15:48, 09.06.2025

Theater director from Mariupol, Anatoly Levchenko, spoke in an interview with UNIAN about the horrors of the occupation, ten months spent in captivity, and the indifference to his appeals for help from Kyiv theaters.

Honored Artist of Ukraine, director, set designer, public figure Anatoly Levchenko has worked at the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol since 1994. At first – as a production director, and later – as the chief director. It was on his initiative that Ukrainian plays began to be staged in the Mariupol theater…

The artist is the founder and director of the First Non-State Theater of Donetsk Region “Terra Incognita”. In 2022, the Levchenko couple were unable to quickly leave occupied Mariupol because they were taking care of their autistic son and Anatoly’s 91-year-old mother. Later, he was illegally detained on the denunciation of former colleagues and released only after ten months, which the man spent in prison. After that, he and his family finally managed to leave for the territory controlled by Ukraine.

The director shared his experiences with UNIAN and told how the theater he created survives during the war.

Mr. Anatoly, please tell us what was happening in Mariupol when Russian troops entered it? Did you try to leave the city in advance?

If I had known that this would happen, I would have taken my family out of the city before the invasion. There were four of us – my wife and I, my son Artem, who has a disability due to non-verbal autism, and my old mother-in-law. But the authorities assured me that nothing would happen, that everything was under control. I thought: even if something did start, it would be like in 2014, when we were captured for two months, then liberated (in the spring of 2014, Mariupol was captured by separatists supported by the Russian Federation, but in June the city was liberated by the Azov battalion, – UNIAN). The people of Mariupol were sure that they had powerful defense, but it turned out that this was not the case…

I don’t like, as they say, “to measure ourselves by corpses,” but few people imagine what was happening in the city. It was a horror! It is clear that there is war everywhere, people are suffering almost all over Ukraine. However, for example, civilians were somehow taken out of Bucha, Kherson, Bakhmut… From Mariupol – no! The Mariupol garrison was abandoned, we were doomed.

There was a real massacre inside the city. Residential buildings were bombed, shot from all sides… We walked over corpses every day. Young guys were stripped naked on the streets, in the cold – they were looking for tattoos. These sick [Russians], when they found any “picture” on their bodies, shot people on the spot… Men, young men were lying naked everywhere… I remember a guy – young, handsome, with a bullet hole between his eyes. On his forearm was an image of a wolf. You know, young people like to get tattoos, depicting leopards, tigers, wolves, dragons. And those scoundrels thought that this was a symbol of “Azov”…

What was happening? Trying to escape, people wrote “Children” on the roofs of houses, asphalt, and cars. They did it in Russian because they were addressing Russian pilots. People thought that this would save them. No. It didn’t save anyone. Our house was near Azovstal, we could see from the windows how high-rise buildings were burning… We saw those cars with the words “Children” written on them, with broken glass and doors…

How did people survive in this hell? How did they get food?

At the end of February, the shops were still open, but they were no longer delivering bread or water, and the townspeople were “sweeping” cereals and canned goods from the shelves. Around March 4, hot water disappeared, and later, heating, gas, and the Internet… But people adapt to everything – within a few days, looting of shops and pharmacies began. Our family, thanks to my mother-in-law, had a small supply of flour, and my wife made some bread on the fire outside, which could only be eaten hot… We exchanged vegetables with our neighbors…

When products miraculously appeared somewhere, the prices were fantastic. For example, at a spontaneous market, a pack of regular cigarettes cost 500 hryvnias… Once an acquaintance called me: “I’m in the store, there’s bread here, can you take it?” I was delighted: “Take two or three loaves… Take as many as you can – we’ll make crackers!” He came about an hour later. He held out a bag with half a loaf of bread and a receipt… For half a loaf – 260 hryvnias! And this – not at the market, but in a Ukrainian supermarket!

It is known that in Energodar, which was also occupied, local entrepreneurs distributed food…

I heard that some entrepreneurs did the same thing in our country, but next to our house there was a store called “Dzerkalny”, the owner of which behaved differently. He barricaded all the windows and doors in the premises with tables from his cafe… In March, some guys used a tractor to break down that door. I remember how a neighbor called me: “Mykolaich, let’s run there…”. I understand, it doesn’t look very pretty, but I ran with everyone – we were surviving, we had to get food for our son somewhere… People grabbed whatever they saw – cereals, canned goods, vodka, and there was a terrible stench throughout the premises. It was rotten fish in the refrigerators… I thought then about the store owner: “Okay, for the first two days none of us understood anything… But then… You live in this city, you understand that everything you have is in the refrigerators, but there is no electricity and everything will be lost. So take it and give it back for half the price, give it to hungry children…”. No! I just closed it and everything rotted.

How did your old mother-in-law react to this horror?

She survived World War II, she told us about it before… And when the great war began in 2022, she was silent the whole time – she didn’t say a word for two months, she didn’t eat anything… On April 2, Valentina Sergiyevna died. She faded before our eyes. She was 91 years old.

We wrapped her in a blanket, I carried the body down with my neighbors from the 9th floor. There was no coffin. They buried her under the entrance. They put a photocopy of her passport in her hands, made a cross out of sticks… As it turned out, I remembered some prayer. When I read it, behind the neighbor

Russian “Grad” missiles fired 20 shells at the house… I said: “Valentina Sergeevna, Russian “soldiers” saluted you. Rest in peace.”

Did you manage to rebury your mother-in-law?

A year later, representatives of the occupation authorities began exhumation, because the city had turned into a cemetery – people were buried on all the lawns. They dug them up, gave them some cardboard coffins and issued a death certificate. What is interesting – in this Russian piece of paper, in the column “cause of death” they wrote: “Putrefaction of the body in the fourth stage”. That is, it turns out that the mother-in-law was decomposing while she was alive, or we buried her alive – the logic is ironclad… They reburied her in Mariupol in the cemetery. This was when I was already arrested.

In your opinion, how many civilians could have died in Mariupol?

By my calculations, about a third of the city was destroyed. How did I get to this? The Russians documented that there are 350 apartment buildings in the city that cannot be restored. That is, we are talking about demolition. People lived in all of them. When I analyzed, I took the average number – two people per apartment, and in total it turned out 120 thousand people. Therefore, I believe that at least 100 thousand died. In addition, there are satellite photos, on them you can see how the cemetery has grown. And these are not single graves, but trenches – mass burials.

Please tell me how you were detained?

This happened on May 20, 2022, when our fighters were still leaving Azovstal (on May 16, 2022, the Ukrainian garrison surrendered to the authorities on the orders of the state’s top leadership; in the following days, the Russian occupiers began to evacuate the defenders from the Azovstal plant, – UNIAN). I remember that there was still shooting in the city center, and from the windows we saw Russian trucks driving towards the plant to pick up our soldiers. That day, my wife went to a makeshift market to buy groceries for her son Artem and to repair my shoes, because I had nothing to wear to go outside… I stayed with my son.

The “DNR” were sitting in the yard and, probably, waiting for Hanna to leave. They broke into the apartment, didn’t explain anything… I told them: “The child is sick – non-verbal autistic. You can’t leave him alone, let your wife wait.” And they said: “It’s nothing to worry about, get ready… Call your neighbor to see your son.” It was good that our good friend lived on the floor below, whom I called. I said, tell Hanna that they took me, and left…

But another neighbor struck me unpleasantly. You know, just an ordinary old lady, we always greeted her, sometimes in Ukrainian. And when she saw me being taken out, she said: “Finally, they’re going to take all the Nazis away!” I was shocked.

Where were you taken?

Probably to the FSB office. I waited for three hours with a package on my head, then the Russians arrived – I understood from their accent. They sent me to Donetsk, to the most terrible prison of the “DPR” called “Isolation”, which is located at 3 Svitliy Shlyakh. The street is probably named that way because it abuts a cemetery (laughs). I spent two months there, then another eight months in the FSB detention center No. 1 in Donetsk, in a cell for 20 people.

Did they explain to you why you were detained?

They filed a complaint against me. Whoever did it wrote everything down carefully… They picked on my social media.

Yes, once I posted a parody of the chewing gum Love is: a boy and a girl, hugging, looking at the burning Kremlin. The picture says: “Love is looking in the same direction.” From the point of view of the “DNR” it looked like this: “Levchenko called on the people of Ukraine to set fire to the Kremlin.” Now it’s funny, but then it wasn’t funny at all, because, by their standards, it was extremism – 9 years in prison.

For four hours during the interrogation, I talked about the content of my play “Glory to the Heroes”. I explained that it was about two veterans – a Soviet soldier and a member of the UPA, who meet in a hospital in the 1990s and communicate with each other, recalling moments from their lives. And in the interrogation protocol they wrote: “Glorified the Nazi generals”…

They also brought charges of inciting religious, national and other enmity – for my theatrical activities – Ukrainian language, philosophy, history and the like… They asked me: “Did you speak at the rally on the Day of Unity?” Of course, I spoke, I was even an organizer… Yeah, says the investigator, everything is clear – nationalist activities.

In total, I was charged with three articles – 20 years in prison. When I went into the cell, they asked me, what are you for? I proudly answered: “Terrorism, extremism, inciting hatred…”. They looked at me like I was poor: “Okay, you don’t have espionage or treason yet” (laughs).

Do you know who filed a complaint against you?

I am sure that these are colleagues-collaborators. Even the investigator did not hide it much, saying: “I should have chatted with my colleagues less”… I cannot prove that it was exactly him, but there was an actor Serhiy Musienko in the drama theater, who hated me very much. He twice put forward his candidacy for the position of director of the institution, and now he holds the position of chief director of the so-called Mariupol Republican Academic Order “Badge of Honor” Russian Drama Theater (the former Mariupol Drama Theater, the building of which was bombed by the occupiers in 2022, – UNIAN).

It’s interesting that in 2022 the theater was headed by some uncle from the occupiers, from the Krasnodar Territory, but suddenly he disappeared. Through acquaintances, I found out that Musienko had appeared there as the chief director. I asked my acquaintances, they say, how did it happen? And they say: “He sat that Russian down – wrote something about him in Donetsk.” That’s how you have to be able to do it.

In addition to Musienko, there are several women who left Mariupol at the beginning of the invasion (it was still possible to do this using their own transport then), and then returned home… By the way, I applied to the SBU twice, but they did not accept my statements regarding the collaborators in the Mariupol theater. Therefore, I will go to court myself, even to international instances. I will make sure that they are tried, at least in absentia. After all, back in 2020, this entire theater “gang” wrote denunciations against me to the Ukrainian authorities…

And then – occupation?

You know, habits don’t change. There are “professionals” for whom snitching is a lifelong affair. One of them was in the cell with me. He was about 70. A very quiet man, his name was Lyokha. Later I found out that he had snitched under Brezhnev to the KGB, then, out of habit, to the SBU, and later he tried to get a job in the FSB, but here they told him, “isn’t that too much?”… (laughs). That is, a habit remains a habit – a professional snitch.

Why were you released from prison?

The thing is that since October 2022, after the so-called referendum, it has been considered that Mariupol is supposedly the territory of the Russian Federation. And according to Russian laws, the article on inciting interethnic hatred is not criminal, but administrative. That is, this case ceased to exist, it was closed. The rest of the cases were merged into one, then terrorism disappeared from the case somewhere, extremism remained… During one of the interrogations, I told the investigator that I had to go to my son because he needed rehabilitation. And she released me on a recognizance not to leave. Then I found out that good people had been trying to get me out of prison all the time. You can say that due to a combination of several factors, I was lucky, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking to you now… I returned home in March 2023. Then I was on a recognizance not to leave – for several months I lived in the occupation with my family.

How did you manage to last so long? Did anyone help?

The only thing that was – my wife had registered a pension for her son during the occupation, it was 8 thousand Russian rubles. To understand the prices: the cost of boiled sausage in Mariupol is 500 rubles, a bottle of vodka – 1.5-2 thousand rubles. That is, 8 thousand is nothing. And when I fell on my head after imprisonment, we ate this money in a week. Thank God, friends helped… Unfortunately, there were those who refused, although they could have helped.

How did Artem survive the occupation and your detention?

With autistic people, everything is different. He almost doesn’t talk: he mumbles, makes sounds like “u-u-u, a-a-a, o-o-o…”. When problems with food started, he didn’t eat anything for two weeks – he survived on sweets. He lay under the blanket all the time, bedsores started… We were afraid that he would die… Artem is very attached to me. After the arrest, his wife was left alone with him. Everything fell on her – she had to get food, clothes, survive in the dark, without water and gas… I remember when he returned from prison: he went into the apartment, his wife cried, and his son laughed – he was happy. He sat on my lap, hugged me. Hanna told me how he looked for me all over the apartment…

How was it possible to distract and occupy a sick child during shelling and occupation?

Artem is already an adult – he is now 22 years old. All autistic people love games, especially those with repetition – they like to endlessly transfer something from place to place, listen to simple songs. During the occupation, he had a “toy” – a stack of color photos taken in different places and in different years, in which we are together. For months he laid out these photos on his bed… On the first night after returning from captivity, I went into his room, and it was all strewn with torn photos, in which I was. I tore it up in the dark – I was offended, they say, “why did you leave me” (he sighs heavily).

The same situation with music. Artem had several hundred discs, he really likes to watch the M1 channel. As you know, in Mariupol, with the beginning of the invasion, the broadcast was interrupted. Then, when we managed to leave the city, there was a TV in the rented apartment. My son took the remote control, turned it on, and there was M1… And then we saw his eyes, a man who doesn’t speak, full of tears. “I-i-i,” he mumbled. This meant: “Why did you take this away from me?” He didn’t sleep for two days – he held the remote control in his hands all the time, fell asleep with it in his hands, at full volume…

How did you manage to leave Mariupol?

I was looking for contact with friends, acquaintances in Ukraine, abroad. It’s not so easy to leave with our son – you need a separate minibus. And there was no money. A lot of people helped. Later, we reached out to the ZMINA Human Rights Center, which attracted foreign sponsors. In the summer of 2023, we drove through the Rostov, Kursk, Smolensk and Belgorod regions of the Russian Federation to get to Sumy – it took us a day and a half to drive. At first, we settled in Kropyvnytskyi, and a year later we moved to the capital…

In 2019, you created the first non-state theater, Terra Incognita…

We must start with the fact that I am the last chief director of the famous drama theater (Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol, – UNIAN). Why the last? I worked in the theater immediately after graduating from the Karpenko Kary Institute, since 1994. It so happened that I became the leader of pro-Ukrainian reforms in the theater and during this process found myself on one side, and the management on the other. In 2020, they did not renew my contract. I founded Terra Incognita in 2019, because I understood that I did not have long to work in a state institution. Today, Terra Incognita is the only theater in Europe in which all the artists are refugees, displaced persons. The majority are from Mariupol, two people from Severodonetsk and one guy from the Kharkiv region.

Was it possible to save the entire team?

There are 26 of us in total, but people have scattered everywhere, there are even in Australia and Canada. When I left the occupation, I gathered everyone I could, and now there are 12 of us in Kyiv. Five girls, four boys, and two older people – Honored Artist of Ukraine Anatoliy Shevchenko, 70, and 60-year-old actor Yevgen Sosnovsky. The rest are 19-37 years old…

We are trying to do something, we rented a small room on Shulyavka, in an old house. There, in a small room, we hold rehearsals, next to it is a small room where there is also sound recording equipment and our dining room…

What is your repertoire?

Our theater is philosophical and existential. We have conventional comedies, but there are very, very few of them. I believe that there will be someone to entertain without us, and we can tell people something different… From 2019 to 2021, we created 16 performances, visited two festivals. The actual premises were opened in the fall of 2021 at 100 Myru Avenue, next to Freedom Square. On February 25, 2022, the premiere of our play “Do You See the Light at the End of the Tunnel?” based on Neda Nezhdana’s play “The One Who Opens the Door” was supposed to take place there. It didn’t work out. Unfortunately, there is no longer any freedom or peace there…

Now we have revived three performances. And the first was “Do You See the Light at the End of the Tunnel?”. We are working on a few more. We are performing a rare genre – microplays based on the works of the contemporary Romanian playwright Matei Visnek. We have five of them, under the general title “Imagine Being God”. We will try to restore all 16 performances. I think that in July there will be a premiere of the production “The Voice of the Silent Abyss” – a very interesting play, mystical, against the backdrop of realistic Ukrainian events. There are plans for the fall…

Does the state support you?

Yes. Now I receive 2 thousand hryvnias a month. This is called housing assistance for IDPs. Because of my son’s illness, he needs a separate room from us. We found a Khrushchev in Nivki – it’s “killed”, but it’s the cheapest housing in Kyiv – 10 thousand hryvnias…

Separately, I must say about the cultural functionaries – no structure in Ukraine provided any assistance to me or my family. And when we were looking for a place for rehearsals, we turned to no one… For example, in the Ivan Kozlovsky Art and Concert Center there is a hall 6 by 6 meters, we were told: “Rent – 200 dollars, if you don’t like it – it will be 400”. I tried to explain that we are from Mariupol, but I heard the answer: “Well, so what…”. I turned to ten Kyiv theaters… No one even answered me. At least they simply wrote: “Sorry, there are no places”. No, silence.

We have money problems right now. Actors are forced to earn a living – some at McDonald’s, some as cleaners…

In your opinion, is the de-occupation of the territories occupied by the Russian Federation possible?

We are not just talking about the territory – people live there. And I have a question: “Do we need them?”. And immediately the second question: “Do they need us?”. Two generations of children have already grown up in the so-called DPR, fused with hatred for everything Ukrainian. Russian propaganda there is terrible. Since 2014, I have seen people who came to Mariupol from Donetsk, been in prison, occupation… I talked to them and felt how these people had changed – they seemed to be from another planet!

I wonder what the Ministry for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, created to develop a program: what and how to do, was doing? They said they would involve psychologists, sociologists, economists… A significant part of Ukraine is occupied and we are not talking about “factories and steamships”, but about millions of people, among whom there are many collaborators and traitors. Let’s say a miracle happens tomorrow and a Ukrainian tank arrives in Donetsk… So they will blow it up in the evening!

So you can’t imagine the de-occupation, in particular of the Donetsk region?

Let’s say that by some miracle the occupiers leave without fighting. Then it will be something like Nazi Germany after World War II, when house-to-house patrols were conducted, and neighbors reported on neighbors (a re-education campaign was implemented in Germany to rid the population of any manifestations of the ideology of Nazism, which consisted, in particular, in familiarizing the population with the most repulsive aspects of the activities of the fascist administration, etc. – UNIAN). The Berlin Wall appeared there, and those tribunals were dealt with until the 1970s. It will be the same here… As for Mariupol, it is the Sea of ​​Azov, a naval base. The Russians will never give it up just like that.

Do you know what is happening in Mariupol now?

It is impossible to earn a living. Factories and warehouses have been looted. Two universities are operating – some traitors teach there. What diploma these children are given, where they are going with it – it is unclear… The Russians are importing their own specialists, while there is still no children’s hospital in Mariupol… Dvirnyk is a breadwinner.

They depict some kind of prosperous construction there. 24 houses have been built, and 350 are being demolished, let me remind you. They show these freshly painted buildings from 30 angles, and if you move a little away from the center, everything is in ruins, wolves howl at night. And this is no joke: several times a pack of wolves attacked drunken men… Some of my Mariupol acquaintances say that they miss the sea, they say, they want to swim. I don’t want to swim there, especially after the corpses were floating there in 2022. Do you understand what corpses in the sea are?! There was cholera there in 2022, and there wasn’t even enough plague…

Does your personal life during the war reflect in your productions?

Not really, but every performance has my thoughts… As for my personal life, I’ve seen so many characters during my captivity that I don’t need to invent anything (laughs). I recently wrote a script in which I describe the period of my stay in prison. There are real characters, only the names and surnames have been changed. I “appear” in episodes, there is a taciturn informant-Lyokha, who doesn’t see anything strange or absurd in his way of life…

What is the theater of the absurd in life?

When they allocate money to replace paving stones in a settlement two kilometers from the front line. When a state institution during the war “dumps” millions on designers to develop a new logo for its website… When they speculate on patriotism…

Then, in your opinion, what is patriotism?

Definitely not “hooray-patriotism” and do not confuse it with pseudo-patriotism, the “bearers” of which pronounce the phrase “Glory to Ukraine, Glory to the Heroes!” out of habit, like “Let me light a cigarette.” That is, a phrase that has a great, very deep meaning is used with and without an occasion. This is not patriotism – this is mockery!

In my opinion, a true patriot is the outstanding prose writer, playwright, and Doctor [of Philosophy] Ivan Franko. In his time, he described such a phenomenon as “patented patriotism,” which is reduced to public slogans and unjustified boasting. A kind of “patriotism” at the declarative level. This is about people who have made patriotism their profession.

Can you express your view on what war is?

When I was in prison, there was a library there and once a month a person would come to “enlighten” us. They said, take as many books as you can… When I asked: “What’s there?”, they replied: “All sorts of crap – Dostoevsky, Tolstoy…” I said: “Take everything.” So, strangely enough, Tolstoy wrote very correct works. About war – as the state of humanity, war and the universe. He makes it clear: war begins in the heads, and then continues in the trenches…

Now I often hear people say that if only World War III would not start. Good people, it is already coming! We have been heading towards it for all 30 years of independence. For thirty years we said: “We need NATO, we don’t need NATO.” We talked and talked and talked. Now no one is discussing “should we or not”, only no one wants to take us… Currently, the 21st century is the era of smartphones and AI, and Putin does not walk around in sapyan boots and an ermine mantle, but this does not distinguish him much from Ivan the Terrible. A cannibal! Now we are talking about the interests of huge clans, financial, political, there is a certain redistribution of something there. Why did this happen to us? Because Ukraine is the center of Europe. But, unfortunately, Europeans do not yet understand that this is a world war that will reach them too.

You can support the Mariupol theater and its director at the link .

Larisa Kozova

(c)UNIAN 2025