Taisiya Synkivska–Nesterenko (1984 – 16.03.2022), Yevhen Bayev (02.07.1991 – 16.03.2022)

A Mariupol native Taisiya Nesterenko moved back to her hometown with her husband and two sons from Kyiv where they lived for 5 years.

Nataliya said Taisiya would be remembered as a tender, warm-hearted woman- she was raising her two sons, aged 5 and 8.  She worked as a cleaner and would go for odd jobs as she had to provide for her family. Eventually, she found a job in a local bank.

The photo from Synkivska-Nesterenko family archive

Yevhen, 31, was a friend of her neighbor.  In the first days of Russia’s invasion, he evacuated her mother from the left-bank neighborhood that was unsafe for bombardments. He was planning to move his family out of the city by car but had to stay put waiting for the news of safe passages out of the city.

The photo from Yevhen Bayev’s family archaive

The Russian incursion caught the most of Mariupol residents unprepared. Taisya and Yevhen were no exception. As their residential building had no proper shelter, the neighbors had to shelter in the corridor on the first floor.  The neighbors bonded in the face of danger.

Soon, their neighborhood was cut off energy, water, gas and communications, which made Taisiya and Yevhen move into her relatives’ apartment in the city center on March 2.

Bombardments grew intense, turning the neighborhood into a battlefield. Both families were hunkered down in the basement and had to cook food on open fire.

‘On March 16, at the time of relative quiet,  Yevhen and Taisiya, along with a neighbor and her sister’s husband went up to the upper floors for reasons that are still unclear – probably, to get food supplies. Fierce shelling came and a blast shook the building. It caught fire right away.  Taisiya’s sister ran upstairs, but the building got stuck again – it knocked her unconscious. When the woman regained her senses, she ran upstairs to the 9th floor. This is where she saw the dead neighbor lying on the stairs, her husband was bleeding with his foot torn off.   Taisiya and Yevhen were buried under the debris in the apartment,’ says Nataliya recounting the scene she learnt from Taisiya’s sister.

The building was fired at by a tank. The shot claimed the lives of three people – Yevhen and his neighbor were killed instantly, while Taisiya died several hours later in the hospital.

‘Her sister’s husband and Taisiya were rushed to the hospital. There was no mobile connections and her sister had no news for almost a month being unable to get there on her own. As it later turned out, her husband was taken to Makiyevka- the man  was alive, but he lost his leg while there was no any information about Taisiya. She was not on the lists of wounded and killed. Doctors would later said – they remembered her unusual name – there was no hope for her to survive as virtually every bone was broken, her spine was totally crushed’.

Taisiya was buried by the local funeral service, her body was tagged with a personal number –  no name or any ID documents. Her sister would knock on the doors of many local offices trying to learn about where she was buried. The only evidence of her death was a casualties database that had her photo – Taisiya’s face had no a single trace of injury.

‘Yevhen’s death news reached his father only through my publication. They hadn’t believed it till the very last moment. His body was buried under the rubble for a month, they couldn’t pull him out. When Taisiya’s sister informed the security service about his death, the body was recovered by pieces. He was blown up to pieces by that blast. The shell came to the very room Yevhen was that moment,’ says Nataliya.

The woman still can’t come to terms with what happened to her neighbors. ‘Now I understand the meaning of the saying tha Heavens call up the best of us first. We miss them badly, they are our sunshine, let them have the soft clouds up there,’ adds Nataliya.