Denys Novikov is a first-year student of IHF. From the first day of the war until almost the end of March, Denys and his family remained in their native Mariupol until their house burned down and they had to flee to temporarily occupied Donetsk: the blown-up bridge, the only way to get from the left bank to the right, damaged their chance to leave for Ukraine.
“My mother, and grandmother, and I lived in the bathroom for the first two weeks. We slept in turns - every time there was such an opportunity between the shellings (it was really terrifying; we took heart medication more often than we drank water). In those moments of silence, my mother ran to walk the dog, take care of 80 of her orchids, which she adored, and cook on the fire. At first, we cooked at home, but very quickly, because we were afraid that the windows in the kitchen would fly out or shell splinters would come. And then they turned off the gas. A couple of days earlier, the lights, water, heating and communications were gone."
The temperature in the apartment sometimes dropped to ten bellow zero. We slept in several sweaters, several pairs of pants and socks, jackets - and it was still extremely cold. We switched to technical water from pipes. A sniper fired at a nearby spring where people went for drinking water. When the last food supplies ran out, he and his neighbours tried to get some food from the bombed-out supermarket and market. But with each new shellburst, more and more containers on the market caught fire, and food in the city was in increasingly short supply.
They survived, waiting for the situation to worsen every day. And that’s exactly how it happened: on March 19, Denys' house burned down. Fortunately, he and his family managed to escape; they spent four nights in a pharmacy near the house, suffering from cold and dehydration. And then there was a chance to escape - to go to the so-called "DPR" under fire.
Denys is currently in a Donetsk hospital - due to the terrible conditions of recent weeks, he has developed severe pain in his legs, it is difficult for him to walk and move at all. But Denys is gradually recovering. He hopes that his second grandmother who is also from Mariupol, and now is considered missing, will get in touch as soon as possible. He thinks about where their new family home will be now.
Denys' family needs financial support.
You can help them with the details:
5375 4141 3082 2249
Denys Novikov