‘Hi, I’m Elya, I’m nine and a half. I’m hiding from the war.’

Children from Mariupol left messages and drawings on the walls of a basement where they hid as Russia’s siege destroyed the city

Mariupol was almost completely destroyed during the Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine. While the city took artillery fire, many residents, including a number of children, hid in the Priazovskyi State Technical University. The kids sheltering there wrote messages on the building’s walls. After Russian troops captured Mariupol, construction workers from Russia entered the city. Among them was Alexey, a native of Mykolaiv, who left Ukraine for Bashkortostan, in Russia, in 2014. He found the messages left by children hiding from shelling on the basement walls of Priazovskyi University. Journalists from news outlet The Village published photos of the children’s words and drawings. With The Village’s permission, Meduza is sharing photos and English translations of the words left by children hiding in a basement from Russian bombs.