Berdiansk has been under occupation for over a year. That is how long I have not been in my second home. I haven’t heard the sound of seagulls or the fresh smell of the sea. It hurts that you can’t take a train ticket there and come back as you used to. Fear. I was scared to think, will I even have a place to go back to?
Photo from the personal archive
Every night before going to bed, I remember that journey. The journey from the “Russian world”. It was the end of March 2022, there was no heating, no gas, and no communication, and the electricity was cut off for hours. The only thing we could do was to go to the non-occupied part of Ukraine. But each time it was harder for people to get to Zaporizhzhia, there was no planned route, and many cars were hit by mines. At that time, it was difficult for my family to choose which way to go: the safer route through Crimea or Zaporizhzhia.
This choice was made on April 1. We were standing at the bus station at 6 am with five suitcases and a parrot, afraid of the unknown. It was warm in the minibus, but my heart was cold. So we left the city. It was by this road that we often traveled to Mariupol, a beautiful city by the sea, but it was no longer that happy Mariupol, where festivals were held every year, where people rejoiced and lived. It was killed, destroyed insidiously, without sparing anyone.
In 8 hours we passed 20 checkpoints, at each of them men were checked. We saw overturned vehicles of ordinary people every kilometer. In addition, we saw about 200 vehicles driving in the direction of Berdiansk.
Dzhankoy. Having arrived at the checkpoint to Crimea, we stood for 3 hours at this “border”. It was here that I felt something I had never felt before – panic and disgust at what was happening here. Even now I remember every detail. We were standing in line, and then a helicopter flew overhead, so low that it pierced my ears. Tears appeared on my face. No, not because I was afraid, but because I realized that he was flying to kill Ukrainians in Mariupol, or any other city in Ukraine. There were many of them, flying here and there. I had to pull myself together and to not show my true emotions, and I did. Only now I realized what we went through… After crossing the border, we found ourselves in a completely different Crimea. When I was a child, we used to go there every year as a family for a vacation. In my memory, it was bright and magical, but now I saw a gray and oppressed by the occupying authorities of Crimea.
A family from Mariupol. At the Dzhankoy train station, we met a family from Mariupol. The things they told us could not be imagined even in a nightmare. A girl and her boyfriend left the city on foot across a field under constant explosions and in fear of being shot. They walked for 2 days to the settlement where their relatives (the girl’s mother and younger brother) lived. That night, an unexploded shell fell near their house. The couple decided that it could not go on like this. In the morning, they started their journey again, but this time as a family. They walked in the rain, hiding from the russian military in the plantations. They had to split up to get more food, and without a map or cell phone connection, they eventually reunited. And just like us, were already sitting at the train station.
Before we left, we decided to prepare everything. We froze all the food we had bought in the first days of the full-scale war and took it with us. The main rule was to only buy water and tickets. The less money we spend in this pseudo-country, the fewer shells they will produce to kill Ukrainians.
Russian military. On April 1, 8:00 pm. Having left the station for a bottle of water, we went to the Mera store, formerly ATB. Having taken everything we needed, my mother and I went to the cash register to pay for the goods. There were 4 people in the store in total. One of the men in a military uniform of non-Slavic appearance approached us. He started saying something in a language we didn’t understand and then switched to russian.
A dialog began, which we did not want at all.
[from russian]-“I can tell right away that you’re not from around here. What, you’ve come to save yourselves, huh?“
-“We’re going to see our brother in St. Petersburg, sorry, we have a train coming,” my mom answered.
-“Did you know that Zelensky has been in Poland for a long time, abandoned the people, is resting there, and will soon go to America?” he asked with a smile.
My mom took my hand and shouted something back at him about the train allegedly arriving in five minutes. We ran out of the store and quickly returned to the station to join everyone else and did not leave until the Simferopol-Krasnodar train arrived.
April 2, 09:50, arrival in Krasnodar. After leaving the car, we went to the station to find out the arrival time of another train and to buy tickets. The hours passed very slowly, at 2:00 pm my mom and I decided to go for a little walk near the station and to get a bottle of water. What immediately caught my attention was a trolley bus with the letter Z passing by. As it turned out later, these “posters” were hung everywhere. It took us about 10 minutes to get to the store, and on our way there we came across old buses, and dirty buildings with graffiti of various symbols. Looking across the street, I saw a monument to Lenin. It was so unusual. I remember how in Berdiansk they were removing this shit, how young people were running around and rejoicing. And here, with this monument, it’s like time has stopped, there is no development. That’s why our people are so different…
Vladykavkaz. At 8:00 pm, we set off for the next destination, Vladykavkaz. On the train, we met a conductor who looked at our passports strangely and said that these were not documents, but just some kind of plastic cards he had never seen before. But then he realized and went on without bothering us. There were only three compartments in the wagon. In the morning, we had breakfast with leftover sausage and bread and started looking at the views from the window. We were not surprised to see shabby village huts, piles of garbage, and abandoned houses, as it is common for russian destroyers. Then we arrived at the Vladikavkaz train station, where we saw the same family from Mariupol. It turned out that they were traveling in the same train as us and our paths coincided, so we decided to stick together. When we got to the bus station, we were looking for drivers who could take us straight to Batumi, but there were no such routes that day. So we agreed to go to Tbilisi.
Police officers. While we were waiting for the driver, a woman and a man in uniform approached us. The policeman asked who we were and where we were going. The woman stood nearby and watched us silently. When we told them the information they wanted, they offered us to spend the night in a camp. It was easy to get into the camp, but difficult to leave. We refused, and the policemen walked away and started talking in a language we didn’t understand (possibly Ossetian). Then the woman approached us and handed us money, saying that she remembered the situation in South Ossetia and understood our pain. But we could not accept it. At that moment, our driver returned and said that there were not enough seats for everyone, so we had to wait for about an hour for another car. After waiting for an hour and a half, we thought we had been forgotten, and then a taxi driver pulled up to us and asked what we were doing at a closed bus station. Realizing what a difficult situation we were in, the man called someone, and within 10 minutes his friend came to pick us up in his minivan. We thanked him and headed for the border with Georgia. The car was playing cheerful songs, and the driver was Armenian. The man told us that his family lives in Tbilisi and he is engaged in the transportation of people, but today he planned to travel alone without passengers. We were lucky that he agreed to take us. When we arrived, we saw giant mountains. When we got off the train in the morning, it felt warm, but there was a strong wind and not enough fresh air.
Photos from personal archives
April 3, 17:30. Verkhny Lars. We had been staying in the same place for 6 hours, the exit was closed because stones were falling from the mountains. We ran out of food in the morning, we had thought that by that time we would have been in some town in Georgia, where we could pay and eat properly. A child of our fellow travelers from Mariupol approached me and offered me cookies. I agreed, smiled, and thanked him. During this journey, I felt only emptiness, and the boy who handed me the cookies was able to improve my state at least somehow. About an hour later, they started letting cars through, we were standing right at the gate of the border crossing point, and there was a huge line behind us. A Russian border guard approached the car and told us to get out quickly and go to the room where they checked our passports. At that time, the driver went to check the luggage. Once inside, I immediately noticed the dark walls and the smell of mold – that’s what a russian checkpoint looked like. When the whole family approached the passport control, a woman in uniform told us to take our passports out.
Since we showed only our internal Ukrainian passports, the border guard twisted them and gave them back.
– You do realize that we have no right to let you pass without travel passports, right? – she said sharply.
– But we don’t have travel passports, we didn’t plan to leave Ukraine. What do you suggest we do? – my mother asked.
Seeing that the line was not going any further, another customs officer came up. The woman kept telling us not to be afraid and to give her the passports, because she would only look at them, leaving them unmarked. But we stood our ground. Then this man snatched our passports and left. Another border guard came up to us and took us to the bench and said threateningly: [from russian] “You are not going anywhere until you give us what we demand. You can stay here for 24 hours, or we can do something else. We can call the police right now and they will take you to the police station.” My grandmother and I were greatly affected by these words. My mom and uncle continued to argue about the illegal actions of the customs officers. An hour passed, and the driver continued to wait for us and asked the border guards to finally let us through. Even other people passing the border joined and started supporting us. Mostly Georgians did this, but the russians passed right by. Then one Georgian woman came up to the border guard and started shouting at them to stop torturing people and finally let us go. Other people also joined her. And yet, after 9 terrible hours, we managed to pass the checkpoint of the russian federation. We got our passports back, and a family from Mariupol was waiting for us in the car. It turned out that they didn’t have passports either, because they couldn’t find them in their destroyed house. But they were let through right away. Apparently, the customs officers wanted to get back at us and show us how strong they were and that our future depended on them.
The Georgian customs checkpoint greeted us warmly, there was practically no queue, and we quickly passed passport control. Finally, we breathed a sigh of relief. At that moment, no one could contain their emotions, and the guy sitting in front of the driver exclaimed: “Goodbye, unwashed Russia, the country of slaves, the country of masters, and you, blue uniforms, and you, their loyal people….” Everyone started laughing and rejoicing that this nightmare was finally over.
I will surely remember this journey for the rest of my life because while writing this diary, I was immersed in those events with every memory. There were still about 8 countries to go, but the hardest part was over.
Translator: Zoriana Karpenko
