Remaking Mariupol into a Russian city

In the centre of Mariupol, an image of the Russian literary giant Leo Tolstoy stares down from a white fabric barricade that has been set up around the eastern Ukrainian citys drama theatre.

The covering obscures the buildings facade and the construction crews who have been dispatched from Russia to quickly rebuild the rubble of the iconic structure, paving over its grisly recent history.

On March 16, 2022, three weeks after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, the theatre was bombed in an airstrike. At the time, witnesses said that hundreds of civilians were in and around the theatre, including many who were sheltering there. There are conflicting reports around how many were killed. Human rights Watch says at least 15, while Ukrainian officials say the death toll was in the hundreds.

The word children, written in Russian, had been scrawled on the pavement in large white letters as a futile attempt to shield those inside from Russias invasion, which decimated the city, killing several thousand.

The theatre is slated to start staging productions of Russian and Soviet classics by the start of next year, in a project that is part of what the Kremlin bills as its plan to revive Mariupol and what Ukraine sees as nothing more than an attempt to remake the ruins into a Russian city.

Its like a feast during the time of plague, said Maria Cheh, who used to live in Mariupol and fought to defend it as part of the Azov regiment.

In that description, Cheh is evoking the title of a work by Alexander Pushkin, the celebrated Russian playwright whose image also now hangs in front of the theatre, to characterize her disgust at Russias occupation of the city.

In my memory, it is just a graveyard, said Cheh.

In the early days of its full-scale invasion, Russian forces swept into Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters had dug in to defend the community of nearly 500,000.

For more than two months, it was bombarded in a violent siege. Residents were forced to try to make a perilous journey out through a worsening war zone or were left trapped in basements for weeks without power or water.

According to a recently published investigation by Human Rights Watch, which collaborated with two other organizations, at least 8,000 people were killed in Mariupol, and the city was devastated.

WATCH | Russia claims its making Mariupol great again:

It found that more than 90 per cent of high-rise apartment buildings were damaged, along with most schools and hospitals.

The report concluded that Russian officials need to be investigated for war crimes, but that the physical evidence at hundreds of potential crime scenes is being erased by the hasty rebuild.

Not long after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Mariupol liberated on April 21, 2022, and the last Ukrainian fighters holed up in the Azovstal steel plant were forced to surrender, Moscow set in motion a multi-year plan to overhaul its strategic prize.

Russia vowed to build up areas it had spent weeks bombing and to make Mariupol, which it later dubbed a city of military glory, part of the motherland.

The plan is to create a completely new image of the city with modern apartment buildings and social facilities, said a news release from Russias Ministry of Construction and Housing, which was published on May 8, 2022, and stated that officials believes the city could be restored in three years.

Since then, city signs have been repainted red, white and blue the colours of the Russian flag and streets and squares are being renamed. In many cases, names are reverted back to Soviet ones. The Avenue of Peace has been relabelled Lenin Avenue.

In May of last year, the Russian-appointed city administrator, Oleg Morgun, said it was important to bring back historical names and rename other sites to honour the heroes who gave their lives for the freedom of our republic and the right to be Russian.

For residents of Mariupol, Russian passports have become essential, as they are needed to access local services, including to apply for compensation for their destroyed homes.

Russias master plan includes turning the Azovstal steel plant into a technology and eco park that would eventually employ 9,000 people. It also includes plans to build an airport, which officials said would open next year if the situation allows.

It also plans to double what Russian officials claim is the current population of Mariupol, 270,000, by 2035 and build new housing to attract Russian buyers.

The occupiers are trying to turn Mariupol into a Russian city by importing their citizens here, wrote Vadym Boychenko, the citys elected but now exiled mayor, on Telegram on Feb. 20.

In Mariupol, which was predominantly Russian-speaking before the invasion, criticism of the authorities can be met with swift and harsh punishment, just like in the rest of the occupied territories and in Russia itself.

When Russia seized control of the areas in eastern Ukraine, individuals trying to leave were subjected to filtration screening, where people were interrogated and their phones were searched. Those deemed a security risk were detained, and according to a Human Rights Watch report, in some cases were forcibly transferred to Russia or disappeared.

Last year, a Russian journalist was sentenced to six years in a penal colony for blaming Russia for the bombing at Mariupols drama theatre. In Februrary, the deputy chairman of Russias Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, sent an ominious message to anyone in the new territories who harms Russia. He said they would be exposed and sent to Siberia for re-education in forced labour camps.

Given the climate of fear, many of those who remain in Mariupol are afraid to speak publicly.

While Russias state media are producing a constant stream of reports about remaking Mariupol, very few foreign journalists have been allowed in, which makes it difficult to get a clear picture of what is happening in the city.

Their propaganda works very good, said Cheh, who goes by the name of Gerda while serving in the military.

They blamed us for putting bombs in the theatre and in the hospital, she said referring to a maternity hospital that was hit by a Russian strike on March 9, 2022.

Cheh, who spoke to CBC news from Jurmula, Latvia, where she is receiving psychological treatment for PTSD, described witnessing horrific scenes in Mariupol, where corpses lay on the street, in some cases being eaten at by stray dogs. Other bodies were quickly buried in dirt trenches.

Cheh moved to the city in 2017 when she joined the Azov regiment, a controversial group whose origins include far-right nationalists but was later brought under Ukraines national guard.

The Kremlin has portrayed Azov fighters as Nazis and has accused the fighters of atrocities, which Cheh sees as absurd.

They said to the Ukrainian military that its your fault that Mariupol is destroyed. They entered the city. What should we do?

She was one of more than 2,400 Ukrainian fighters who spent months underground at the Azovstal steel plant and were forced to surrender after being encircled by Russia troops and running out of ammunition.

WATCH | Remembering the battle for Mariupol:

She said she was held as a prisoner by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine for a year and was interrogated, beaten and tortured with electric shocks. She endured other abuse that she said she is not yet ready to talk about.

Before the war, she said, some of her favourite memories of Mariupol involved the vibrant square in front of the drama theatre.

She said some older residents frequently displayed a reverence for Russia, which is fuelled by the areas geographic proximity and shared language, along with family and historical ties.

But Cheh said she believes the industrial city is becoming modern and observed younger residents embracing Ukrainian culture at events and festivals by waving flags, playing Ukrainian music and wearing a vyshyvanka, the traditional embroidered shirt.

She said no one believed that Russia would invade Mariupol, even though in 2014, Russian-backed separatists briefly seized the city after parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions declared their independence.

I do not understand this logic to destroy and then to build and build, she said.

Its very cruel for the memory of those who died there.

Russia, which has not disclosed its own assessment of how many were killed in Mariupol but blamed Ukraine for causing many of the deaths, has said 40,000 construction workers are helping to rebuild the occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

In February, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin boasted that the country had brought the city back to life, saying almost all of the apartment buildings had been restored.

Russian media reports have shown grateful families moving into newly constructed apartment blocks, complete with playgrounds out front.

Residents whose homes have been destroyed are supposedly eligible to join a waiting list for a new apartment if they have the documents to prove they owned the home and it is now uninhabitable.

But that is nearly impossible for a woman who CBC agreed to only identify as Irina because her safety could be at risk for criticising the authorities.

She is homeless, living with friends and unable to get on Russias housing list.

Before the war, she was living in an apartment in Mariupol with her 25-year-old son, who was killed by shelling one month into Russias invasion.

WATCH | Fighting for access to housing:

But the home, which was nearly levelled by the fighting and had to be demolished, was in his name, so she cant prove she is entitled to housing.

They can build homes but the people can never be brought back, she told CBC News in an interview over a messaging app.

Many people at the moment live with friends, some in basements, some in derelict and destroyed buildings.

She said she felt forced to get a Russian passport because it is the only document accepted in the city, and while she admits that some are happy Russia is now in control, many others like herself dream about Mariupol one day being returned to Ukraine again.

The city, which Ukraine has vowed to recapture and has its own plan for rebuilding, lies just 50 kilometres west of Russia and 80 kilometres south of the current front line.

Ilia Shumanov, executive director of Transparency International Russia, an organization that shines a light on corruption, said it might seem like a strange strategy for the Kremlin to quickly rebuild a city that could be torn apart by war again, but he believes the construction is an example of a classic Russian megaproject.

Its to show Russians and to show other parts of the world that: We are rebuilding. It is our territory.

He said there is great potential for corruption in the large construction projects underway in the occupied territories because the rebuilding allows the government to award large contracts to companies owned by Kremlin loyalists.

Russia is keen to show a return to normalcy, Shumanov said, and it has been highlighting the building of homes, hospitals and kindergartens, but he said his sources in the area speak about blocks still lying in ruin.

Even some of the supposedly renovated buildings are still uninhabitable.

Evgeny Petrov, who is from Krasnodar, Russia, a city 1,200 kilometres south of Moscow, created a YouTube channel where he publishes videos of Mariupol, including several where he is touring apartments with cracks in the ceilings, holes in the floor and poorly fitted doors that wont open.

Residents escort him around, pointing out obvious problems and complaining about the state of their homes.

He said the companies restore the outside of the buildings, but inside units are unfinished and the government compensation is not enough, forcing people to pay out of their own pocket.

Petrov, who first visited Mariupol in August 2022 as a volunteer handing out food, medicine and hygiene kits, said he was initially shocked by what he saw and started asking people how and why this could happen.

I was too emotional about it, but then what can I do about it? he said during an interview with CBC by Zoom.

It is what it is. Its geopolitics stuff.

In the dozens of trips he has made over the past two years, he said he has developed a reputation as someone residents can go to if they want their problems highlighted.

He said last year people worried that the Ukrainian counteroffensive could lead to fighting within the city again, but now most are preoccupied with social issues like housing and jobs.

In December, half a dozen Mariupol residents holding signs made a direct appeal to Putin after a luxury apartment complex was built at the site of their building, which had been demolished. They had been told they would be moving back into their apartment block, but discovered that the apartments are being offered for sale at prices unaffordable to most in Mariupol.

A promotional brochure for the building named House on Nakhimova describes an elegant building in a neoclassical style with 51 apartments and a playground designed by child psychologists.

Its advertised as being close to a florist and a cafe and is equipped with a basement that can be used as a shelter if necessary.

Petrov said Nakhimova is one of about seven or eight private apartment buildings being constructed in Mariupol, but it is the only one that is finished.

While he doesnt think there is a huge demand from Russians who are interested in snapping up real estate in Mariupol, he said there is some interest.

He is in contact with one prospective buyer from Yekatarinburg who is looking to buy a residential property because Mariupol, compared to other Russian cities on the Azov Sea, is substantially cheaper.

A municipal politician who was elected before the invasion and remains in Mariupol told CBC News that there is a severe housing shortage in the city, along with a lack of doctors and access to medical care. He said people with serious medical conditions need to travel 180 kilometres to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

The politician, who has now been replaced by a local official, spoke with CBC News on the condition of anonymity because he had previously been jailed by the local authorities for criticising Russia on social media. He said he stayed in the city because he still has his home and his family is there.

He described a sense of resignation among a population that has been traumatised and doesnt want to endure the horrors of war again.

He said those who want to change the political situation feel powerless, so they keep their mouths shut and do not express any opinions openly.

The most important thing is that what happened in March 2022 does not happen again, he said in a voice call with CBC News.

The only hope is that everything will be settled between Russia and Ukraine diplomatically, and that the war and the death of people on both sides will stop.

Editing | Janet Davison