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Didenko wasn’t impressed with what she saw. When she first arrived in Mariupol in July of that year, Ms. A car belonging to her editor-in-chief at the Novosti Donbasa website was set on fire outside his apartment. But reporters who weren’t following the new pro-Russian line soon became targets. The journalist had stayed in Donetsk, reporting on the rise of the “People’s Republic” for as long as she could in 2014. Yuliia Didenko didn’t want to move to Mariupol. The Azovstal steel works, shown in 2017, would be the last stronghold of Ukrainian defence against Russian forces until this past week. But they made another decision – to completely wipe it out.”Ĭity Hall, shown in 2019, was wrapped in banners after a massive fire caused by pro-Russian demonstrators five years earlier. “We knew that if Russia wanted to take Mariupol, they would not be able to.
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But this was completely different,” he said. “I thought, I’ve already heard artillery, I can handle it. Sidelev didn’t flee Mariupol before the outbreak of the wider war. It was because of his experience living through Russia’s takeover of Donetsk that Mr. His new home was dominated by the pollution-spewing Azovstal and Ilyicha steel factories – and their politically influential owner, oligarch Rinat Akhmetov – but Mariupol was nonetheless a freer place to live in than the neo-USSR that Moscow’s proxies were building in Donetsk. Sidelev arrived as a self-exile from Donetsk. Like many in Mariupol’s creative class, Mr.
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But I saw with my own eyes how Mariupol was growing into a cool, cultural place,” said Danil Sidelev, an IT professional who worked for two Ukrainian media outlets in the city. “Mariupol was a city with a bad reputation for ecology. Former residents are left only with memories of the city they knew, and the harrowing tales of how they escaped. Today, the Russian flag flies over a destroyed Mariupol. Much of Mariupol’s new swagger came from Ukrainians who had moved there to escape life in the “Donetsk People’s Republic” that Moscow-backed militants had proclaimed after seizing the regional capital in 2014.Ī woman in Mariupol passes a Russian flag on a damaged building on May 12. They saw the modernization of the centuries-old port as a counterpoint to the repressive, backward-looking atmosphere that hung over the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, roughly 100 kilometres to the north. Residents were proud of what they were building. A water park was supposed to be next.Ī city known for its Soviet-era steel factories was in the midst of getting a European makeover, which is why some believe the Russian army seemed more intent on destroying Mariupol than capturing it. Just prior to the war, a new boardwalk was constructed along the city’s Azov Sea waterfront. It was a growing high-tech hub, a place of trendy beer bars, feisty independent news media and a proud LGBTQ community. 24 – the city was emerging from its smoggy industrial past to become one of the cultural capitals of eastern Ukraine. Before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched this war – his troops began their assault on Mariupol in the very first hours of Feb. Mariupol is now synonymous with shattered buildings, thousands of deaths and the fierce resistance put up by the last Ukrainian fighters before the strategic port city finally fell under Russian control this week.īut that’s not all that Mariupol is or was.