SURVIVING MARIUPOL - Family Shares Harrowing Tale

May 09, 2022 | LVIV, Ukraine: After escaping the besieged city of Mariupol, the Kulbacho family shared their harrowing story of survival, death, and escape.

Elena Kulbacho escaped with her husband and son Alexei after surviving 23 days under shelling and missiles strikes in Mariupol. Without gas, water, or electricity available in their part of town, the family was forced to learn to survive in an urban warzone.

“Welcome home, your husband the looter,” said Volodymyr when he arrived home with bags of toys and candy one day. “That’s not how I wanted to live,” said Elena, however Volodymyr said the stores were opened and mostly empty, so he took the toys to a school and shared them with the children. The next day the store was burned to the ground, “at least they weren’t burned in vain.”

A group of men from their apartment complex got organized as the gas supply ran out, and water stopped flowing. They regularly took trips to get water from a nearby well, regardless of the presence of snipers, who killed some residents from time to time. “Two people went, only one came back” said Volodymyr.

Their young son Alexei said he wasn’t afraid of explosions, “only when it was really close to us, otherwise I wasn’t scared.”

As residents and neighbors continued to die, people in town buried the dead in the park, “only about 70cm down, the ground was too frozen to dig deeper” said Elena.

“Most valuable things we left behind was photos videos… a shame.” -Volodymyr

Volodymyr and Elena finally were able to escape on March 19th at 3pm, they said they were the lucky ones to make it out of occupied Mariupol, and other’s were not as lucky.

“Most valuable things we left behind was photos and videos… a shame. ” said Volodymyr tearing up.

Asked about if they will return, Elena said they must wait until Mariupol is reoccupied by Ukrainians, and even then it will take time, that basic needs will still need to be rebuilt.
“There is nothing there, absolutely nothing.”