Flight from the war: from Mariupol to Tbilisi – through Russia
- Toby Lockhurst
- BBC, Tbilisi
The BBC News Russian Service app is available for iOS and android. You can also subscribe to our channel at Telegram.
In a house near Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, Natasha shows us two cars riddled with shrapnel. In these cars, they got to a safe place in Georgia from their native Mariupol. Dangerous route, including through the territory of Russia.
“A fragmentation bomb,” she says, pointing at the damaged vehicles. “A drone was flying around and bombing us.”
Most of the Ukrainian directions are heading west, trying to prevent the army from entering the territory of Russia, measured by Ukraine, and even getting into the EU countries.
However, some decided to go east to meet the advancing armed forces. Natasha and her family are among those who have fled to a third country through Russia, risking border crossings and dozens of checkpoints.
Some, like Natasha, travel on their own. Others pay individual drivers or rely on volunteers to route them through a transport group. From Ukraine, they either go straight east to Russia or go south through occupied Crimea and from there to mainland Russia.
The BBC has spoken to people and people helping to travel on these journeys. In order to ensure the safety of those who help them, the details of the routes and the names of the drivers are not disclosed.
Alexander is a sailor from Mariupol. On the morning of the invasion, his son-in-law’s family ran away from their home in the port city. Some time after the appearance, they heard the first explosions in the distance. His relatives decided to leave the area and flee to central Ukraine.
“They didn’t even have time to finish their tea,” Alexander says. “I expected that [война] it will be similar to 2014 – they will bomb a little, talk a little, after that they will shake hands and disperse. It was my big mistake.”
Alexander, his wife Nadya and their two sons Vlad and Dmitry spent several months in Mariupol. They hid in the basement of their apartment building while the Russians shelled and bombed the city, going outside to cook only over a fire. They had to use a corner of the basement as a shared toilet; after several months underground, only 40 or so of the 120 people who first descended into the shelter survived.
Alexander, 42, says he has not heard anything about the evacuation and does not receive any assistance during his observation in the city. There was no internet or cell service, but from time to time people from other sources of Mariupol appeared, and he began to profit how to get out of the city.
They eventually found a driver who took them to Berdyansk, a town southwest of Mariupol that was already under military occupation. At $50 with a nose, it was not cheap. But on May 18, nearly three months into the city’s takeover, they boarded a Ford Transit van and hit the road.
The road was not easy. On the way from Mariupol to Berdyansk, they had to pay extra to their own driver to avoid roadblocks, as they did not pass the filtration – the Russian screening of people trying to leave the area.
Dmitry was also in the car with Alexander. He was discovered to have been filtered while living outside of Mariupol; he and his family slept on cots in the school’s basement for six weeks until it was their turn to be filtered – luxury, in his opinion, compared to what others had to endure. 33-year-old Dmitry.
“We had water, we had flour, eggs, food. [в школе]he says. So we had to starve. We ate once a day.”
When it was his turn to be filtered, they queued in army command formation for 14 hours until Russian forces finally interrogated him. Earlier on the ground, he fell off his bike and hurt his knees. The soldiers considered this suspicious, believing that he could take part in the hostilities. His departments are also infected with tattoos and marks on his shoulder, where bruises could occasionally remain.
Despite this, Dmitry passed quickly. He was fingerprinted and given an official certificate stating that he had been filtered.
“The Russians told me, ‘You can eat your passport, nobody needs it. But it’s important to me,” says Dmitry.
The driver managed to safely deliver the group to Berdyansk, driving through back streets, off-road and even through the forest, so as not to enter the city through checkpoints.
Alexander says that after a few months in Mariupol, Berdyansk began to seem like a dream. You could sleep, rest and buy food. But under the conditions of occupation, they did not feel safe.
“Russian soldiers repeat themselves. Constant stress,” he says. [для них] It’s not a problem”.
Alexander was able to connect with a network of private drivers who agreed to take him, family and friends to Georgia via Crimea.
Some other BBC interlocutors also entered Georgia via Crimea. Some even traveled north from Crimea to the Baltic states, traveling hundreds of thousands of years through Russia to safety.
On May 24, Alexander, his wife and children, as well as Dmitry, set off from Berdyansk to the Crimea in order to get to Georgia. They all knew about the dangers of this route – in a few months after the start of the Russian invasion, further movement deep into the territory limited to Russia, there was a big risk. But moving deeper into the coastal territory was safer than risking the coast across the front line towards lands equal to Ukraine.
Another man, who was traveling to Georgia via Crimea, told the BBC that he decided to travel via Russia because the roads approaching Ukrainian territory were mined.
“It was dangerous,” Alexander says. On the way to the Crimea, they passed through 18 checkpoints, they were interrogated at all of them. Why are you going? Why are you not in the army? Everywhere the same questions, Russian soldiers everywhere.
But the worst was ahead.
After many hours of checks on the road to the south, they arrived at the crossing to the Crimea. Nadia and the boys quickly passed the checkpoint, and the guards sent Dmitry and Alexander to a railway car, where they were seated around the scattering. Three Russian soldiers were sitting in the compartment with Alexander, two with Dmitry.
“It feels like filtering,” says Alexander. He was interrogated by FSB officers: Where do you work? Why not in the army? Why don’t you fight the Nazis? Why stand the Ukrainian soldiers?
The men also infected his mobile phone and found several photos of Oleksandr in the Ukrainian national danger, which raised even more questions.
“I kept thinking: I have a family, you just need to keep quiet and just go through it,” says Alexander.
Dmitry was released seven hours later. He joined the experience on the Crimean side. They were waiting for Alexander, not suspecting what was happening to him.
“I felt very bad,” says Alexander. “The way they talk to you … they can hit you, press you, reduce your stress. What should I say? If you say something wrong, you are finished.
Alexander says that he tried not to provoke the guards, he spoke as little as possible. Through the wall he heard a man being beaten in another compartment.
Finally, after 12 hours of interrogation, he was released.
“I couldn’t get into it. [к микроавтобусу]where my wife and children slept – it was already one or two in the morning. I told the driver let’s go,” he says.
The driver, on the contrary, easily passed the border checkpoint. Alexander says that he was a Russian citizen, showed his identity card, and was not asked any questions.
“It’s just a business. They earn sensitive money! Getting to Tbilisi is very expensive. For a family of people from Berdyansk to Tbilisi – almost $ 2,000,” he says.
His wife Nadya, on the contrary, thanks the drivers who went on a dangerous journey: “Understand: if not for these drivers, we would still be sitting in Mariupol.
Then the group moved from the Crimea to the south-east of Russia and, finally, three days after leaving Berdyansk, to the border with Georgia. During the trip, they changed the driver – the old one complained about the new one, the accident changed the car at the agreed meeting place and returned to the road without interference.
Traveling in Russia was easy. There were fewer checkpoints, and power came to them like a human being. There was only one checkpoint in Crimea, which they easily passed, and two more in southwestern Russia.
“After [переезда в Крым] It’s been good, says Alexander. “The farther from Mariupol, Berdyansk, the better.” According to Alexander, in Russia, policemen were mostly on duty at checkpoints, who did not treat them as “enemies”.
When crossing the border with Georgia, he was again requested by the FSB officers. But he said the process went more smoothly and quickly – one of them even apologized and said he understood why he left Mariupol after Alexander told him that his mother and brother were killed in the bombing. From the Georgian side it was even easier.
“It was a wonderful feeling. It was 4 am – [пограничники сказали] good morning, good morning. Passport stamped in two minutes. All! And we are free. I shouted right in the minibus: “We broke free!” he says. – That was incredible. You could breathe.”
Now Alexander and his family live in a house in the mountains near Tbilisi, organized for them by the Tbilisi Volunteers aid group.
Masha, a Russian from Moscow who moved to Georgia four years ago, started the group in the early days of the war. She is only 20 years old and remembers hearing him cry on the phone on the morning of the invasion, fearing for the safety of his family.
“It was dangerous. The first days you are in a fog, you don’t know what to do. You want to help and do something, but you don’t know what,” she says.
In a week she will organize help for the Ukrainians. Her parents run a hotel in a city where there are likely to be many Ukrainians, and she knew what to do. Now in their four houses in Tbilisi and its environs, where they receive Ukrainians fleeing the country.
Alexander and his family arrived at a house near Tbilisi late at night after their trip to Russia.
“I like it here. Silence. No cars, no explosions,” says Nadya. “The boys do well. They have a river, mountains, goats and cows.”
“How did you get to heaven,” says Alexander. “I tell my wife, compare where we were just a month ago, and where we are now. We have not changed days now, because we are free. We survived.”
To receive BBC news, subscribe to all channels:
Download application: