Confessions Of A Fierce Mariupol Resident Surviving Hell
“I have a wife, an 11-year-old son, and a 28-year-old daughter on maternity leave. My grandson was one year and four months old when the Russian invasion began in February. My daughter’s husband is a Ukrainian soldier in combat, so my daughter and grandson were with us. We lived near the Azovstal steel mill.”
“Initially, my family was evacuated to an underground shelter and only I remained in my apartment. As water, electricity, and gas were cut off soon after the war started, we collected snow and rainwater and filtered the water to secure drinking water. Meals were cooked on the balcony. It was dangerous to go outside because of the constant shelling, all the windows were broken, and shell fragments flew at us every day. Ukrainian officers came and advised me to evacuate my family to the Azovstal steel plant, but I did not want my windowless apartment to be ransacked by thieves. My family did not want to leave me alone, so I refused the officer’s recommendation.”
On March 11, a soldier from the Azov Regiment came to the apartment, and with a tense look on his face, he warned:
‘Your room will become a position of the Azov Regiment. You must evacuate to a shelter immediately!’
‘We can’t breathe because of the fire.”
With hIs car destroyed and no means of transportation, Igor, holding hIs one-year-old grandson in his arms, ran out of his burning apartment into the street and ran hard toward another apartment, dousing himself in sparks of fire.
“Bullets came from the right and the left,” he said, “and they blocked my way. I ran to the nearest apartment and the residents opened the door and let me into the shelter, but it was small and full of people. We are in no condition to stay there very long.”
“A few days later we decided to head to the center of town. As we start to drive through the ruined city, an explosion occurs, and earth and sand start to rain down on us. We were almost at the Azovstal steel plant when the air raid started.”
