In terrifying journal extracts, Olga Bolgova tells how she and her family were pitched into an unimaginable new life in a city under siege
ByBen Farmer ; Tanya Kozyreva and Simon Townsley, PHOTOGRAPHER. 19 March 2022 • 9:00pm
When Russia invaded Ukraine late last month, Olga Bolgova and her family suddenly found themselves fighting to survive in a city under siege. Mrs Bolgova went from a comfortable existence as a teacher in the southern city of Mariupol, to sheltering from barrages and sleeping in basements.
Here in edited extracts from her diary, and pictures shared with The Telegraph, she recounts how she, along with her husband Aleksey, son Artem and daughter Arina, faced bombardment, food and water shortages, and bitter coldbefore they managed to escape to Zaporizhzhya last week.
Feb 24 [First day of the Russian invasion]
Woke up before the alarm clock, at 6:30am from some kind of bang. My husband told me it was war.
I started calling my parents. I ran to school for the laptop. They said there would be a “vacation” for a week.
It’s only 7:30am outside and it’s already a mess: ATMs, water, shops. My family say don’t panic. I don’t seem to panic, but I went for groceries. It’s crowded, just like before the new year. I will not take a lot, just a minimum. Managed to pay by card. Cash withdrawal is not realistic.
Well, I think it will be over in a couple of days.
Feb 25
I went to an ATM. I tried to get cash out. The queue was endless. I stood and I stood. It seemed to have stopped giving. I got closer and they let me try. I started trying small amounts: 100 to 300 hryvnia (£20 to £60) and it worked. I don’t have much, only three or four thousand, but I need to take it out.
March 5 [Five days after Mariupol blockade begins]
The mother-in-law came over on a bike. Two-and-a-half hours it took her. If there was no contact with my children for five days, I would also do this. She didn’t want to stay overnight.
Now, white rags are hung to show that a house is occupied. On the outskirts, the military drive tanks into the yard, and say your house is needed for defence. People grab what they can and go into the street. How? I don’t even want to imagine! Some neighbours went down to the basement, a shell hit and crushed everyone! The whole family! Nobody understood it at all, of course. They asked what to do with the dead. They said bury them in the gardens. We’ll exhume later.
The mother-in-law rode back on her bike.
This is the 10th day. Five days without water, light and communication.
Good night. 11pm, it’s quiet for now. Oh, no, they started again! The floor is shaking, the walls are shaking. Very scary! Hard and cold.
March 6
At 3am, it was very loud. Somewhere very close. Scary.
At 5.50am, heavy shelling. The doors are rattling and shaking very loudly again. Nauseous. The three of us went to the toilet. It looks like the sewer will clog up soon.
Yesterday in the news, there was not one word about Mariupol. People! We are here! We are scared! Tears flowed again.
At 7:15am, it calmed down a bit and my family went to reconnoitre the area.
7:30am, again a nightmare: A rocket flew by outside of the living room window.
My family ran around the area looking for water. They did not find water, but they found a looted pharmacy. It was trashed. If they would sell, people would buy, but meanwhile they take everything that they see. My family were lucky: trachisan, aspirin, ibuprofen, antivirals. They say a woman in a panic was looking for hormones for her thyroid gland. After surgery, crying…
People on the street have begun to barter. Chocolates for water.
It seems tomorrow we will start to implement the plan with bags. Go to the toilet not on the toilet, but in a bag. The bins are horrible. They have not been collected since February 24.
There is no gas, I am in a panic. This is the first time I feel desperate.
We sat until 9pm for the news. Nothing about Mariupol. The whole country is a nightmare.
March 7
The night passed quietly. Very cold. We got up to go to the toilet and lay down again, wrapping ourselves up. What about breakfast? I can’t figure it out yet. Where to make tea? Probably, let’s go and build fires somehow.
HThere was some kind of movement in the stairwell. We saw life was in full swing. Bonfires, grills and barbecues. I quickly figured out where to put the water on the fire, and made breakfast. Now it doesn’t really matter what kind of dishes we use, but it must be fire-resistant.
As always, illnesses and all sorts of bad things happen at the most inopportune moment. Arina went out to play on a swing, jumped off, fell and got a swing in her head. She cut the skin and scratched her face. I can’t say that it’s very bad, but the blood is flowing and everything is muddy. In conditions where there is no water, this is more than unpleasant. It’s dangerous.
My husband took me to the market for a tour. Oh my God. Everything is ruined! People are like ants swarming among the broken glass, the ruined shops. Like in a disaster movie. The brain refuses to understand what is happening. It’s like I’m watching from the outside.
March 8
The 14th day of the war and the 10th day of the Mariupol blockade. Down to the fires, with pots, leftover food and eggs.
Misha and Lyosha from the third stairwell prepare a large pot of stuffed peppers for the whole building and fry fish. Perch with big carp. They feed the whole building. Artem used buckets and basins to fill the bath with snow. This is how we store water.
My damn hair. How to wash it? Even if it is washed, how to dry it?
I spent the whole day on the street, and Arina in the basement with the children.
There’s a feeling sometimes that this is about to end and we will soon find ourselves in a warm house, bathe and lie down under the blankets. But no. Ahead is only an icy apartment, water from melted snow, darkness, the inability to even turn on the flashlight brightly and a night in the corridor on the floor wearing clothes.
March 8: ‘Ahead is a night in the corridor on the floor wearing clothes’
There was nothing on the news at 9pm. It seems Mariupol is of no interest to anyone.
March 9
Very cold. Outdoor -3C. Shelling at exactly 5am. The building shook violently.
Washed my hair! Hooray! Almost perfect day with Arina. We made handmade candles and played games.
Arina asked for food. A microwave now comes in the form of a fire on the street. I went with a saucepan. And then it began. Terrible is not the word. Mortars, overhead. I grabbed Arina and hid in the basement. The rest of my family are still not here. I think I will have hysterics. Then they came back safely. Everything is fine.
March 10
At 3am they began to bomb hard. We hugged each other with Arina and pressed against the floor as hard as we could. A nightmare until 4:30am. Then after five they started again. The building is on fire again.
March 10: ‘The building is on fire again’
Very, very cold. On the street -6C. In the apartment we have to wear a scarf and hat. I sometimes put on gloves. The poor cat.
Sveta and Igor came. Their first words were: Olya, today we are all going to the basement!
They say there is no city centre, there are no apartment buildings. There is no children’s hospital either. They showed photos. Like from a disaster movie. There was a street with broken houses, and near one of the broken houses there was a fresh grave. A lot of people are just lying on the streets.
We went to check the basement … the rest of the evening dragged on for a long time and it was very cold. Igor said that we will never return to our former life.
March 11
Oh, what a night it was! Slept for two hours at most. Firstly, it is very cold in the basement, although we were five families there. Secondly, our bed is made very short and it is impossible to stretch your legs. And thirdly, they bombed very hard. The house was shaking.
March 11: ‘It is very cold in the basement, although we were five families there’
March 11: ‘Our bed is made very short and it is impossible to stretch your legs’
The morning started even better. A snowstorm and frost. It’s -6C. Well, at least you can melt the snow.
They began to loot and destroy the school. My office. Damn, all the work that I did with the children, everything, will soon be broken. My little treasures: plasticine of all shades, glue of all kinds, an embroidery of a cat that Seryozha was taught how to do. It seems that life has stopped here.
Offices are broken into, and everything that is suitable for making basements more comfortable is taken away. And I was no exception. This is the first time my conscience really bothered me. But the cold is doing its job and soft rugs and mats have been pulled out of the gym.
March 15
Tonight it was clear that we had to get out. They were shelling near us all night until 5am. Bodies are everywhere. In a big queue, an endless quantity of cars driving out of the city.
God please help us to drive to Zaporizhzhya.
The reality of putinazi terror. Heartbreaking, terrifying and disgraceful that the western powers are doing so little to help Ukraine.
Where is Bidenov? The Yellow House has been very quiet lately. Do they see these images and videos?
Here is a comment from Douglas Murray in today’s Telegraph:
The world is finally waking up to the lunacy of the US Democratic Party’s leaders
The sheer weirdness of much of the American political class – specifically leading Democrat Nancy Pelosi – warrants close examination.
“It is pleasant to see the rest of the world slowly waking up to one of my keenest hobbies. Which is noting the sheer weirdness of much of the American political class – and specifically the leading Democrat Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker of the House is now 81 years old, making her one of the younger members of the gerontocracy that inexplicably still runs America on both sides of the political aisle.
Donald Trump used to be characteristically mean about Pelosi, saying that when she spoke she seemed to be struggling to keep her teeth in. But almost nobody in American politics has their own teeth.
Besides, it is Pelosi’s behaviour, not her looks, that warrants close examination.
Take the moment in April of last year when policeman Derek Chauvin was convicted of killing George Floyd. Soon after the verdict, Pelosi came out with some of her party’s black caucus and looked up to the skies. “Thank you George Floyd” she said. She went on, thanking Floyd ecstatically “for sacrificing your life for justice”.
Which is such an odd formulation. As though when Floyd set out for the convenience store in Minnesota that fateful morning, he was readying himself to do something great for the state of the nation.
The other week brought another classic Pelosi-ism. During Trump’s time in office, Pelosi used to rejoice in being as visibly disdainful as she could be while the president stood in front of her delivering the State of the Union address. On one occasion she theatrically tore up the text of the speech straight after Trump had finished reading it out.
Now under a president from her own side, her performance has gone from gracelessness to quasi-sexual ecstasy. During President Biden’s recent State of the Union address, Pelosi grinned, oohed and ah-ed almost without stop. She tried to out-smile even the vice-president Kamala Harris. Pelosi made Kamala look like she had a face of thunder by contrast.
Even as Biden mistakenly said that the invasion of Ukraine meant that America would never leave the side of the Iranian people, Pelosi looked like she’d never heard anything so wonderful. On one occasion she threw herself to her feet so fast that she almost toppled over the podium and threw her hands in front of her to steady herself. On another occasion she started rubbing her knuckles together as though it was Christmas morning and she was a child. At one point while doing this weird expectant knuckle-rub, she started to get to her feet while rubbing, as though the President was about to announce the happiest thing ever.
The President was talking about burn-pits, an area of a military base in which waste is disposed of by burning. He was specifically addressing the damage that soldiers including his late son Beau may have incurred from burn-pits in conflict. Nancy resumed her seat unfazed, the knuckles and the smile keeping on going.
Pelosi-watchers knew that we could expect her to be on especially good form for St Patrick’s Day this week. And so she was.
She had a message from Bono she told fellow legislators. Which is always a worrying opener. Then she read a new Bono lyric comparing Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, with St Patrick. “Oh, St Patrick / He drove out the snakes with his prayers, but that’s not all it takes” she read.
Bono’s cringe-making poem (in which he failed to find a rhyme for “Zelensky”) was not the worst part of it. The worst part of it was the performer. A woman who whenever she does an impression of a human being seems to take as her model someone who is criminally insane.
It says something about American politics that a person so odd has received so little attention. Who knows, perhaps it is just the intensity of the competition?”
All together, the US political system is ill. Maybe the voters have at least been awakened by this administration’s weakness and concurrently, Trump’s love affair with the rat. We can only hope.