Winter in Mariupol. Will the city survive in sub-zero temperatures?

Mariupol telegram channels are now publishing photos of huge queues for heaters distributed by the occupation authorities — despite all the promises, the centralized heating system has not yet been restored in the city. The windows of many apartments remain broken. In some apartments, there are no windows at all. Heating devices make the power supply system fail. And even in the propaganda videos from schools, which are supposed to show that Mariupol children are happily living in Russia, pupils at their desks are wearing hats and jackets.

hromadske talked to people who stay in the city to find out what the situation is now and what are the chances of Mariupol residents not freezing to death.

Housing without windows and heating

Maryna's family (we changed the woman's name) has been staying in Mariupol since the first days of the full-scale war. Because of her elderly parents, Maryna and her husband will not leave the city, even if there is no heating in their house during the winter.

“At home, we wear warm sweaters, not jackets. Two of our windows remained intact, and my husband boarded up two wooden ones with plywood at once. Recently, they started installing metal-plastic windows in the first entrances of the house, so I hope they will replace ours soon,” the woman says.

For now, Maryna heats her apartment with an electric heater, which was given to her by the Russians. To order and receive it, the occupation authorities even created a special chatbot.

However, due to the fact that people started turning on heaters in their apartments at the same time, the power system was already overloaded. It took weeks to restore it. A similar situation was on other streets of the city. And in school No. 64 as well: during the lesson, there was smoke from the wires, and children had to be quickly evacuated.

“But they promise that in a few days we will have heating, and then the load on the power grid will decrease. And then they promise to completely replace the cold and hot water standpipes and sewage system. We do not have to pay for utilities until January, they only take readings, and bring us bills, but do not indicate the total amount,” Maryna remains optimistic.

In general, she assures, the works on the restoration of the city and the building are actively continuing. For example, builders are insulating the facade of her building, and a few months ago they began to replace the roof. However, when it rained, Maryna's apartment on the top, fifth floor, was flooded. Her husband stretched a rope from the ceiling to let the water drain into a bowl.

“We sleep under two blankets”

In some buildings, the occupiers have indeed already installed new radiators. In particular, in a neighboring building, where Maryna's mother-in-law lives. But so far, they have not turned on the heat at full capacity, because they have not yet installed new windows.

However, as the locals tell us, in some houses, the installation of radiators was so poor that they broke, and people's apartments were flooded.

“We had to redo everything ourselves or find those masters and ask them to repair it. The same was with gas. My parents wrote an appeal to the housing and communal services to have gas supplied to their entrance. Their masters came, inspected, and said that the pipe that runs between the entrances was damaged. It needed to be repaired, but they did not have welders. In the end, they almost wrapped this pipe with tape and turned on the gas. Now my parents turn on the gas stove and warm the apartment, they also use an electric heater. They have no heating,” says Serhii (we also changed his name).

The man used to work in one of Mariupol's schools. And after the Russians captured the city, he moved to a village 20 kilometers from Mariupol to a country house.

“I will wait here for the counteroffensive,” he told us in May.

In summer, the conditions in Serhii's house were not the worst: electricity, wired internet, and water. While his parents, who stayed in Mariupol, had virtually nothing.

But when autumn came, Serhii had to think about how to heat the house. Due to the fact that the house was built as a summer house, there was no heating system. Now Serhii heats only one room with an electric fan, and most likely it will be like this all winter.

“We can heat the room up to 26 degrees, but you must understand that this is enough for a few hours. And the floor does not warm up. My girlfriend sleeps in a woolen sweater, pants, and socks, we cover ourselves with two blankets,” the man says.

In his statements, about what the new “authorities” are doing in the city, Serhii is much more critical than Maryna. He does not believe that the occupiers will be able to launch the heating system in the whole city. He also says that windows have not been installed in his girlfriend's apartment in Mariupol yet. Those who have them replaced complain about the poor quality of the work: there are gaps between the windows, and people have to buy foam and fill them themselves.

Serhii's parents also installed glass on their 10-meter balcony by themselves. After a shell hit their building in spring, all the windows were blown out.

Heating for 20% of Mariupol residents

Russian occupiers are quite optimistic in their propaganda statements. Back in early October, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister stated that 70% of the city's housing and communal infrastructure was ready for winter. A month later he said that 60% of the facilities in Mariupol were connected to the heating system.

“About 5% of the city residents have gas, 70% have water and electricity, sewage system does not work. As for heating, at best the occupation authorities will reach 20%. This is provided that everything works. But the heating system is old, not newly rebuilt, so we expect that there will be emergency shutdowns of boiler houses due to a breakthrough in the heating mains damaged by shelling. In winter, it is not easy to stop a boiler house and then restart it. Therefore, the question arises whether the Russians will be able to keep this 20% until spring,” says Petro Andriushchenko, advisor to the mayor of Mariupol.

By the beginning of the heating season, the occupiers even announced that they had brought additional modular boiler houses to Mariupol. But this is unlikely to solve the overall problem, adds Andriushchenko.

“Most of these boiler houses do not work. Yes, they were installed and connected. There are even cases when the boiler house is connected to a house where there are no windows. However, it is very difficult to track how many of them there are. The occupiers announced that there would be 100 of them. Now they are talking about 50. That is, we understand that their real number is much less. It should also be borne in mind that these boiler houses should work on diesel fuel. We need a lot of it. But where to store it? In short, we do not see these boiler houses really working, and there are no prospects that they will work in winter.”

According to Andriushchenko, the occupiers also provide houses in the area of detached houses with nothing. A ton of coal, which is enough for a month, costs about 16 thousand rubles (at the “Mariupol rate” it is 16 thousand hryvnias). People do not receive appropriate compensation.

Andriushchenko fears that in winter people will start cutting down trees from park areas to heat their homes, as it was in spring during the blockade of the city.

“Putin's concrete chicken coops”

For those Mariupol residents whose apartments burned down or were destroyed by shelling, the occupiers allegedly began to build new ones. They always boast about it in the propaganda media: brigades build new houses in 30 days. To do this, they work at night and seven days a week, the builders say. And they immediately warn: people should not be afraid of the speed of work, they say, everything is done efficiently, in Russia, such houses stand for 10 years.

In the published videos, Russians check all utility lines in the newly built houses. They show electric stoves, plastic windows, and radiators.

It is unknown whether those who really need them and who still live in the cold, in dormitories, or with relatives and friends will get these apartments.

Serhii says that he does not know a single real person who would be offered to move there. Maryna assures that recently two of her friends were told that they would get apartments in these houses.

“In the summer, the occupiers announced that they would build one and a half thousand apartments by the new year. Now we are talking about 500. This is housing for about 1.5 thousand people. And about 30-40 thousand Mariupol residents need normal conditions instead of ruins. But people are in no hurry to move in even into those apartments, there is still a lot of work to be done. They get keys, warrants, come in together with the foreman — and everything starts to be put in order. We call these houses "Putin's concrete chicken coops". Yes, given the situation, it is certainly better than nothing. So let them build faster and resettle people,” Petro Andriushchenko says.

At the same time, the occupiers have not installed heating points in the city. According to the city council, children study in schools in outerwear, and people with frostbitten hands and feet are admitted to hospitals. Moreover, according to the locals with whom we talked, the heat supply to medical institutions has not been provided yet.

The head of the regional military administration of Donetsk Oblast Pavlo Kyrylenko earlier urged Mariupol residents to leave for the territory controlled by Ukraine. Petro Andriushchenko says that now it is possible to do it only through the territory of Russia.

“We must understand that it is better for people to spend this period in Russia than to die of cold. This is about people, not about territories. The occupation authorities should give themselves a real answer on how many people they can provide with heat in Mariupol and evacuate the rest for the winter. But they do not even do this.”