Residents of the former Soviet Union, who had never even been to Mariupol, this city was well known. Known primarily for the cult film of the times of perestroika - "

This film began with mournful shots of industrial Mariupol - or rather, Zhdanov, the historical name of the city of Zhdanov will be returned only a year after the premiere - a landscape: pipes, pipes, pipes, pipes and haze. This landscape itself has become a symbol of hopelessness, unwillingness and inability to live, endless cynicism and opportunism, mutual disrespect and contempt at any level, penetrating the entire film: family, work, society - everything is in the dirt..

In the very mud from which, three decades after the premiere of "

But Mariupol itself, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, ended up in another country, normal and alive.. And now, even if already killed and destroyed, destroyed by terrorist gangs in uniform, he will be a completely different symbol: heroism and the desire to live. The heroism of those who defended him all these eight years from armed scoundrels who tortured Donetsk, Luhansk and other cities of the Ukrainian east, but who reached Mariupol only in recent weeks, after the start of Putin's " The heroism of those who did not leave the city even in the most difficult days and hours under bombing and shelling. Now Mariupol is forever among those cities whose courage humanity will remember with gratitude. And when Putin's Russia collapses on the heads of its inhabitants - and it will surely collapse, will not be able not to collapse, will not be able to withstand the last battle with the civilized world, with humanity - Mariupol will return to its desire to live, I am sure of this..

Because in the last years of its pre-war existence it was one of the most comfortable, most rapidly developing cities in Ukraine. Russian-occupied Donetsk not far from Mariupol was degrading and dying, as is the case with all cities of Russia and with all cities destroyed by Russia, while Mariupol lived, and even its industrial landscape no longer looked like a symbol of hopelessness, on the contrary, Mariupol was gradually turning into a Ukrainian Manchester with.

Recently, Natalya Gaetskaya, the leader and founder of the ecological community from Mariupol, was on the air of a program for Radio Liberty. And when we paused in the conversation about how the hostages of the Mariupol cellars spent the last weeks, Natalia, who moved to Mariupol to her parents from the occupied Donetsk, spoke with enthusiasm about how her environmental organization turned into a real family of enthusiastic people who care about their city. Well, then the Russians came and destroyed it all. And the city itself was destroyed.

And Natalia had to flee with her parents to Lviv - how many such Mariupol stories are now!

And yet it was not in vain. In the ruins of Mariupol, the memory of the city will live for people, and not for the animals that came to destroy it. And when Mariupol comes back to life, this memory will work for those who remain in it, and for those who return to the city, and for those who choose it to build the future.

Ukrainian future of Mariupol - what else? I have great faith in this future.

Original.