Photos of Natalia's diary pages.
Natalia left Mariupol with her 4 children as soon as she found the opportunity. On February 24, 2022, the Russians began to occupy the city: there was heavy fighting. The occupiers destroyed life support facilities, warehouses with food and medicine, mobile phone towers and power lines, and water supply with precision fire. All city buses that were prepared for the evacuation of the civilians, were destroyed with fire. Since May 20, 2022, the city has been occupied by Russians and almost completely destroyed. The last time Natalia saw or heard anything from her husband was a few days before the evacuation from Mariupol. Eventually, she began to keep a diary in which she described her family's life, events, thoughts and feelings, dreams, and counted the days of captivity. Natalia's husband is still being held by the Russians.
You will be able to watch an interview with Natalia and her family later on our website. And today's story is about how faith and love keep people close and far apart at the same moment. How, in the darkest times, a wife found her own way to communicate with her husband - to keep a diary detailing the life of their big family.
"I don't use it anymore, but I carry it [the diary] with me. There are a lot of thoughts and they all are so gloomy. I don't want him to read it later. But at first, yes, I have been addressing all my notes to him... I have been communicating with my husband through my diary. And I heard him answering, I heard his voice in my head. Now I don't feel like this is a conversation between us. It's more like my monologue. And so it just stays in my head."
The first entry in the diary is dated April 28, 2022, and is written in Russian. A few pages later, she continues writing in Ukrainian.
"I decided to write here my conversations with you. "My darling. I miss you so much. There are so many thoughts in my head... from anger and hopelessness to all-encompassing love for you [...]. I will write about our trip from Mariupol sometime later. There is so much I want to tell you, so much to share. I love you so much. I know we'll be back together again. If only you knew how much I want to touch you... I'm stroking your face in the photo... I'm sending the warmth of my hand to you..."
"The day before, there were rumors that evacuation buses would arrive in Mariupol. And lists were made, they said that all small children with their mothers would be put in there first. Since I have a lot of children, I think we should use the opportunity."
Natalia and the other women whom she lived in the shelter with [basements of houses where it was still possible to hide during the first days of the war and the constant shelling of the city, served as shelters] discussed who was going to leave, and made up their minds. And she decided to leave: "There is nothing to wait for under these airbombers."
Before leaving, Natalia left her husband a message, but she is still not sure if he received it. She always asks those who are swapped from captivity if her husband has read the letter:
"So I wrote a letter and put it in his wallet. I left a message for him. I wrote that I’m sorry. I don't know why. I wrote that we love him and that I decided to take our children out. I wrote that we will look for you when the war is over. I actually don't know why I wrote that. I should have just written that we would meet. I'm so silly, really. For some reason, I wrote that. I don't know if he read it or not if he got it. Well, I'll ask him when he comes back."
Natalia promises to give her husband “a hard time” for saying goodbye in Mariupol:
"He put me in his friend's car, closed the door behind me, and immediately turned away. He didn't kiss me: he pushed me into the car, closed the door, and that was it. And he left. He didn't say anything, didn't kiss me. This is nonsense! How could he do that? And I'm sitting in the car, and I'm telling my son, "He didn't kiss me [speaks in Russian]." I repeated several times that he didn't kiss me. And that was the last time I saw him."
Diary entry. October 2022:
"204 days of captivity.
7 months without you.
During this time, our family had 4 birthdays, including yours. But they were not holidays. We hope [name withheld]'s birthday will be soon. On September 21, 200 of our brave Azov soldiers were liberated from captivity. You may not know about their deeds, but I am sure that when you are back, we will tell you everything. The commanders are back! Our friends are also still in captivity. [Name withheld], [name withheld], [name withheld] - these are the ones I know about. [...] We are still fighting for you. Today, [daughter's name withheld] lost a tooth for the first time. It was pushed out by a new tooth, which is now visible in the gum. Our younger son's upper tooth has also been falling out during this time. But I forgot to put money instead of a tooth under his pillow for several days. So he got frustrated and was mad at the Tooth Fairy. He threw the tooth in the trash. I'm sorry. [...] It was hard in Mariupol during the shelling. But when we were together, everything was fine. My love, I am happy only with you. I miss you so much. I enjoy watching our children (when they don't fight with each other). I wish you could see them growing up now. I love you, my falcon. Very much!"
Natalia is currently going through a particularly emotionally difficult time. As a result, she decided to stop writing her diary after two years of carefully capturing their family's life and expectations.
"If we used to be one, we were one family, now, having gone through certain moments, I have learnt to solve issues by myself, to live alone with my children. I have learnt to be alone, to be a grown-up girl and to solve my own problems. That's why I don't hear his voice in my head anymore."
Both Natalia and the children are waiting for their father to come back. The younger daughter doesn't remember him because when they left Mariupol, she was only two years old, and now she is almost five. Her mother shows her a photo of her father holding her in his arms. The elders remember:
"For some reason, everything good is associated with dad and everything bad with mum. Mum scolds, and dad always bringing sweets home. Because when he was coming home for the weekend, it was a holiday.Dad would take me to the city and take me to the parks. So it appeared that when Dad was home, it was a holiday at home. And mum is always, "boo-boo-boo, boo-boo-boo" (laughs). And even now, too. Who scolds? Mum."
Natalia constantly imagines her meeting with her husband. She writes that when they meet, they will have to get to know each other all over again, and she hopes that he will like her as much as he did 24 years ago:
"I see him being brought by a friend in his white car. And it's my husband walking with flowers to my doorstep. And then I run out to him. My younger daughter comes running to him first. And I'm running, and all the children are running to him, and we're all hugging, all crying. Of course, I can imagine that... We will definitely cry because it will be both a joy and a sorrow for us. You can already feel it because he has been through a lot.
We are here, in general, we have an easy life here. And he has been through a lot, I have a lot to tell him.
And my friend calls me from Kyiv, "Let's visualize together how he will come back to you [speaking in Russian]." And that's it, we visualize it."
