MARIUPOL, October 2 – Novosti. Residents of Mariupol, destroyed during the hostilities, are preparing for the cold – they are preparing firewood and water to heat apartments in destroyed high-rise buildings, a Novosti correspondent reports.
It is very difficult to find a whole building in Mariupol – most of them suffered from military operations and shelling by the militants of the Azov Battalion*. Russian builders are now actively building new housing, boiler houses and other infrastructure.
Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin said that by the end of the year 100 thousand square meters of new housing will be built in Mariupol, at least 1 thousand apartments will be commissioned. He also assured that 70% of the housing and communal infrastructure in Mariupol is already ready for winter.
Nevertheless, a significant part of the city’s population lives in destroyed houses, often without water and light – in peacetime, the population of Mariupol was 420 thousand people, it was the second largest city in the Donetsk region , given the size of the city, it is difficult to quickly restore it even for Russian builders.
Residents of house number 40 on Komsomolsky Boulevard are already preparing firewood for the winter. This is a large nine-story panel building, but it will have to be heated, as in the old days, with potbelly stoves. However, looking at this burned-out building from the side, you won’t think at all that someone can live in it. However, life is in full swing – the inhabitants of the house cut trees and furniture for firewood, bring water in buckets and plastic bottles.
“Firewood is also needed in order to cook on fires. We allocated one of the burnt-out apartments for firewood,” a local resident, 67-year-old Vasily Lupin, told Novosti.
He lives in a burned-out house with his wife. Lupin worked all his life at the metallurgical plant named after Ilyich as a mechanic and, of course, dreamed of a calm, prosperous pension.
However, the locals have food – they have already issued Russian benefits and pensions, sometimes they receive humanitarian assistance.
“Of course, we are waiting for the city to be restored, and we hope that this will happen sooner,” they say.
* A terrorist organization banned in Russia.
