They want to just throw the whole city

Russia promised to residents of Mariupol free housing to replace the destroyed. Thousands of citizens cannot get it

After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the Russian authorities repeatedly proclaimed one of their priorities a speedy restoration of infrastructure and housing, destroyed as a result of military operations in the annexed territories. From large cities, Mariupol suffered more serious than others - tens of thousands of people remained without apartments and houses. They were promised to give housing in new houses built on the site of the destroyed - but in many cases it turns out that it is almost impossible to get this housing: local authorities make this process as difficult as possible, while the military and other Russians buy squares in new houses. “Cold” tells the stories of several residents of Mariupol, who, having survived the bombing, shelling and hunger, have been trying to achieve at least some kind of justice from the Russian state for many months.

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In the interests of the security of the interlocutors, the "cold" does not name their surnames.

“Apartments filled with fresh air and sunlight, beautiful views of the green yard, wide avenues - all this will become part of your life,” - this is how the developer Yugstroyinvest advertises apartments in the new house in Mariupol on Nakhimov Avenue, 82, next to the central embankment and Primorsky Park. And he concludes: "Do not miss your chance!"

Several dozens of families lived at this address before the start of the war in Ukraine. There are 51 apartments in the new house, but not one of them will get to the former residents: they are all for sale, and the majority are already bought. “From home only 700 meters to the sea,” explains the sales manager Yugstroyinvest in a conversation with the “cold”, “the apartments were very quickly dismantled. Two -rooms are no longer there. ”

In the spring of 2022, Mariupol became the territory of extremely fierce battles between Russian and Ukrainian troops. According to the UN, as a result of siege and permanent Russian shelling in the city, up to 90% of multi -storey residential buildings were damaged or destroyed . Soon after Russia finally occupied Mariupol, Russian companies began to actively build commercial real estate in the city, and state designers even created a master plan for Mariupol until 2035. Residents of the city, who did not leave it during active hostilities, expected that the Russian authorities would quickly provide them with new housing in return for the destroyed. In fact, everything turned out to be much more complicated.

"My house was won by the conquerors"

A woman stands next to the fence, behind which is the construction of the “house on Nakhimov”. She writes a video message to the president:

- The inhabitants of the house that was here was thrown out into the street. And here they build a house for sale, ”she says, with difficulty restraining her tears. - We worked for this apartment for half my lives and lived in it for more than 30 years. And we lost everything! I have a birthday today. I am 63 years old, and I am a bum. For what?

Next, the video is recorded by an elderly woman who lived on Nakhimova since birth, 67 years old.

“I am the owner of my apartment,” she says. - On March 14, I received good to receive housing ( that is, a positive answer to the application for a compensation apartment. - Approx. "Cold" ). Six months later, on August 3, 2023, it comes to me that our local authorities changed my mind and decided that I had no right to housing at all. And for six months, my husband and I are wandering through the streets of the city, while in my house there is a sale of apartments. This place is too good. We decided to earn money on our grief and our house was stolen with us. Nobody hears us, does not want to hear. We turn directly to Russia. Please hear us, return our home to us.

“Winter is approaching,” the elderly man continues, “I have to live on the street.” My house was won by the conquerors of the new, who said: "Once you are local, you will live only in the reservation." Where is my reservation, I still do not know. Although these are our houses. We lived in them. And now they are sold. They spit on the constitution. They dishonor the country and the people.

The Russian shell hit the roof of the house 82 on Nakhimov Street in early March 2022. Wooden floors lit up, a fire began. A month later, another shell hit the first entrance; Three people died.

All this time, Anna remained in the house with her husband and five children. It was nowhere to leave, besides, it was very dangerous: there was a fluid fire from all sides, even those who simply left the basement were killed to light a fire and cook food. After one of the shelling, Anna also wounded. The fragment fell into the leg; In conditions of constant battles, it was necessary to extract him and heal the wound.

“The fourth and fifth entrance were whole, the house could be restored,” Anna believes. - But this is a Primorsky district, it is profitable to build and sell housing here. In our area, eight such [damaged] houses were demolished.

In mid -March, Anna with the children managed to leave the city. For some time they lived with relatives, then rented an apartment-and simultaneously tried to get the promised from the authorities. At the end of July 2022, a resolution was adopted in a self -proclaimed (and not yet annexed) DPR, according to which "compensation housing is provided in a house under construction on the site of the destroyed, and if it is impossible - within the quarter or in a neighboring quarter." In order to get this housing, you need to provide a passport to the social protection department, documents on the right to own housing (or a court decision on the establishment of the fact of residence, if the passport does not have registration at the place of residence), documents confirming the relationship of the family applying for housing, and the details of the Bank of the DPR. According to the document, housing is provided only to those who do not have any other “residential object” in the property.

It is very difficult for people who burned all the property to collect all these documents - and success is not guaranteed in any case.

“We submitted documents for the apartment twice, and twice we were answered that we did not have the right to housing, since we have a shed 40 kilometers from the city,” says Anna. - This is such a shame! There are seven of us. There are eight square meters. Do we stand there to live there? I was already brought to the point that I was screaming in the prosecutor’s office that I would have my own in the Square with gasoline and burning. Just give the children an apartment.

In addition, the laws in the annexed territories change on the go. In August 2023, the DPR government adopted a new resolution : now the authorities promise to provide housing not at the site of the destroyed, but “within the village” or (with the consent of the applicant) somewhere in the territory of the DPR, where there is a housing stock.

Anna’s appeals to the Investigative Committee and the prosecutor's office did not give results. She would like to sue, but the courts in Mariupol began to work only at the end of September. The judges of all areas are in one dilapidated building, the line for filing an application is stretched for months. In addition, Anna cannot find a lawyer who could draw up a statement of claim.

“As soon as it becomes known that the question of the apartment, they refuse,” she explains. - They are afraid because they can be deprived of practice. Even a lawyer in the office of United Russia refused to help us.

By order of the mayor of Mariupol, appointed by the Russian authorities, the address “Nakhimova, 82” is abolished. The new house will have the address "Black Sea Lane, 1b". If the address is canceled, then the registration is invalid: it becomes more difficult to prove that people lived here.

This is by no means an isolated case. According to the Ukrainian politician Pyotr Andryushchenko (he worked as an adviser to the Ukrainian mayor of the city), 465 multi -storey buildings were demolished in Mariupol. Bloggers close to the occupation administration distribute such figures. More than 13 thousand Mariupol residents submitted housing applications. New houses in which free compensation housing should be distributed, 60 were built. 2427 people received apartments, while 4462 people were refused. According to Mariupolites, the line for housing has not been moving since March - although some already built houses are empty. And now, according to the Ministry of Construction of the DPR, it is planned to build 119 mortgage houses in which apartments will only be sold.

According to Anna, 13 thousand people are at best one fifth Mariupol residents who were left without housing as a result of a war unleashed by Russia. Most of the townspeople can not even apply for an apartment. “Many have burned down documents, or a passport burned out, or they cannot inherit,” says Anna. “The documents should be submitted to everyone who had shared ownership of this apartment, and many relatives have missed, died, left for Europe, Ukraine and simply cannot come.”

There are also many other bureaucratic obstacles. “In order to get every certificate, you need to stand in a huge queue, take a place at four in the morning,” Anna continues. - After the new resolution of those who have already submitted the documents, they ask them to submit them again “to update the data”. People who [now] do not live in Mariupol are forced to look for money and the opportunity to go there again and again to stand in lines. There is nowhere to live in the city, finding money for renting an apartment for a person who has lost everything is an unrealistic task. The meaning of the [actions of the authorities] is to delay the process of submitting documents as much as possible and refuse everyone as much as possible in order for the housing that they now began to build in the city and sell. They want to just throw the whole city. ”

Desperate inscriptions appeared on the fences around the wastelands and houses under construction in Mariupol: “We want to live here !!! And not on the evictions !!! Russia, hear us !! ”,“ We ​​want to go home !!! Return our house !!! ”,“ Mortgages - no! At home to people! "

"Really monetary place"

The most famous house in Mariupol was at 75 Avenue, the central facade decorated the clock; He was called - "House with the Cup." In Soviet times, the heroes of the Great Patriotic War and the distinguished rear workers received apartments from the state in it.

On March 16, 2022, Russia once again fired at Mariupol - on that day the bomb hit the building of the drama theater, in the bomb shelter of which civilians took refuge. Another shell flew into the courtyard of the "House with the Cup."

“Three people were under the wreckage,” recalls Maria, who lived in a “house with a clock”. - We ran into the yard. The first to dug Galina. She was still alive, but she had an injury incompatible with life. We lifted her home to her husband, she lived for another 15 minutes and managed to say goodbye to him. Then we dug up Vanya. He was dead, the whole chest is soft. He was very young, had not yet managed to have his children, so for me like a child. Then they dug up another guy. He was alive. We buried Galina and Vanya in the yard. They dug in turn: two people dig, two are standing around, so that as soon as the shelling begins, to pull the digging out of the pit.

Now Maria leads a group of 50 people who lived in a “house with a clock”. Some time after the shelling, itwas demolished and now a new one is being built, the apartments in which will be sold. Of the former residents of the house, according to Maria, only 11 people received approval to new apartments, but they have not yet been provided with housing: it is only known that they will not live in a “house with a clock”.

The rest of the prospects are even worse. “I burned all the documents for the apartment, and I can’t even file [the application] for housing,” says Maria, who is faced with the same problems as the former residents of the house on Nakhimova. According to her, a duplicate of property certificates is not issued to her, and it is necessary to wait for a court decision to restore documents for up to six months; In addition, a certificate of residence is required of it, the queue for receiving which must be occupied at 4 in the morning - despite the fact that certificates are issued only until noon.

Like Nakhimov, the "House with the Cup" will have a new address. Like the inhabitants of the house on Nakhimov, the residents of the "House with Cups" contacted the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Construction of the DPR - to no avail. “Even before the adoption of a new resolution, when we learned that our house was being built under a mortgage, we began to demand that we need housing in our house,” says Maria. “The prosecutor’s office generally replies to us that they requested information from the administration of Mariupol and the developer, but they did not provide it, so they cannot help.”

A new house in the place of the “House with Cups”, like several more Mariupol houses with apartments for sale, is building the company “RKS-Novorossia”: its founder is Roskapstroy, that is, the state. The company's revenue for 2022 - 22 billion rubles, net profit - 169 million. The price of a square meter in the "House with Cups" is 115 thousand rubles; A two -room apartment can be bought for 8.5 million. The director of the company Ildar Sharipov told Vedomosti that not only local residents buy housing in new regions, but also Russian builders and military who want to stay “either for rehabilitation, or to rest, or to rest at sea”: “[Mariupol] is really a monetary place”.

"You are in the DPR, not in Russia"

As a result of the battles in Mariupol, not only high -rise buildings, but also 32 thousand private houses were damaged and destroyed. One of them is the house of Ksenia, the mother of three minor children. Almost all her neighbors died; On her street, out of 100 people, only two families remained: Ksenia herself wounded a fragment in his leg. Now she lives with acquaintances - in a house on a destroyed street, where there is no light and water.

“We bought a house, large, 100 squares, a year before the war,” she says. - We survived Hell. I myself buried my neighbors - 12 people, of which five children. The graves dug their hands and shovels. One neighbor is still in the yard. He was never reburied. They killed us, burned at home. We survived. And now I have no right to my house.

Ksenia managed to find documents on ownership of the house in ruins, but she did not manage to register in it - and she was refused a new housing. Her husband died in 2020; With three children, she lives on several benefits with a total size of 18800 rubles per month.

Another common problem is that in Mariupol it is almost impossible to inherit. The exact number of those who died in the city during hostilities is unknown, but it can be calculated tens of thousands. People who have lost their relatives turned out to be the most powerless: it is often difficult to even get a death certificate, which then with the help of lawyers must be issued in a hereditary business.

- It happened to my friends. Man and woman. The man was shot by snipers, and the woman died from the explosion of the bomb, ”says Anna. - Dozens of people saw it, they confirm. Their daughter still has not experienced it. And she was told in the prosecutor’s office: “Why didn’t you collect the remains in the waders?” There is no body - no. It got to the point that people fought for the corpses. They found some unidentified corpse and recognized him with their own. Only to get a certificate that they had a relative. Otherwise, you will not inherit. Sometimes it is impossible to prove that a person died. A lot of people burned down in houses, nothing remained of them.

But often with a certificate of death, it is impossible to inherit. To issue an inheritance, a notary is needed. In 2022, 15 notaries from the DPR worked in Mariupol. People gave them the original documents, paid money, and then the notaries disappeared - along with documents and money. The officials of the DPR, according to the interlocutors of the "cold", explained this by the fact that the notaries were in training, and then on vacations and will return soon. Some really returned, but even after many houses were demolished, and now they told customers that it is impossible to draw up documents about the inheritance - because there is nothing to inherit, there are no houses (when entering into the inheritance, a document on the assessment of property that is inherited). One notary, Sergey Bobrov, who had almost 800 customers, was absent in Mariupol for 10 months.

One of those who gave Bobrov documents and money was Irina - the mother of four children, the youngest of whom several months.

“On March 6, 2022, there were two arrivals in our private house,” she tells in a trembling voice. - I was in the basement with the children, my husband went for water. We miraculously survived - we were in the corner of the basement, which remained intact. I and my children managed to get to my parents in the village near Mariupol. We fled, and shells fell across the fields. The husband remained to look after our destroyed house so that everything that remained there was not pulled by the looters. On April 11 there was another arrival, and he died.

Irina’s private house was in shared ownership with the dead husband. In order to inherit, she turned to Bobrov - he promised to issue documents in February 2023, and in the end appeared in Mariupol only in November (the notary did not answer the calls of the “cold”). During this time, a new resolution entered into force, and Irina was refused an apartment. “The apartment, they say, is no longer laid for me,” she is indignant. “They told me: you are in the DPR, not in Russia.” I say, it means that I will write Putin, go to Putin, and [the administration employee] laughs and says: and all the unsubscribes to us will be all the same. We decide here, not Putin. ”

Irina lives in the house of acquaintances, which is put up for sale. In the near future she needs to free the living space. In response to all her appeals in the UK, the prosecutor’s office and the president, she came from the administration of Mariupol, which offered the family of a bed in a hostel. Irina's eldest daughter wrote the appeal to the governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov - Petersburg officially helps Mariupol. After that, guardianship became interested in Irina and her children: employees came to school and the house where the family lives.

По новому постановлению ДНР мариупольцы, потерявшие жилье, могут претендовать на квартиру или на денежную компенсацию. С похожим предложением столкнулась и Ирина. «Мне предлагают дом восстановить самой, и они мне по чекам когда-то возместят затраченное, либо они дадут мне подрядчиков, которые восстановят мне только крышу и окна, — рассказывает она. — Остальное, сказали, — берешь кредит и доплачиваешь. Или они отправят комиссию, и если она установит 100-процентное разрушение, то они мне платят [компенсацию]. И за эти деньги я должна найти жилье».

Размер этой компенсации — 35 тысяч рублей за квадратный метр. В России очень мало регионов, где за эти деньги можно было бы купить квартиру или дом.

«Все построено на лжи»

Элле 61 год. Во время боевых действий ее частный дом сгорел. Сейчас она живет в полуразрушенной квартире с печным отоплением.

— Я пряталась в подвале у соседей, когда в мой дом был прилет, — рассказывает она. — Я вышла на улицу и увидела, что мой дом горит. Я тогда не подозревала, что самое страшное впереди. Что сгоревший дом — это такая легкая разминка по сравнению с тем, как об нас ноги вытрут, как наши жизни разрушат. Весну и лето я жила в сарае. И пыталась добиться квартиры, пенсии — ходила во все эти инстанции, стояла в очередях. Это были многочасовые, недельные, вечные очереди. То, что к нам относились как к скоту, нечеловеческое хамство, меня сильно подкосило.

В пенсии Элле отказали из-за того, что у нее сгорели документы. По ее словам, чиновники разговаривали с ней и другими пострадавшими мариупольцами «как с попрошайками, жалким иждивенцами». Из-за всего этого у Эллы начались психологические проблемы: тяжелая депрессия и панические атаки — дважды скорую приходилось вызывать прямо в очереди.

Элле удалось добиться того, что ее поставили в очередь на двухкомнатную квартиру. Она должна была получить ее в марте 2023 года, но не получила до сих пор. Впрочем, даже те мариупольцы, кто умудрился дождаться от города компенсаций и жилья, сталкиваются с новыми проблемами. В части новостроек регулярные проблемы с коммуникациями, газом и электричеством. В ЖК «Невский», который посещал Путин, прорвало канализацию — и вода стояла в подвале несколько месяцев.

«Холод» направил запрос о ситуации с бесплатным жильем в Мариуполе в министерство строительства ДНР. На момент публикации этого материала ответа не было.

— Самое страшное разочарование для меня — все это построено на лжи, — говорит Элла. — Люди им верят, а их обманывают. Я так верила России. Я верила, что меня не бросят! Мы так осуждали тех, кто уезжает в Европу! А все это — чудовищный обман. Мне все время очень страшно, все время ужас. Как будто нет ничего, кроме страха и безысходности. Но я бы и сейчас не поехала в Европу. Я очень, очень люблю свой город, землю, на которой я живу. У меня сгорели два котика в доме, это больно. Еще очень больно, что сгорели все фотографии, все видео моего детства, моих родителей, моих детей. Не осталось никакой памяти. Мы мучились в подвале — в холоде, голоде, темноте, без воды. Трупы на улицах, трупы везде. А сейчас они строят там ипотечное жилье. И заставляют проходить не 10, а 100 кругов ада. Как люди могут быть такими равнодушными?