The story of a Mariupol resident: 'I looked in the mirror and didn't recognise myself — my beard used to be red, but now it's white'.

Since 2014, the Charitable organisation «Charity Foundation «East-SOS» has been collecting information about war crimes committed by representatives of the Russian Federation to ensure justice and the right to truth. Mariia Ivanova recorded the story of Oleksii Tymchenko (name changed for security reasons), and Mariia Biliakova wrote the article.

I am 76 years old. From 1948 until March 2022, I lived in a house on Myr Avenue, but in March, the house burned down. My wife died in 2010, and since then, I have lived alone. From 2014 to 2018, I was a volunteer. We helped the brigade stationed near Nikolske. We brought warm clothes, equipment, wood stoves, binoculars. 10 years ago, we also went to the Skhidnyi residential area to dig trenches.

I didn't believe in a big war, but Russian troops were amassing near the border. I thought the Russians were bluffing. When the full-scale war started, I was sure that we would quickly drive them out of our land. Then I found out that the Russians had broken through from Crimea and were heading for Mariupol. I realised the Russians were going to encircle us. I gave my apartment keys and food to my neighbours planning to join the military, but I was refused. 

After returning home, I never stopped thinking about leaving. If we were occupied, I could have been handed over by collaborators because the Ukrainian military visited me all the time. I have no relatives in Mariupol or other towns. My older brother died 10 years before, and my daughter has been living in Germany with her family for 20 years. I kept looking for ways to leave. Finally, a friend promised to take me with him, but he didn't keep his word, and I lost hope. I thought I would just grab my suitcase and walk to Manhush. I even offered this option to my neighbours.

When the banks were open, I transferred money to the Armed Forces. Then the banks and supermarkets closed, and my friend and I went to volunteer at the headquarters to load bags of food and medicine. People also brought bottles for the Molotov cocktail (a glass bottle containing a flammable substance and a wick that is lit before being thrown —ed.). Then I remembered that I had three bags of empty bottles and about 50 litres of fuel in my lock-up. I gave it all to the military.

There was no water, electric power, or gas. People were cooking in their yards, all under heavy shelling by the Russian Federation. I picked up dry branches and brought them to the yard. I did not cook myself, I shared the groceries with a young couple, and they gave me cooked food. We collected water from the roofs by putting buckets under the pipes. I used to go to the theatre to get water because the municipal water company brought it there. 

On March 16, I went to the theatre again. The water truck did not arrive, so I returned home. As I entered the yard, I heard a huge explosion behind me. I turned and saw a black cloud. People were running out of the theatre, screaming.

I didn't eat or sleep much, I was stressed, and there was no phone connection. My daughter in Germany was in despair because she didn't know what was going on with me. I would go to my friend's place to find some peace and rest. I also did stupid things: I went to my friend's house to drink tea under the shelling. We would take his car battery and connect a radio to listen to news from Kyiv. We learned that our troops had driven the enemy away from Kyiv, that Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia were standing firm and that Kherson was occupied. We also learned that negotiations were under way for a green corridor from Berdiansk. I passed on all this information to the others. 

On March 20, we were outside our house when heavy shelling started. Everyone ran into the basement. There were many people there, not only locals but also people from the other bank. The enemy's phosphorus shells exploded above the roof, and the house caught fire. The family of my deceased childhood friend was still in the basement: his wife and grandson, Dmytro. He had a car, and I had suggested he leave the day before. Then, he said his grandmother was scared and didn't want to go. When the house caught fire, I said, “Dima, let's go because we'll burn to death here.” Grandma protested, so I grabbed her and said, “Otherwise, I'll drag you! We're running away.”

Dmytro and I ran to the lock-up. All the others were destroyed, but ours was still standing, only the gate was damaged. We found a crowbar and forced the gate open. We looked inside — there was no rear window, but the car was intact. Dmytro started the car, and we ran back to the yard. 

I had prepared my things in advance, with photos of my parents and food. I had my documents in the bag. There was also a suitcase in the apartment on the third floor. It contained some documents, photographs and a portrait of my late wife. I didn't have time to get the suitcase, everything in the apartment was in flames. I went back to the ground floor to pick up Dmytro and his granny. Another neighbour asked me to take his mother, wife and a little daughter. Together we rushed to the lock-up and squeezed into the car. 

We were driving under the shelling past people lying on the road. We drove through the village of Moriakiv, and at the exit, there was a Russian checkpoint. They stopped us and asked why the car had not been re-registered. Dmytro replied that he had no time. The checkpoints were 1-1.5 kilometres apart, and they kept stopping us on the way. 

I insisted on going to Zaporizhzhia because it was not occupied. We were 30-40 kilometres from the city. I felt bad, as we had been sitting in the car for a long time, going from one checkpoint to another. Someone advised us not to go into the field at night but to return to the village and spend the night in the local school. That's how we met the school headmaster, who gave us food and shelter. In the morning, we drove on; the bridge outside Tokmak was destroyed. We followed other cars around the edge of the city and drove along the beams for about 40 minutes. The police met us on the road, I saw Ukrainian flags and burst into tears. I hadn't cried since my wife died. 

In Zaporizhzhia, volunteers met us near the Epicentre shop: they registered us, gave us food and took us to the place where we were to spend the night. In the morning, I thanked Dmytro, gave him money for the petrol and decided to take the train to Kovel. In a half-empty train, I took a seat in a reserved carriage. Later, a lot of people got on, and it became noisy. I hadn't been able to sleep properly for about a month because of the constant shelling in Mariupol, so I moved to an empty carriage, which the train conductor had permitted. I looked in the mirror and didn't recognise myself — my beard used to be red, but now it's white.

In Kovel, volunteers met us again, took us to the bus station, and put us on a bus to Poland. Most of the people on the bus were women with children. We were at the border in about 30 minutes. We received a warm welcome, spoke to the media and told our stories. 

We spent the night in a small town where we were given SIM cards and could charge our phones. On March 24, I called my daughter and told her I was in Poland. She was thrilled. German volunteers took me to Nuremberg, where my daughter and son-in-law met me. We went to Frankfurt together.

The article is a publication of the Charitable organisation «Charity Foundation «East-SOS» within the framework of the project "Support to war-affected vulnerable groups and residents of remote areas of Ukraine" with the financial support of the European Union. The contents are the sole responsibility of the Foundation and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EU.