Surviving in the hell overlooking Azovstal

Surviving in the hell overlooking Azovstal

When she reappeared on Twitter, many of her followers confessed that they had been lighting candles for Nelli and her daughter since March. But on June 27, she tweeted, “We are alive. So is our cat. We have survived in the hell overlooking Azovstal. No internet access. Light mourning candles for the peaceful residents of Mariupol who burnt alive in their houses and died under bombs.”

They did not go down to the cellar during the bombing and shelling, sheltering in the hallway of their apartment on the top floor of the house. Now the cat is shell-shocked and often buries its head into the pillow in its sleep. And no more smoke from the Azovstal chimneys.

The word “hell” is one of those used most in her March tweets. No food – people set traps for pigeons. No water supply, except for a well. No electricity. No medicines. No, no, no… Nothing but burning houses and dying citizens.

Her last-moth tweets allow us to have a glimpse of what it means to live in a city destroyed and then occupied by russian barbarians. Below, we repost just a few.

On July 1, 100 bodies were extracted from under the rubbles. Those still living in semi-burnt buildings complain about the putrid smell from the cellars.

People come to the former ATB outlet for the internet. The store provides Wi-Fi a few minutes a day. Buying a SIM card from the occupier’s provider is an impossible mission: the cards are sold once a month, and people stand in lines from three in the morning. The same with drugstores: you have to be in a line since midnight to enter. Medical care and dentistry all remained in the past.

Many houses are still without electric power. But even if there is power and water supply, it is on and off.

Prices for household chemicals are exorbitant, and these products are not included in humanitarian aid. Mobile baths are cruising the city allowing 10 minutes per person.

There are enough fruits and vegetables in the marketplace brought from all over the Azov Sea region. The villagers bringing their produce continue speaking Ukrainian. In the former ATB, many foodstuffs are from Belarus. Cooking is performed on a tourist primus. Propane should be bought at a gas station.

“I keep asking my daughter if I’m crazy. Some have lost their minds. On the Kirov [street], a man who lost his family lives out his days in a house that was completely burnt down and refuses to leave.”

However, Nelli has noticed that people are coming back to Mariupol and asks never to call it a city that exists no more.

Ukraine will take back Mariupol and all other cities and villages that currently suffer under the russian occupation. With Ukraine, there will come normal life instead of hell. And as for hell, it’s where russia, the terrorist state, will eventually burn.

Sources: https://life.pravda.com.ua/society/2022/07/26/249714/; https://twitter.com/inellis09