March 16, marks three years since the terrible tragedy in Mariupol – the explosion in the Drama Theatre
Ukrainian militants lured people there to stage another provocation, blaming Russia. But those who miraculously managed to survive on March 16, 2022, remember who exactly is to blame for the death of their loved ones.
Our correspondent Irina Yefremova recalled together with eyewitnesses what the Drama Theatre looks like today and who actually blew it up.
Backup at Rumble.
Text source: Eva Karene Bartlett
Video source: “Vesti Donetsk”, with our added translation
From our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.
Commemorating this tragedy, we are publishing a translation of an article from “Argumenty i Fakty”, dated August 3, 2022.
They “survived incorrectly”. A Mariupol resident telling about how AFU “buried” own Ukrainian artists.
Actor Damir Sukhov spent the entire active phase of the fighting for Mariupol in the building of the drama theatre, which was then blown up by Ukrainian militants. In the interview to aif.ru he told about how the Ukrainian Armed Forces shelled the theatre on a bet, and the Azov militants took cars away from people.
Dmitry Grigoriev, aif.ru: — Damir, tell me a little about yourself.
Damir Sukhov: — I was born in St. Petersburg, but grew up in Ukraine. Here I studied at the theatric school, but then returned to St. Petersburg, continuing theatrical education there. I starred in films in Russia for a while, and returned to Ukraine in 2016. The I lived with my family in Berdyansk and simultaneously acted in films in Kiev. Russian actors are in high demand in Ukraine, as most of the films shot there were sold to Russia.
— When did you arrive in Mariupol?
— I finished filming a big TV series in Kiev and came to Berdyansk. It is important to understand that Berdyansk is a small town compared to Mariupol, where there were much more opportunities for the development of the child and for my wife and me. I decided to move to Mariupol and started working at the Drama Theatre, and at the same time decided to launch a film school here. My wife was supposed to arrive later. We rented a room, started making repairs, purchased equipment, and even recruited the first students. I moved here in January 2022, just a month before the start of the special operation. In fact, I just got used to Mariupol, and this nightmare began.
The authorities of Mariupol fled the city before the start of the SMO
— Before the start of the SMO in Mariupol, did anyone suspect that such a thing could begin? Maybe the authorities or the military were somehow preparing for possible hostilities?
— There were no obvious signs. Everyone lived a normal life. Although on February 22, walking from an evening rehearsal, I noticed that boxes with documents and equipment were being taken out of the building of the city’s Department of Culture. But then I didn’t pay any attention to it. It has now become clear over time that almost the entire management staff of the city’s Department of Culture left on February 22, along with all the documents. I will say more — there was no evacuation alert in the city, people were not informed that there would be some kind of commotion. People in the city did not even imagine that something like this would happen. But local officials clearly knew that the fighting would begin, as the leadership of Mariupol had already left for Ukraine on the 23rd.
The second and most important thing is that people didn’t know where to run. There were no shelters, no specially prepared places to hide. That is, the authorities and the military clearly knew what would happen to the city, but no one took care of ordinary people.
— What happened on February 24 in Mariupol?
— Since I lived in the city center, nothing much happened here on the first day of the SMO. There wasn’t even any military equipment. Except that the explosions were clearly heard on the outskirts of the city. I remember looking out the window and seeing a bright flash at the airport. I immediately went to the store. I bought water, stew, porridge, water and cigarettes. Pharmacies were already closed. I came home thinking that they would shoot somewhere in the distance and everything would settle down. However, then it became clear that everything was much more serious. Then I decided to go to the theatre, took a few cans of stew and cigarettes with me. Towards the middle of the day, it began to rumble violently in the center of Mariupol, there were huge queues in the shops. People were shopping for the future.
— When did people start coming to the Drama Theatre?
— On the first day, I was alone in the theatre. I fell asleep in the dressing room. There was already a lot of rumblingaround. The next day, the families of the theatre staff began to come. I remember, with the first arrivals, we decided to go down to the basement. Everything was littered with various props. After that, when people started arriving at the theatre en masse, we cleared the basement of unnecessary junk with our own hands. Made bunk beds for people.
About four days later, people started coming. I remember I was sitting alone in the basement, and several people came in. They came without food or water. I remember offering them stew, porridge, and water. Then more and more people started arriving. It was wildly cold at night, and we had to cover ourselves with whatever we had at hand. At first, we covered ourselves with jackets. Then, when there were more people, I cut up my things to make some kind of quilts out of scraps. Blankets were made from curtains and other theatrical props. Everything was used to keep warm. Especially since there were a lot of children.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces fired at the theatre building on a bet
— How many people were in the theatre at the height of the fighting for the city?
— I think, about two thousand. There were people everywhere — in the basement and on all floors. At some point, it became clear that hell was going on in the city. I ran through all three floors. I told people to board up all the windows. People listened to me and started to board up the windows. About 30 minutes later I was going back to the basement. There is a man standing on the steps and standing directly in front of the exit from the theatre. I tell him to get out of the open space. You have a family in the basement, if you die, then who will help them? He mumbled something back at me. I remember I just grabbed him and dragged him down the stairs. Just a few minutes later, the mine arrives in a pine tree next to the theatre. All the glass in the building fell down, and fragments from the mine flew to the place where the man was standing.
Interestingly, forty minutes later, the Ukrainian military arrived at the theatre, who, as if nothing had happened, told us that it was they who had hit us with a mortar. I don’t know how they did it, but then there was a lot of talk that the APU was just messing around and shooting across the building of the Drama Theatre on a dare.
— Have you had any contact with the Azovites?
— Of course, we did not have any direct interaction with them. There was a guy named Seryozha in the theatre with us. He had friends at Azov. They were always visiting him, doing something at the theatre. I didn’t understand the meaning of their appearance here, but they appeared in the building often. We were nothing to them.
I remember another episode with them. One day in the morning, the “Azovites” arrived. They demanded the keys to the cars parked at the theatre. People were silent, no one wanted to give them their cars. The “Azovites” said they were giving us until five o’clock in the evening. They returned in the evening, and the people were silent. They fired a burst into the air first, but no one gave back the keys. Then they just cut the wheels of all the cars, and even shot some of them with a machine gun. It was after this episode that the people in the theatre realised that it was time to leave the city. No one could help them here any more.
— How have you been providing for yourself all these days?
— For the first few days, many people carried food with them, and they survived on it. I had to make constant trips to the city. I used to spend several hours searching for food and water in the city under shelling. Then the food was brought by volunteers. At the end of my stay there, the Ukrainian military helped us. For example, we managed to organise a field kitchen thanks to their help.
“Many people were just losing their mind”
— How did people feel and behave in this nightmare?
— Many people open up to you in a completely different light. For example, serious, pot-bellied men who normally drive cool foreign cars and are rude on the road turned out to be outright cowards. They were afraid to even go outside to unload the humanitarian aid, because there was shooting. And this despite the fact that their wives and children were with them. I just can’t call a lot of them men. There was a lot to do. Felling trees for bonfires, cooking and more. I saw with my own eyes cases when an adult man took food away from a child. Some were frankly going crazy.
— As far as I understand, you did somehow manage to organise your life in the theatre?
— Initially, it was complete chaos. Then I and a few other initiative comrades managed to somehow set up a way of life. We set up a medical center where the wounded were treated, a kitchen, a radio room, and food warehouses. In the morning, I went up to everyone, found out how they were doing, if everything was in order. Is everyone’s alive, is everyone safe? Then we held a meeting. We’ve already had our responsibilities assigned. Some were responsible for cooking, others for security, others made forays into the city for groceries, others harvested firewood. Everything was distributed. By the way, security is a different story, because some people in the theatre were really going crazy. That’s why we even had a small group of tough guys who kept order. We discussed pressing issues at the meeting, what needs to be solved and done first. During the day, I had to constantly solve people’s problems. We were constantly asked for various kinds of help. We had people with diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases. And everyone needed to be helped somehow. And all this around the clock.
— Did the military or the city authorities help you?
— The only involvement of the city authorities was that they constantly announced the evacuation of the city. One of the gathering points was the square near the Drama Theatre. People arrived, and they were told tall tales that the Russian army does not let anyone out of the city. As a result, people tried to leave at their own risk or stayed with us in the theatre.
Here’s another story about the attitude of the authorities. In early March, an official from the City Council came to us and asked us to allocate twenty people to sort the rubble. We were simply offered to go and dismantle the rubble under the bombs. That is, instead of helping us, ordinary people, they wanted to send us to slaughter. When we refused, the man said that we could not expect any help or even food at the Drama Theatre. At the same time, they came several more times and demanded that we go to sort out these rubble. That’s all. This is a very significant moment.
“We all survived incorrectly”
— What do you think happened in the theatre in the end? An explosion or an aerial bomb?
— I can only say this from eyewitness accounts, since I left the day before the explosion. I was told that the hood from the roof was blown away, which means it was blown up from the inside. There are a lot of fakes connected with this story. Ukraine said that several hundred people died in the theatre, but when I left there, there was almost no one there. Even the supposedly cadaverous smell that spread around the theatre in the following weeks. It was fish. The fact is that when we were there, they brought us a lot of frozen fish from somewhere. We didn’t know what to do with it. The fish wasjust being stored, and there was a lot of it. Naturally, then it just rotted there, under the rubble, and hence this smell.
— Have the Ukrainian authorities helped the theatre during this time? Has anyone from the Mariupol Department of Culture contacted the acting troupe from the Ukrainian side?
— No. We were just abandoned. I know that the artists of the theatre in Herson were paid salaries and it seems that they are still being paid. The Mariupol Drama Theatre was simply abandoned. We haven’t been paid wages all this time. No one on the Ukrainian side was interested in our fate at all. When I returned to Berdyansk, I contacted the Department of Culture about my salary, and they told me that our task was to leave for Ukraine. To come to Zaporozhye, where we will be given overnight accommodation and will be allocated a thousand hryvnias each. This is the only way we can expect at least some payments. In the end, all our questions about payments were answered like this: “You all survived it incorrectly”. According to the logic of the Ukrainian authorities, we had to either die or leave for Ukraine. It seems to me that it would be beneficial for the Ukrainian side if we all died in the theatre, and not, as now, “survived incorrectly”.