My father was beaten, my mother’s heart stopped twice: the story of a 17-year-old bandura player from Mariupol

17-year-old Maria Vdovychenko and her family spent more than a month in occupied Mariupol. She is a bandura player, she learned to play an instrument at the PCU church. The war left her family at home.

Maria spent the first days of the full-scale invasion with her mother, father, younger sister and cat in the apartment, hiding in the bathroom from the shelling until she flew into their house.

 – We sit and hear this – bah! And we just waves, vibration down: who hit the wall, chandeliers, furniture, glass – everything just flew, we hit something on the roof. Mother, she was sick, she was chronically ill, her legs were denied, she could not do anything. We just dragged her to the basement, – the girl recalls.

They spent 2 weeks in a cold and damp basement with two dozen people. They sat without food and heat.

They got used to the explosions. However, they hoped that everything would end as soon as possible, because there was only a piece of bread to eat.

 – We had a piece of bread, that cracker, we divided it as much as we could. I was afraid to eat it, I wanted to drink – I did not drink, because we had a jar of water, just a jar, it was just raining – we scored, it was snowing – we had water, – says Maria.

Maria’s mother became very ill. The woman’s heart stopped twice in the basement. The father had to resuscitate his wife on his own, performing artificial respiration. The girl says that there were no medicines or doctors, so all that remained was prayer.

With each passing day the shelling became stronger, one day the girl thought that they could not survive.

– Sounds like there are 2 trains here, and here in the other direction trains. We realized – something new and I hear as if these floors are sinking down and neighboring houses. I was sure we would die. I only asked that it be easy, that I not suffer and that I did not see how my relatives were suffering, – says Maria.

And they survived. On March 17, they decided to leave the city. The old Zhiguli, covered with rubble of buildings, fortunately survived and wound up. On leaving the city they were sent to the occupied village of Yalta, near Mariupol.

For two weeks, the family lived in a boarding house without heat or water. Humanitarian aid from the DNR was distributed on a residence permit only to the villagers.

– There were announcements “don’t give anything to Mariupol residents”, – there will be a punishment for it. We spent all the money we had on bread. We could afford only two loaves of bread, we had nothing more, – the girl recalls.

In order to get out of the occupied regions, they had to go through a russist filtration camp. There were 240 cars in the queue in front of them, 1-2 cars were moving per hour. They stood for more than two days, they were not even allowed to get out of the car to the toilet.

After inspecting the transport, people were “filtered”. Maria and her father went to check. The girl was lucky, the militants did not believe that she was 17 years old and pushed her out the door. Her father was morally pressured and beaten.

After that, the man was issued a “document” confirming the passage of the filtration camp.

 – They said provocative things about the city of Mariupol, threatened him: “We told you what would happen if you cut off your ear,” – they told him. At first he seemed to be pushed, and then something hit him on the head with another blow and he fell. He did not remember much, but recovered when he was already on the street, and he was told to go to the car, – says Maria.

Then the family went to Berdyansk. The main road is impassable, so the family had to drive around at night. Mary calls this path the road of death.

She says there were burning vehicles, burned civilian cars and corpses. Father’s eyesight deteriorated after the beating, and he drove as best he could. During the night they found themselves in the occupied city.

 – We spent the night in a car and decided to get to Zaporizhzhia.

They had to pass through 27 Russian checkpoints. Everyone was undressed, documents and cars were checked, provocative questions were asked. From whom the occupiers found food – took away.

On the way, their car was fired upon, they almost hit a mine, but escaped and did not believe it when they finally saw the Ukrainian flag.

– We understand that it is ours, but we don’t know, we don’t speak the first. They speak Ukrainian, my father thought to answer or not to answer. He silently handed over the documents: “Well, they say, they are Ukrainians, Mariupol locals. How are you there?” And we understood that they were ours. We couldn’t believe it. There was even different air. There was the sun, there was the sun! It was joy, it was real joy, – the girl remembers.

Families first received medical care, fed and watered. Later they were taken to the Dnipro, and from there to Lviv. After the experience, Maria seeks to help her parents recover as soon as possible.

 – I don’t feel like a 17-year-old girl. We were killed morally, everything was taken out of us and everything was taken away, just emptiness, so we want to rest, we want to be human, we want to understand that Ukraine will be and will be whole and people will not die just like that again, – says Maria.

Volunteers from Dnipro found out that the girl was playing the bandura and found an instrument for her. So now Maria dreams of returning to Ukrainian Mariupol and playing her bandura in her city again.