scream in the car, because I was so scared. There were houses and cars on fire; a rocket was sticking out of the asphalt; the cobblestones were turned over, and cinderblocks were lying around. I only calmed down when I saw my parents.

Another time a friend asked me to check in on his parents: they lived a block away. I left the car behind and crawled through the bushes: the noise of rockets; houses demolished and burning…

The last time I visited my parents was on March 7. I wanted to bring them along and I found two men who would carry my mom from the apartment. They said they would get her to the car, but honestly, it was not clear if it was safer. There were rumors that DPR and Chechen soldiers were already on the Left Shore, and things were coming to an end here, while they were just starting up in other neighborhoods. So, my mom and dad decided to stay…

I was not able to come to them after that. Intensive fighting started up; they blew up the Post-bridge. When I was driving back the last time, I saw a shot-out civilian car, covered in blood. On March 12, they started shelling the city center. I wanted to bring my older son to join us in the Ilyichevsky neighborhood — there was less shelling there.

Anyway, I came up Central Post Office and could not believe my eyes. Everything was on fire. You could not recognize the downtown. The post office, the hospital, the 9-floor residential buildings, and cars were all on fire with windows blasted out. I was with my friend Lena, who wanted to see what was going on with her apartment.

I have only seen stuff like that in the movies

That’s how we were taught: from entryway to entryway. And then 200 meters in front of us a garbage truck was hit directly.
We carefully walked around it and crossed the Prospekt Mira. I couldn’t find my son: the door was locked; I ran through all the basements; and shouted his last name — all in vain. We started going back. I have only seen similar images in the movies: balconies lying on the ground, windows, stuff thrown by the blast; and cars that burned out overnight; it was just impossible to walk through. We ran into an entryway, and I asked this man: when did all this happen? He said that the first plane appeared around 11 pm, and hit the car parked by the house.

Then there was intense shelling, and another plane came at 3 am. It was silent everywhere: people weren’t even making food. It was noon already, but nobody came out. The residents were lying in their apartments, screaming, but the police officer said that the hospitals were full, and there was no place to take them in…

At that point, we were warned that the tanks were coming and there would be a difficult battle, we’d better get out. Lena started crying, saying “You and I will never get out of here”. I told her we would make it and our kids were waiting for us. We started going in short bursts: we would just leave the building entryway and then a rocket would explode just 50 meters away from us, and then we would run to another entryway, and just keep going like that, while they were reloading we tried to run as far as we could.

None of our relatives knew if we were alive or not. I have two sisters living in Israel. That day I managed to send a text from the store “A 1000 Little Things”. That was the only place with reception.

When the bombs fell far away, e.g. on Azovmash, we didn’t duck. And when a plane flew over the store “A 1000 Little Things,” people fell to the ground. I told Lena that we should do that too. That was the lesson learned by others. Anyway, we got back by the evening, with nothing much to show for the trip.

There was a silver lining: the neighbors became friends, and Lena and I were in such a state of shock that when they saw our eyes, they immediately poured us a shot of a strong drink because we couldn’t even speak. At that moment I realized that the proverbial "a shot of liquid bravery" was such a big deal during WWII.

We ate twice a day: 8 am and closer to lunch

On March 2 they cut the reception, on March 4 the power was gone, and on March 6 there was no gas. Some women got hysterical and got on the men’s nerves, and they were the ones to bring the water and light the fires. With them, it sometimes took a joke, a hug, and sometimes a strong word to calm them down. We even celebrated March 8th: someone brought a bar of chocolate, and we each got a small square. When a plane flew overhead, the kids would get scared and scream as they were clinging to the ground. We used to pray. I remember when a plane would fly over, Elvira would cover her head with her hands and pray. The apartment was awfully cold: our lips were chapped, same with hands and noses. The kids would get sick, and I don’t even know how the parents survived.

We ate twice a day: at 8 am and about 1-2 pm. We were starving but realized that if we didn’t stick together, we wouldn’t make it. We shared every morsel of bread, and made soups together; someone got canned meat or a whole raw chicken with feathers, and we exchanged those for some chopped wood. We fed everyone, even elderly people who couldn’t provide for themselves.

I ended up finding my son later, thanks to his boss: he owned the Internet provider Trinity. When the shellings started, a few dozen people hid in their offices, including Sergei. The Ukrainian soldiers came there to repair their phones, portable radios, etc. Someone saw them and reported it, because soon there was a sniper stationed across the street from the office who would start shooting whenever anyone tried to exit, and it didn’t matter if it was an elderly person or someone walking the dog. They had to climb out through the windows. Then when the shellings intensified, the boss found a bus and took everyone to his home at Belosarayskaya. Unfortunately, from March 2 to 18 I had no news from my son.

A house exploded before my eyes

On March 18 they started heavy shellings in the Ilyechevsk neighborhood: a house exploded before my eyes. It was cinematic: planks flying around, smoke, and I was looking at it from my window. Then we decided that we had to leave. We had three families with cars, and then we saw a procession of other civilian cars: they had white pieces of fabric attached with “Children” written on the front shields. But nobody held their fire - there was no “green corridor”. People just drove through the shelling, and we followed them. We went really fast through street fighting, everything exploding. We saw a soldier’s helmet on the ground, some boots, a tank, ammo crates, supplies…

People were standing by the road and asking to take at least one person: the neighbors wanted to give us their kid, but the car was full… Although I always gave rides when I was going to my parents; they wanted to pay, but how could I take any money?

The checkpoints started closer to Mangush: they checked our things and demanded that we delete photos from the phones. The soldier found a photo on my phone, and asked: what is this?

-Don’t you see, it’s a destroyed building.
-It needs to be deleted.

He spent a lot of time going through my phone. Then there was another checkpoint by Tokmak: the soldiers were standing there, cursing and joking. They started to shoot. I turned my head, and the fire stopped. Then I just couldn’t but say, "Could you please at least not fire here? You can see that we are civilians.” One apologized and said that he would go and tell the others. And another one, a redhead, got agitated and said “This is a war, don’t you get it?” I told him to look in the car; there was a child there who didn’t sleep at night, and I tried to explain to him that this was a war when he ducked from the shots and explosions. I suggested he would explain war to him. He responded that we called them orcs. I bit my tongue because I would have stayed there if I started arguing. I just asked if they were going to keep looking through the suitcases. The second one said to let us go.

Am I a Benderovite?

At the next checkpoint one of the soldiers stopped us, checked everything, and tried to strike up a conversation: only benderovites live in Ukraine.

-Who are benderovites? I am speaking to you in Russian; am I a Benderovite?
-They are going to pay us for all, for 2014. It will be their end.
-Who are they? Me?
-No, the Nazi. “Azov” folks, none of them will escape alive.
-You think we didn’t live well. Look at us, at the cars.
-No, we will come and put things right.
-For me when things are right, I wake up, and my family and parents are with me. I go to work during the day and go to sleep at night. That’s when things are right, that’s not what you are talking about.

By Pology we encountered the Chechens.
-Come out! Don’t you know that tinted windows are prohibited?
-The car was this way when I bought it. How could I know it? We’ve had no reception since March 2nd.
-So, you don’t look things up on the Internet?
-Again, no reception since March 2nd.
-Take it off!
-I am a woman; I don’t know how to do it.
-I can use my machine gun to help.

His partner took him to the side and was like, come on, calm down. And then he told me to remove it at home, and let me go.

I’ve never felt the joy I experienced when I saw the Ukrainian flag at the first checkpoint. Before the war, I used to have the same attitude and I thought that it was all politics. And now… I have a friend in Moscow, and I can’t talk to her. Everything changed over a moment’s notice.

My younger son gets scared of every little sound after everything he went through

I still don’t know where many of my friends are. There is no connection, and I don’t know if they are alive… One of my friends is divorced, and his ex-wife left their son with the grandparents. And there is no connection. I told him to give me their contacts so that I could look for them too. He called back in 10 minutes: no need to look for them. They hid in a basement during a shelling; a direct hit killed everyone. The neighbors buried them in the garden: the father-in-law, mother-in-law, their older son, and my friend’s son.

This will never be forgotten; you can see that even in internal Mariupol chats. Although some are still trying to find excuses and justify Russia: it was provoked. Was Russia provoked to shell, bomb, and march with tanks?

My younger son is very fragile, and I was trying to protect his mental health. But he still gets scared of every little sound. When we were in Zaporizhzhya, there was an explosion at Khortyzia, and he came out of the room and burst into crying. He was crying and shaking; we barely calmed him down.

He has a friend, a girl he met in a dancing class. And this girl has an older sister with a four-year-old daughter. Their family was cooking food outside when a bomb fell and killed the sister and her daughter. And Diana, who danced with Sasha, ended up with shrapnel in her head and a shattered heel bone. Their dad posts on Facebook and cries all the time. Diana was taken to Germany for surgery.

Another friend of mine was straight up thrown out of his house: the Chechens came and told him to leave because they would be fighting there. He said they were put on buses and taken to Yaroslavl, and then he managed to get to Georgia via Moscow. He is a sailor, with tattoos, albeit old ones. And still, they picked on him at the checkpoints. One of the soldiers told his partner to ask him a few questions, and if he didn’t like the answers, he could detain him. He wanted to speak his mind but eventually, he bit his tongue, and they let him go. When he got back on the bus, and this was almost at the border, and it was mostly Georgians there, they started hugging him and offered to come over for khachapuri.

Another young woman I know only left the basement in April. I told her I would have to come back to get my parents, and she warned me not to because it was scary there, and there were corpses on the streets.

I started looking at Russians differently

In Berdyansk, when they gave us food, we kissed the bread. It shouldn’t be like that. We were staying in a children’s camp there, and we started getting reception. A neighbor wrote to me that our house was hit. On April 7, another neighbor said that her brother walked by and saw that my parents were still alive; the house was almost intact, and the neighbors fed my parents. They come over and cook food in the fire pit.

Then I started looking for volunteers that could get my parents out. I tried going back to take them, and it didn’t work out. What can I do? My mom has had a stroke, and my father now has gangrene. I even thought about going through Russia and DNR to Novoazovsk.

I contacted everyone I could think of: the Ministry of Emergency Management and Disaster Response in DNR and Russia. When I found out about my dad’s gangrene, I called the occupation headquarters and asked them to give my parents humanitarian aid, at least medications. But no…

My father is a Jew. So, from Zaporizhzhya, I called the Hesed case worker, and she gave me the number for our rabbi, Mendl Cohen. He was the only one who agreed to help. I will pray for him. He didn’t even ask if I came to community events or not. And pretty much the next day he sent a photo of my parents in the car. Now they are in Rostov, waiting for repatriation to Israel, just like me. My Jews got me out. And my parents too.

My cousin invited us to Russia. She is from Mariupol but has been living in Russia since 2014. She understands everything and wants to help with her whole heart. But I just have a mental block on everything Russia-related. I started looking at Russians differently; I wasn’t like that. I always knew that every nation has shitty people, and you couldn’t judge everyone by those. But now I’m not so sure about that. Many people have relatives there, who keep repeating: “We will liberate you.” That tore so many families apart! You try to explain to them that a city has been demolished, children are dying, the maternity ward was bombed, and so was the theater, it’s all much scarier than on TV.

Oxana’s older son, Sergei, a customer service representative for the Trinity Internet provider

My wife and I lived in the East area, that’s the closest neighborhood to the demarcation line with DNR. On the 24th we heard faraway explosions at 5 am, but didn’t pay attention them. At 7 am there was a big explosion; I opened the window and heard a siren.

We moved to my colleague’s place at a different part of the city and thought they wouldn’t get there. On March 3 we went to get some food, and suddenly there were rockets right above us, and they were hitting near by. After that, we moved to the office of our company, Trinity, and there were approximately 30-40 of us living on the ground floor.

We went to buy supplies with some colleagues, and by then the Ukrainian soldiers had opened the stores and said that it would be better for the locals to get the supplies than for the occupiers. And then Silpo supermarket was hit. It folded and burned; Grad rockets were falling close by, and we tried to carry out some of the food.

It became extremely tough on March 5-6 with shellings and air raids. The 9-floor-apartment building close by completely fell down. We were hit by Grads every morning. The shelling would start at 6-6:30 am, and down the street, there wasn’t a single house that was not hit. On March 12 it became unbearable; there must have been a spotter somewhere, and if anyone left the building, even women or elderly, the shelling would start.
On March 14 our office was hit; one of the rooms was just blown out. At that point we had some other colleagues come, and apparently, some movement was spotted and they started firing with precision. Two people got contusions and one was really hurt by the shrapnel. For a week there was a corpse lying by the office, and it was just covered up. A friend of mine died when his apartment was hit directly. He, his mother, and his grandmother burned alive.

Finally, everyone realized that we needed to get out. We had 4 cars for 30 people and managed to get out even under shellings. We spent five days at the house of one of the company directors at Belosarayskaya. And then we got to Zaporizhzhya on a bus. There were a lot of checkpoints, and at every one they stopped us, told us to get out, and interrogated us. One time a soldier asked what Zaporizhzhya was! They looked for drugs and asked to share! They almost took my phone, because they found something.

I only saw two soldiers in Russian army uniform by Berdyansk. Everyone else just had green uniforms. There was this guy who seemed to be about 16 years old at one of the checkpoints; his machine gun was bigger than him.

From Zaporizhzhya, we took an evacuation train to my wife’s relatives in Rovno. Before it was only a minority that had animosity towards Russia, and now there is hatred. My wife’s best friend from childhood lives in Russia, and she still believes that Russia is liberating us from the Nazis…