For me they’re alive — I talk to them constantly

КА: Sergey, hello. How are you?

СД: Hello, Katya. Yeah, nothing, normal.

КА: How is it in Cherkasy? How's your son?

СД: My son is in Germany. If you can say so from this whole situation, normal. He gets around in a wheelchair.

КА: Is he doing okay there?

СД: Okay, yes. He has a separate apartment, there are conditions for him. He lives alone, they look after him, they help him. He doesn't want to return to Ukraine, he's planning to stay there, because there is still care there, there are medicines, some benefits he has there. His own difficulties, naturally.

КА: But clearly it's better for him there now than in the war.

СД: Of course. And I told him, as I always tell him, that there's nothing for you to do here, at least now.

КА: And how is it in Cherkasy?

СД: Well, like everywhere in Ukraine. In principle it's quiet, there are no arrivals [editor's note: aerial attacks] now at least, but there are problems with electricity. We're in the suburbs of Cherkasy, our own house. I already made it myself, built it. I stocked up on firewood until summer, now we brought some more, there's a fireplace here, now I'm sitting by the fireplace. There's gas, but the boiler doesn't work, doesn't circulate water, so all hopes are on firewood. Compared to what it was and this is that, normal, very good even.

КА: God willing, that it would be relatively quiet in Cherkasy, as much as that's possible now at all.

СД: Well yes. Here, in Ukraine, people are set on fighting.

КА: Did you come with your wife?

СД: No, I went myself. From where? From Poland, from abroad?

КА: Yeah. To Cherkasy, I mean.

СД: She doesn't want to leave, I tell her, there won't be electricity and so on. Not that I'm insisting, just conversation. She says: "No, unless they specifically bomb, I'm not leaving here - without electricity, but at least in my own house, enough." We lived in Poland, in Germany, everywhere is good. Everywhere is good where we are not. Your native country is your native country. My son says: "Move here to Germany," but not yet. I'm also of the opinion that we'll stay here for now. If they don't bomb Cherkasy specifically, I mean like Mariupol. Mariupol, God forbid of course, that's just nonsense. I don't even know what to call it... I was there now, looked at it all with somewhat different eyes, it's scary.

КА: Sergey, tell me how it is in Mariupol, what's happening there?

СД: Let me tell you in order.

КА: Let's start with how you generally decided to return to Mariupol and when.

СД: Let's start with this. When we left with my son to go there, abroad, he was met in Germany. I went to Poland to my wife. As soon as I arrived there, I immediately told her: "I'll probably go back to Mariupol." My duty is to rebury my family, children, mom, former wife. It's not human, that they're buried in the garden, it shouldn't be like that, that was my goal. This was in April. I was still weak then... Like everything was in fog. Actually speaking, like now too, I sit sometimes, suddenly - like I came to. Really this is happening to me? Really this is happening to me? Really I don't have children? Really no one will call me? I was planning to return to Mariupol right away in April, to rebury and do everything humanly. There were combat operations there, my wife was categorically against: "Where are you going?" Not that I was listening to them, but I was thinking myself. There's no authority there now, I still won't rebury anyway, I still won't help with anything. Maybe something will shift, maybe ours will immediately recapture Mariupol, it will be easier. April - no, in May I got ready again - no. Then we went to visit my son in Germany, stayed with him. Returned to Poland, made it to the end of July. That's it, we went home to Ukraine. Got in the car, my wife was in the car, and we drove to Cherkasy. In Cherkasy we have a house that we bought with my wife in '15, when they shelled Mariupol, the Donetsk People's Republic fighters, they hit the neighborhood there. We bought an old house in Cherkasy, destroyed. Why in Cherkasy? My wife spent her childhood here, not in this village, but her relatives in Cherkasy region still live there, somewhere 60 kilometers from here, we visited them. It's beautiful here, nature, the Dnipro is nearby. We bought this little house of old construction, from the '50s, a village house. We chose it because of the location - center of the village, 10 kilometers from Cherkasy, even 8 in a straight line, I think. Center of the village, forest nearby, 200 meters. We leveled everything with the ground practically and for 2 years I built it, we made the landscape our way, gazebos, recreation zones. I have 2 ponds dug here, a water mill, in short, for ourselves. The children came here constantly, my daughters too. They studied in Poland, 4 or 5 years they were in Poland. They traveled to Poland through Kyiv, and from here to Kyiv is close by. They came here from Poland, we met them here and back to Poland there. They were here constantly, this was like a reserve airfield in case of war. But we didn't use this airfield, because Mariupol was surrounded very quickly and there was no way out. We weren't ready for this, no one thought it would be like that. I immediately started getting ready for Mariupol. We arrived here in early August. While here with the household, we practically weren't here for half a year, everything got overgrown, we had to put it in order more or less. In the middle of the month I registered here, processed documents, that I'm in Ukraine. I filed with the Ukrainian one about the death of my family. In early September I started arranging to go to Mariupol. Arranging how? Travel or through Europe to Mariupol, again through Poland, the Baltics, through Russia. That's long. Then there was still passage through Vasylivka...