"I asked God for an easy death…."

Her mother’s heart stopped twice when their family was hiding from the bombing in the basement. Her father almost went blind after being beaten in a filtration camp. Seventeen-year-old Mariya from Mariupol asked God for a quick death, but now, when she is safe, she is actively fighting for her father’s health. The girl dreams of returning to Mariupol to play her bandura there, even on the city’s ruins.

My name is Mariya Vdovychenko. I am a Ukrainian from the city of Mariupol. Now my family – my mum and dad, my sister and me – are in a safe place.

Because our family received some threats. I cannot say where exactly. My mum actively followed the news and she knew that there would be war a week before it started, but none of us believed her. We tried to reassure her, saying, “Why are you so worried?” We did not stock up on food or water. We thought that everything would be fine.

But in the morning (it was four o’clock) our mum came into the room and said, “Wake up, the war has begun.”

I heard the first explosions. It was clear that our old life was over.

I watched how people went to the stores, bought up just everything, re-fuelled their cars, and tried to leave. At first, we were in panic and also thought about leaving, but it was too late – the fighting was already near the city.

We stayed in the city and started searching for some information on the Internet: what to do during the shelling, about first aid, and about a bomb shelter that we could find in the city. We just read it and went to the bomb shelter. We were looking for a it, we even called a person in charge. She said that the basements of our buildings were not designed to be the bomb shelters, so “do what you do”. My family and I decided to hide in the bathroom.

We hid there and stayed there until a bomb hit our house. Until the last moment, we reassured ourselves that it was all far away, but at the same time, we realized that something was wrong. When we were nailed down to the ground by the blast wave, we realized that our house was hit. My mum has been sick for six years – she has a nervous system disease. She had been very scared and stressed even before, but now after the house was hit...

She could not stand up on her feet, so my dad and I helped her to go down to the basement. We did not care what kind of basement; we simply had nowhere else to go. The shelling continued, and my sister was the first to run down to the basement. She started knocking. It was difficult for us to go down, and when we made it, we found my sister there.

We asked, “Why did not you come in?” She said they did not let her in. She kept knocking, someone was there, but they did not let us in.

We knocked, while the shelling continued. Stones were flying, pieces of slate were falling from the roofs, and we were just standing there. Then some man unlocked the door and said, “Sorry, but we cannot let you in.” Our dad did not listen to him. He just pushed the door and we went in. We were followed by a family with a small child. If we had not come in, more than one family would have died there. There were 20 people in the basement who looked at us with some hostility. They did not want to let us in. They were our neighbours. We do not understand why people did not unite, but rather showed some hostile attitude from the first seconds.

That was the blockade of Mariupol. There was no telephone signal, no electricity, gas and heating. Shops and even pharmacies were destroyed. None of the outlets was open. We were running out of food and water. When it snowed, it was very cold.

We melted the snow to have some water. We shared a piece of bread among four people. We ate once a day and tried to use everything sparingly, for as long as we could.

Seeing all these horrors, we knew that the war would not end so quickly. The people in the basement did not treat each other very well. Everyone tried to hide some food, take something from others and hide it. Everyone was for himself or for herself.

One terrible night, my mother’s heart stopped. There was dust in the city’s air all the time. There was incessant shelling. Our dad tried to resuscitate our mum and my sister and I just stood by and looked at it. We had a prayer, and our dad had a desire to save her. At that time, I felt the smell of death. I was afraid that she would die. I did not want to realize that we were in that basement. It was very scary, but our dad saved her, our mum was alive.

There was a night when we woke up earlier; it was at around one o’clock. We heard some strange sounds, as if trains were coming from both sides. Someone said that this was a new weapon. There was a crazy vibration; we felt everything that fell on us.

At that moment, I just knew that I would not be able to leave the place. While lying on that blanket, I realized that next to me were my family members, who had many plans before the war.

We had some dreams and things to do that we did not finish, although we really wanted to. We had a pretty good life, and I understood that someone was taking it all away from us, and for some reason we had to die in this basement. We could be buried under the rubble; we could remain there and not ever get out. I reconciled myself to the fact that we were going to die. I turned to God asking him to send me just an easy death.

Our dad understood that if our house was hit one more time, our mum would not survive it. There was less and less food, and we could die of hunger. Enemy soldiers walked around the city and looked who was in the basements. There were cases when people were hiding in the basement of a store on our street and they were simply set on fire. Not all of them managed to get out. People talked to each other trying to learn who wanted to leave and where.

Our dad decided that we had to get out of that hell. We took our car that was covered with pieces of broken glass. We managed to start up the car engine and left. We did not care where to go. The main thing was to be in a safe place without shooting and shelling. When we were approaching the checkpoint, it dawned on us that this was a “DPR” checkpoint, but there was nowhere to go back, so we just drove on. They asked us what was our registration (registered place of residence). We said that it was Mariupol and we were told that Mariupol residents should go to the right. We did not know what was there, what kind of road it was. We learned from people that it was possible to go through a filtration and then leave. Filtration was required to be able to move around in the territory of the Russian Federation.

We realized that further Ukrainian territories were occupied, and there was no other choice but to go through the filtration.

Filtration camps are not some kind of a settlement. It is a checkpoint where everything is checked. In front of it was a huge queue of cars. People were not allowed to get out of their cars, even to go to the toilet. Everything that an ordinary person does in life had to be done inside a car. There were people going around and checking it. It was really terrible; we waited for filtration for two days and two nights. We just stayed in the car. But those enemy authorities wanted to show in their media how good they are, that these are not filtration camps, but humanitarian corridors. They sent their media, their correspondents – TV channel rossiya24 – and filmed it. They asked people how they were. [People] said they would be saved. People said what they wanted them to say. It was very humiliating.

First, they checked every pocket of our clothes. The whole car was searched, everything was examined. They said that filtration starts from the age of 16. My sister is 12, so she stayed in the car. My mum did not go out. She also stayed, she was lucky. I went to the filtration with my dad.

We stood and waited outside for almost half an hour. It was very cold. I did not have proper shoes, and my feet were so cold that I did not feel them for several more days.

We stood there and looked at those “DPR” soldiers who were conducting the filtration. Some of them were smoking, while others were talking on the phone. It was scary to hear their conversations, “What did you do with those who did not pass [the filtration]?” “Well, I shot them. I don’t count them, I’m not interested.”

 Before us, a tall and stooped man came out of the booth. He was told to go, but his wife did not pass. We did not know what was there. Next was our turn. My father came into one room and I came into another one. They said that they would scan our documents and take our fingerprints, but this was not so. They conducted interrogations and checked the phones. There were various cases during those interrogations.

They asked some provocative questions. They could stick to your phone contacts or could shout “Glory to Ukraine!” and see how you react to it. Anything could happen. They just pushed me out of that room. I did not understand it. It was 200 meters from the booth to the car. An armed soldier was walking with me.

It seemed to him that I was walking too slowly, so he pushed me. Then she pushed me again and I fell down. Tears started rolling down my cheeks, but he was laughing.

I understood that if I do not pull myself together, they could leave me here. I ran to the car... We were waiting for our dad.

Before our phones were checked, I deleted everything, not to have any provocative photos in vyshyvankas (embroidered traditional Ukrainian shirts) or with [Ukrainian] flags. We were staying in the car. Then we saw that our dad was also pushed out. He said that when interrogation began, he had an empty phone. He was hit on the head and passed out.

We drove off. There were burnt human bodies, burnt cars on the road, but our dad managed to contain himself. He managed to bring us to the checkpoint in Zaporizhzhia. There, when we were driving up to it, we saw a Ukrainian flag. We thought that this was some kind of provocation. We did not believe that we would just be in Ukraine someday. Dad told us to be silent, not to show any cheer. We drove up and gave our documents. We showed the trunk of our car, and our documents. They looked at our registration and said:

What have they suffered…” We heard the Ukrainian language, saw their attitude and understood – yes, this is Ukraine.

An occupier cannot speak Ukrainian like that. I can say that it eased our anxiety, we started crying. They gave our dad some gasoline and water. The police came and we were taken to Zaporizhzhia. Our mum was taken to the hospital, but our dad began to lose his eyesight. He had to go to Dnipro. Volunteers took us to Dnipro where he was diagnosed with blindness [due to] concussion. His blood pressure may rise and he may die of a cerebral haemorrhage.

My dad did not give me up. He was raising me himself until I was seven, until he married again. He knew how to braid pigtails and he bought me toys. He loves us very much. He took us out of that hell.

I believe in victory, I really believe in it. I know that there are many people like us. I know the truth. Strangers have come to our land and just want to kill us. We cannot give up now. Those people who died, our soldiers who defend us, we must hold on. Together we can do everything. I sincerely believe in every soldier of my country. Darkness has never conquered light.

I want to return to Mariupol and touch every pebble there. I want to play the bandura in my city, even amid the ruins. I really want to. I want it so much.