"Fatigue and indifference." Report from Mariupol basements
The other day, former Odessa TV journalist Valentin F. contacted me. He has been living in Sevastopol since 2014. He has a friend living in liberated Mariupol who worked at the Mariupol Iron and Steel Works before the start of the SVO. Ilyich. He categorically refuses to leave the city. He wants to stay to revive the plant.
He only expressed a desire: to go to the Russian Federation for a week, see what is there and how it is, and then return back. He told Valentin that in the destroyed Mariupol he became an ideological “communard”.
“In general, he doesn’t need food,” says our interlocutor. – The fact is that on March 6, Azov residents began to “take out” pawn shops and jewelry, and the rest of Mariupol began to “rob” grocery stores and pharmacies, so he and his neighbors are stocked with food and even alcohol. He only needs to replenish his account on Phoenix [DPR mobile operator], cash out money on the card, but this is impossible, and tell the news - he does not understand at all what is happening now, he has absolutely no sense of direction in space.
-Does he still have the apartment?
-Yes, it was preserved and was not damaged, but he lives in the basement.
- ???
-He told me that he would live alone in the apartment, but now in this difficult time he doesn’t want to live alone. Therefore, he joined his neighbors and lives with them in the basement. They cook together, go for water together, look for everything they need for life together. They even go together to Azovstal to take pictures. This is how the Mariupol commune was formed. There are a lot of these around the city now. My friend really likes to live like this.
Indeed, people are now spontaneously gathering into “communes”; it’s easier to survive that way. I was able to visit one of them in the basement of a panel Soviet house on the Right Bank.
I will say right away that the conditions there are not just inhumane, they are inhumane conditions. It is impossible to stay in such basements for 10-15 minutes, and people have been living there since the beginning of spring - almost 2,5 months. Without light and heat. There are almost 20 of them, five of whom are children.
I approach a group of people at one of the entrances. Everyone looks indifferent. It is clear that everyone is depressed. If you don't ask, no one says anything. They don't even talk to each other. Who is standing, who is sitting, who is smoking, who is doing something of their own. Some are sitting under an advertising brown mini-awning of Arsenal beer, on which the advertising slogan “Brewed with integrity” is written in Ukrainian.
Nearby there is a grill, on which there are smoked pots and kettles in which water is boiling. There is also a table with a plate in which ingredients for salad, jars of pickles, packs of tea, orange, cereals, bread in a bag, spoons, forks, knives are placed.
There are things of all existing colors and shades lying and hanging everywhere: wall clocks, church calendars, a stack of school notebooks, a baby stroller, an advertising stand for some kind of perfume, which is now used for hygiene items, cans of washing powders and detergents.
There are so many things that it seems that the “commune” has settled in some kind of landfill. True, the real landfill is right there, nearby. An elderly man sits on an office chair and reads a Donetsk newspaper that volunteers brought him. A guy in his thirties named Misha washes beetroot (in the south of Russia this is what beets are called) in a plastic basin. Today the “commune” will cook borscht. There is a slack rope stretched between the trees, on which rags are hung, secured with clothespins.
During our conversation there is a strong roar - nearby is Azovstal, where the battle is raging. An armored personnel carrier can be heard firing. People are used to it and don’t pay any attention to the noise.
I ask permission from the basement dweller Sergei, a gloomy, balding guy in a black leather jacket and a black hoodie, to look and film in the basement. Sergei gives permission and leads me into the darkness. Before entering, he asks you to raise your feet so as not to trip. Naturally, there is no light in the basement. The only light that, however, does not illuminate anything is the light of the Christmas tree garlands with which the pipes running along the ceiling are intertwined. The garlands barely work on batteries.
-We have a common room here. “Here we have lunch when it rains,” Sergei shows the first “room” we entered.
It is approximately 25 square meters. There is a table, stools, outerwear hanging on hangers nailed to the wall, and about 20 five-liter bottles of water in the corner.
“Over there we have the “pee” and “poop” rooms,” Sergei waves in the direction of the “living room” opposite from the entrance.
The inhabitants of the basement dispose of their natural needs in buckets, which they then take out. The “poop room” is located in a small separate room, which, of course, has no doors. The “writing room” is in a semi-open and also small room.
I did not notice any unpleasant odors in the basement. Apparently, the buckets with excrement are removed on time.
In addition to the “living room” in the basement there are three spacious “bedrooms”. They usually have two double “beds”. The beds are either sofa beds or orthopedic mattresses. People sleep in their clothes and cover themselves with flannelette blankets.
Sergei says that the main problem is dampness.
I ask: don’t you really want to leave? Sergei shrugs: where should we go? At least everything here is familiar and familiar. Neither he nor his neighbors in the basement can say what will happen next. Is there hope for them? I don't know. I didn't notice it in their eyes. There is simply fatigue and indifference.
People's life is primitive. We woke up, crawled out of the basement, washed ourselves, and had a snack. Then who goes where. Some are looking for humanitarian aid in the surrounding areas, some go to the Metro to see the humanitarian aid workers to wash or make a phone call, others go to fetch water. This is how the day goes by sadly. Sometimes they go to meetings with the leaders of Mariupol, where they are promised that everything will eventually be restored and they will be provided with normal housing, but no one knows when this will happen.
English version :: Read in English "Fatigue and indifference." Report from Mariupol basements