English teacher Galina Artyomova has lived in Mariupol for almost 40 years. "This is my favorite city, my favorite place. When I look at the photos now, I cry - I know every crack in the asphalt, every tree there", she tells DW. On the night of March 20, 2022, the building where she lived was hit by a rocket. A little further down the same street, photographer Yevgeny Sosnovsky and his wife lived for 20 years. "So much was invested in this place - we thought we would live peacefully when we retired", he says. After the missile strike, a fire broke out, and the residents were evicted by Kadyrov's soldiers, who did not allow them to take anything with them.
There is now a parking lot on the site of Yevgeny's house, and a new building on the site of Galina's home. The Russian construction contractor "Su-2007", which is actively working in the occupied Ukrainian territories, demolished several buildings in the area and erected multi-story buildings - they are part of the "Leningradsky Kvartal" complex.
The apartments in the newly built buildings in Mariupol are being bought mainly by people who have arrived from Russia, says economic analyst Vyacheslav Shiryaev. "These are Russians from the security forces, civil servants who are attracted there with large sums of money, as well as workers in military logistics. In addition, there is a small percentage of resort people who want to live by the sea, but are not attracted by either Crimea or Sochi," he says. In the territories occupied by Russia, mortgage loans are offered with a preferential interest rate of 2% per year for the entire term of the loan.
Apartment prices in Mariupol have risen by a third
Dozens of new buildings and residential complexes are under construction or already occupied in Mariupol. Real estate prices in the occupied city have risen by a third in a year, largely thanks to the proximity to the sea - because there is no such sea anywhere else in Russia, says Shiryaev. According to him, however, the housing is of very poor quality.
Residents of the neighborhood say in chats that they take out insurance "against war risks": this means that if the building is destroyed, the owner will no longer owe the bank anything, but will also lose his apartment. "Well, if he survived the destruction of the apartment, he can claim social support", writes one of the residents. The fate of the Ukrainians who lived in this place until a few years ago is not discussed, however.
The dead and wounded in Mariupol
According to UN estimates, 90% of the buildings in the city were damaged or destroyed during the fighting. The media estimates the number of dead at tens of thousands, while the exact number remains unknown. Each of the former residents of this region, with whom DW spoke, tells about their dead and wounded neighbors. "In front of the entrance lay a burned body, it was no longer possible to tell who it was. A man from the sixth floor jumped from the balcony during the fire and died. A doctor lived on the fifth floor while he was on duty, a rocket fell into the building and his wife died. He came and collected her remains in a plastic bag,” recalls Yevgeny Sosnovsky.
Galina Artyomova says that several families in neighboring buildings also died. She herself was injured and at the end of March she managed to leave the city with her mother and son. Yevgeny was also injured and managed to escape from Mariupol at the end of April with his wife and mother-in-law. However, many of their neighbors remained in the surviving apartments. According to DW, soon after, the occupation authorities forced them to leave their homes with promises of receiving other apartments in return.
Survivors with an appeal to Putin
In 2025, residents of one of the blocks of flats in the area recorded a video address to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the video, they stand against the backdrop of a new district that was being built at the time. They say that their homes were demolished and they were promised new ones, but not in the new neighborhood under construction. Instead, they were given empty "ownerless" homes. A similar video was later made by residents of other buildings, on whose ruins the "Leningradsky District" is rising. They say that they are forced to live in rented accommodation, despite the promises. "They left us in the open, we feel abandoned and unnecessary".
According to a source for DW, who wished to remain anonymous, after these appeals, the authorities in Mariupol made it clear to the residents that "they should not speak in this way". According to another DW source, none of the residents of this area have received an apartment in the new blocks. Another says that several people have been given apartments on the outskirts of the city, and others - rooms in a dormitory. This information has not been confirmed by independent sources.
"They are building on the bones of the dead"
"In Mariupol, the indigenous population is being replaced", believes Galina Artyomova. Yevgeny Sosnovsky thinks so too. "They are building on bones, and quickly, to bury the traces of their crimes", he says.
The locals who remained there are even angrier. "They are building their new houses on the bones of the dead", says one of the former residents of the buildings that used to stand on the site of "Leningradsky Kvartal". He lived there for decades and remembers how his child took his first steps in the apartment that is no longer there. Now the man describes the city like this: "In the center it's still good, but as soon as you deviate a little to the left or right - it smells like death".
Author: Kira Sokolova