Mariupol: The long way out
- Simon Kiwek
- Mar 30
- 1 min read
Mariupol was the first city to fall. Russia besieged the city. Our guest Tatjana was there - and made it out. Her escape route led through Crimea all the way to Estonia.
In this two parted episode I'm speaking with Tatjana, originally from Mariupol — the first major Ukrainian city to be besieged and occupied by Russian forces in 2022. Tatjana grew up in a Greek village on the shores of the Sea of Azov and went on to work at the now-infamous Azovstal steelworks — the plant that would later become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance seen around the world.
She'll tell us what it was like to live along the contact line that separated government-controlled Ukraine from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic — a border that shaped daily life in the region for years before the full-scale invasion. She'll describe how she and her family chose to stay in Mariupol during the first harrowing days of the Russian siege, and how they ultimately made the difficult decision to flee — and finally escaping through Crimea via Russia before eventually finding safety in Estonia.
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