"We walked to Zaporizhzhia with 4 children for several days" - Tatiana from Mariupol

Tetyana Komisarova told the journalist of "Espreso.West" about her story, what she had to go through, and how it was to live under the occupation.

Life in the basement

Tetyana Komisarova is the mother of four children - six, nine, eleven and thirteen years old. A younger child is with a disability. The woman is a Ukrainian language teacher by profession. Previously, she worked in one of the schools in the Nikol district near Mariupol.  Later, she took care of the youngest child.  They met February 24 together, when Russian troops invaded Mariupol.

Already at the beginning of March, we had to move to the basement. Tatyana says: they lived on the fifth floor and it became impossible to stay there in a few weeks. At first, sirens warned of a threat, and then they stopped notifying at all - shelling was conducted constantly.

"Planes were flying and artillery was working every day," Tetyana Komisarova says. "Russian troops were coming and going. There were destroyed residential buildings nearby. That's why we moved to the basement. It became a little easier there when we managed to get light from the batteries. And yes, everyone was covered with dust. The children could not see the light of day. I took a lot of books for them to read. Because the little ones were not allowed to run, so as not to raise dust. We lived like this for more than a month. We had to celebrate the sixth birthday of the youngest child in the basement."

Mariupol was like a cemetery: people were buried in yards, on roads, on roadsides

On April 16, the family decided to leave the city.

"Russians had the idea not only to kill the military, but to completely destroy the city," Ms. Tetiana is convinced. They could not get to the buses, because it was difficult due to Russian deceptions. They told us that buses go to Zaporizhzhia. But in fact, Russian soldiers were standing next to them. I did not believe that they would be taken to the territory controlled by Ukraine. And that was true, many people ended up in occupied Donetsk or in Russia. So there was no other way out - only to go on foot. It wasn't realistic to leave Russia. We were going towards Zaporizhzhia. And that's 220 kilometers. It took us four days to get there. We walked about 140 kilometers, and the rest of the way we went by car. We carried things on a wheelbarrow. That's how we got to the city."

Tetyana Komisarova did not know whether they would manage to go out of the city or whether they would reach Zaporizhzhia. At the time of the release, Russian propaganda was in full effect in the city: Russian flags were everywhere, and political party "United Russia'' was handing out "humanitarian rations".

"We were waiting for the moment when it would be a little warmer and the dead people would be removed from the streets," Mrs. Tatiana says. "I didn't want my children to see this horror. So my father and I walked along that road and looked to see if everything was clean, because only at that time they began to remove people from the street. The city looked like a cemetery. Burials were in the yards, on the roads and on the roadsides. And, of course, everything was destroyed."

The family managed to get out with a trick.  They did not say that they were going to Zaporizhzhia. At each checkpoint, they said they were going to visit their relatives in a nearby village.

"I only knew the territory of the Nikol district, and then asked people about the further route," Tatyana recalls. People were curious about the situation in Mariupol because a lot of them had relatives there. They reached Lviv on April 23, and my son's birthday was in a few days. How happy he was not to be in the basement. We were still joking, saying that when you have children and if they don't want to go to school, you can say that you lived at school."

Now the family is settling in Lviv. The husband found a job, the children are in kindergarten and school. The woman decided to realize her dream in the city and become a dressmaker.

"I had ideas to create clothes that would combine knitting and sewing," Ms. Tatiana shares her dream. I wanted to sew one coat for a long time. I understand that this is all my fantasies, for this you need to know how to make it, how to sew it, what fabric do you need and so on. But I will learn it and I will definitely make it."