Life in Russian-occupied Mariupol-Story of survivor
2023.02.22 02:15
Life in Russian-occupied Mariupol-Story of survivor
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – Tatiana Bushlanova spoke to Reuters in front of the shattered remains of her home in Mariupol in May, despite the nearby explosion of shells. Although fighting in the port city has long since ended, the pensioner is still struggling to comprehend the magnitude of what has occurred.
The “special military operation” that Moscow launched in Ukraine on February 24 last year targeted Mariupol because of its strategic location on the Sea of Azov.
After a siege that lasted nearly three months, the last Ukrainian defenders emerged from the vast Azovstal steelworks’ underground tunnels and surrendered to Russian forces, who then took control of the city in May.
By that time, a lot of Mariupol had been destroyed, and tens of thousands of people had died in the city, where more than half of the 450,000 people who lived there before the war had fled.
Tatiana, who is still in Mariupol, claimed that the city’s devastation and death had hardened hearts.
“People were devastated. Angry, everyone is acting strangely now. In interviews conducted prior to the first anniversary of the war, the 65-year-old said, “I don’t see a lot of kindness out there.” The interviews were conducted near her current residence, which is now a pile of rubble.
She recalled that an explosion tore off the hand of one of her old neighbors, that a neighbor’s son was killed by a shell as he went about his business, and that one of her old neighbors was killed when debris crushed him after an explosion.
She lamented that she and her 63-year-old husband Nikolai had nowhere to go as she sat by herself on a bench in the courtyard of her destroyed apartment block, surrounded by blackened walls and collapsed balconies.
Even though there was no running water, electricity, or gas, they held on for two more months because they were reluctant to leave their 20-year-old home. Their son Yevgeny and his family fled to Crimea, Russia’s 2014 acquisition of the Black Sea peninsula.
“We wanted to eat, but we didn’t want to leave. When we went out, things were flying everywhere; Going outside to cook something scared me,” she said.
They were one of the ten families who left the building last.
She stated, “People have gone wherever they could get to.”
She and her husband now live in an apartment that used to belong to a couple named Andrei and Marina. They were killed by shelling as the Russian military fought the Ukrainian army to take control of Mariupol. The apartment is about a kilometer (or half a mile) away.
The young couple were buried in makeshift graves outside the building for weeks after their deaths. They were buried here in the courtyard all the time until they were reburied in August. She stated, “It was kind of creepy for me.”
Bushlanova said that life in Mariupol was beginning to look a little better as new apartment blocks were being built by the city’s Russian-installed authorities, despite the trauma that she and her husband have endured.
Tatiana said, reflecting on the cataclysmic changes she had witnessed in the city whose name became synonymous with death and destruction, “Some kind of hope has emerged.”
A significant long-term reconstruction plan for the city has been announced by Russian officials, who have also switched schools to the standard Russian curriculum, which is taught in Russian.
Tatiana and Nikolai tried to make themselves at home in their temporary home after moving in July by rearranging salvaged furniture and displaying their saved family photos.
“The excavator stood there and took the building down bit by bit,” as their old apartment block was demolished, but getting compensation takes a long time.
The couple requested a $1,350 statutory payment of 100,000 rubles. “Tatiana stated, “They said we’d find out in 70 days (if they receive the handout), and if not, they’ll probably put us in the queue for an apartment.”
In the meantime, Tatiana said it was hard for them to live on her low salary as a cleaner and their two pensions, which each cost 10,000 roubles per month. Tatiana said this was hard because food had become so expensive.
Tatiana declares that they will remain in the city they have called home for decades despite the fact that Mariupol is still under Russian control and there is no sign of an end to the conflict.
“Please pardon me, but where else will we spend our final years?” No, we’ll live them around here,” she said.
“We are waiting for our own apartment and peace. That is all we require right now in this life.”
