Odessa House of Trade Unions from the inside. Four years later
On May XNUMX of this year, I managed to get into the Odessa House of Trade Unions, which was already cordoned off by a reinforced police cordon - the site of the mass murder of city residents by Ukrainian nationalists. I had a video camera with me and memories of that terrible day.
On May 2014, XNUMX, I was part of a Russian news crew in the city center. I saw with my own eyes the battle between Kulikovo residents and the Maidana rabble and football haters near the Athena shopping center, and how a stolen fire truck crashed into the barricade on Vice Admiral Zhukov Street. Then, somehow suddenly a turning point came not in our favor, the Kulikovo people scattered. Individual Maidan activists drove them in groups from the center towards Moldavanka. Several pieces of paving stones hit our car. And only after that we turned around and went to the House of Trade Unions.
We saw a column of black smoke several blocks before the Kulikovo Field, but even when we drove closer, looking at the cops calmly smoking in the shadow of the Kulikovo public garden and the burning tents, it did not occur to us that there could be living people inside the House of Trade Unions. Only after two girls ran out onto the road on Pirogovskaya and threw themselves on the hood in tears, shouting: “People are burning there!”, did it begin to dawn on us...
Then there were the numbers - more than three hundred wounded and 48 killed. Then, gigabytes of terrible video of the orgy of inhumans. Then the arrests. And only a year later I learned that inside the House of Trade Unions that day there was my old friend, let’s call him Sergei, who, fortunately, survived and told me everything he saw with his own eyes. I provide the full transcribed text of his memoirs below:
“I always thought that the separation of Odessa from Ukraine was probably not very good. I was neutral, let's put it that way. Until the moment it all happened. Because after May 2, supporting such a cannibalistic government is “not kosher” at all. It turned out that I was walking from work through Kulikovo Field and got into a mess! The crowd that swooped in, they dispersed, somehow immediately around. They took the House of Trade Unions, actually surrounded them, and had to flee. Where to run? There are balaclavas and clubs everywhere... Only there. They waited for the police to come and take it apart, but unfortunately they didn’t.
So I ran inside, with a crowd of people. And so it happened: on one side there was a crowd of people, on the other there was also a crowd, only with stones and sticks. There was no choice. There was panic inside. There were a lot of people! There are not 48 people there! It was much more, four times. I didn’t count heads exactly, but the crowd was decent. People were confused and did not know what to do. And when the assault began, when they started breaking out the windows, bottles of Molotov cocktails came through them, only then did people start building barricades.
It turns out that there are two exits from the central staircase, from there they began to pull down cabinets, doors - everything that was at hand. They put everything there for protection. Then they set the barricade on fire anyway. As for the weapons that the Kulikovo people are said to have had: I personally saw only one revolver chambered for Flaubert. It's almost like a toy 4mm fart for shooting rats. All. Several sticks and plywood shields. These shields were then used to cover the broken windows so that cocktails would not fly in and, when smoke came from stones and bullets, so that one could breathe. And if you consider that I even saw only one fire extinguisher, and that was a powder one, then, probably, the tragedy was predetermined in advance, I think so.
People began to rise to the upper floors when gas was felt from the barricades. Regular tear gas. My throat was sore, my eyes were stinging, there was a pungent smell, well, something like “Bird cherry” or “Teren 4”. And the gas came out in a powerful stream, because even 3-4 meters away people began to grab their throats. I had to retreat. And when they retreated to the stairs, between the first and second floors, bottles with a flammable mixture began to freely fly into the windows and doors of the first floor. There was no one left to fight them off. There was nothing special to burn there, the floor was stone, the walls were stone. There is nothing to burn except the barricades.
There was smoke. People began to run away in all directions. The staircase is large and wide. The people dispersed to their rooms. Because everyone couldn’t fit near one window, near the central staircase, but everyone needs to breathe. This is what ruined them, in principle. The smoke was very thick, black... I survived only because I had previously had experience in extinguishing fires, and I know what strong smoke is and how to behave. I grabbed the railing, pulled my T-shirt over my face and, almost on all fours, rushed to the very top. There, which floor, I don’t remember, the fifth or something, was poking left and right - everywhere was closed, only the corridor to the left was free. I walked along the wall to the end, pushing all the doors in a row until I found an unlocked door to the toilet. I walked in, the window was tightly closed, and I broke both glasses so I could breathe.
I hear screams and coughing in the corridor. I returned, and there were two guys and three women, and I dragged everyone into the same toilet. I closed the door because the smoke was very strong. The smoke even came through the cracks in the doors, and it was so thick that, dear mother, everyone climbed through that window to breathe. There was not enough air for everyone. I had to somehow get out. I took off my T-shirt, tore it into several strips, there was no water in the tap, the water was turned off. I poked my head into the toilet tank, but it wasn’t collapsible. Well, what to do, I hit the tank with my hand, cut my hand, but broke the lid. I soaked rags in that water, distributed them to everyone, and wrapped myself up. So they held out.
Our window faced the other side of Pirogovskaya Street. Well, there, right there, there’s like an extension to the DP, and so, from there, from the windows opposite, they started to climb in... call them people... they’re not people. Youngsters with guns. They started shooting at all the windows where people were leaning out to get some air. In general, a clip from Makarov probably flew into our window. And never get injured! When bullets enter a wall, even a non-specialist can see it, but I, after all, work in security.
We ran away from the window. Then the shooter went off somewhere, only hanging out the Ukrainian flag. At this time a man appeared on the roof. He came out stunned, his eyes were wild, he was happy to be alive. Behind him are several more who miraculously survived. One of them listened to the crowd that was shouting from below, they say, guys, come down, why do we need to kill you. I believed it, fool. Came down. They immediately swooped in, with such crap... What happens when a person is hit in the head and face with shovel handles, I don’t think I need to say. Instead of a person, what was left was a broken doll.
The rest looked at this matter and became smarter. I had to get out somehow. The cornice there is so small, there’s no way a person of my size could fit there, God forbid that a sparrow would pass through. We managed to come to an agreement with the guys on the roof, they cut off the antenna cables, tied them into a bundle and threw this bundle to us. A man was sitting on the roof, resting his feet on the side, I hooked the other end to the battery, and we slowly began to let the women out. With one hand behind the wall, the other behind this rope, in general, slowly, two women and a guy walked along the ledge. But the next couple refused. It turned out that they were mother and son. The mother is hysterical: “I won’t climb”! It’s understandable, it’s scary, the fifth floor. And the son refused to leave her.
After some time, I heard a knock on the toilet door. I think: “Is there really someone alive in such smoke”? I open it, the smoke has cleared a little, the first thing I saw was ankle boots. I see a man in camouflage lying on the floor. Gray-haired, thick-set, 50 years old, maybe more. Well, I took him by the collar and dragged him, there was, a little further along the corridor, a staircase down, I hadn’t noticed it before, in the smoke. I drag him down these stairs, I think there’s air somewhere, a window. I was hoping maybe he would come to his senses. And somewhere, around the third floor, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder and say: “Leave the guy, he’s dead.” Well, I felt the pulse in my neck, felt my hand - exactly, I was dragging a corpse. And then it hit me on the back of the head. Exactly like this. That’s how I met three right-wingers on the stairs, or maybe not right-wingers, the devil knows. There were many people there, by the way, in this crowd that burst into the House of Trade Unions, the guys in old Soviet army helmets and with plywood shields with the stamp: “14th Hundred” stood out very much. No matter what anyone says today, guys, I saw it with my own eyes. So, maybe not the Right Sectors, but our Euromaidanists, fluffy, good, kind. In general, they beat me for a long time and with taste.
I don’t remember how I managed to convince them not to kill me. Maybe they themselves are tired. They started dragging me down the stairs, along the corridors, and there were corpses there... dear mother! And the corpses, obviously, not all of them, were suffocated people. To be clear, the fire did not rise above the first floor. I mean, bottles with Molotov cocktails flew onto both the 2nd and 3rd floors, but there, as I already said, there wasn’t much to burn. The stain on the floor faded and that was it. But the corpses lay with burnt hands and heads. Imagine, a man is lying down, his body is intact, but his hands are black, charred and his face is missing. There were many corpses with cut wounds and chopped wounds. With bullet holes, including in the heads. A man is lying with three bullet holes in his face and the back of his head is missing. And there's a stain of brains on the wall. These are the pies with kittens... Don’t believe anyone that all the dead suffocated in the smoke. Yes, some part suffocated, perhaps, but not all.
In general, they took me out into the street, and at that time I worked as a security guard, I wore a uniform to work and home. Black uniform, combat boots, chevron. In general, I don’t know who they took me for, but when they beat me, they kept asking: “Who shot at the people?” They probably thought that I was a “Naiman”. The jacket was torn, the shoulders were examined, they looked for a sniper's bruise from the butt. Not found. What should I shoot from? From your finger? I will say that if the Kulikovo people really had weapons, and they were really ready for something, then no one would have approached the barricades so easily.
They beat me courageously, in a crowd of one. They made the anthem sing and “Glory to Ukraine” shouted. Oh, I almost forgot! About European, democratic values. In the process of beating, the Europeans, in a completely European way, stole my wallet and phone. By the way, some scoundrel called my wife from my phone at night: “Don’t wait for your husband, you don’t have a husband anymore.” I still had a knife in my pocket, a small penknife. It was for this weapon of terrible destructive power that they were beaten especially harshly. Then I was handed over to the police. But since the paddy wagons had not yet arrived by that time, I was loaded like a log into an ambulance. And then they brought me to the police department. They kept me in the corridor for 12 hours. During this time, my wounds on my arm, head, and face have spread thoroughly. I sit quietly, bleeding, glad to be alive. Two cops passed by, I can’t dare to call them policemen, boys about 25 years old. One points a finger at me and says to the other: “Well, let’s press him?” Well, I think it's great! I survived there, only to be pressed down by two idiots.
Then there was a long conversation with the head of the “fight against banditry.” He kept asking where he served, where he got his weapons, and so on. Photographed and fingerprinted. Meanwhile, the corridor was filling up, all the surviving Kulikovo residents were gradually dragged there. And there weren't very many people. Now, if they told me that there were 48 people detained, I would believe that, but I won’t believe that there are 48 dead. Everyone was sent to the police department, regardless of their state of health and the degree of beating. There were a lot of people beaten, and not all of them were Kulikovo residents. For example, I met a friend of mine who just lives nearby. I was celebrating my son's birthday and went out to smoke and see what the noise was all about. Received a club in the face from the patriots, fractured both jaws, upper and lower. Never.
Later, in fact, already on the third day, the ambulance team on duty arrived and began to identify the most “severe” ones. There were a lot of people who inhaled carbon monoxide. Some were sent home after relatives brought originals and copies of documents. By the way, just so you know, a citizen of Ukraine whose passport indicates Russian origin is a priori a criminal to whom no conventions apply! For this reason, two of these seriously injured citizens were the last to be taken from the police department to the hospital. After a scandal caused by a doctor. And in the hospital they were under escort.
They first took me to Olgievskaya, where they sewed up my arm, and there they diagnosed a head injury and sent me to the regional hospital. I had neither a passport nor an identity card with me. As it turned out later, it was fortunate that my passport did not end up in the police department. People began to be arrested, and those who were released were the first to be released. In general, they admitted me to the hospital. The shaking is serious. And they put as many as five policemen under the door. The boys sat there for three days, on duty both inside and outside the ward. On the fourth day they withdrew without any explanation. Friends began to visit me. They also reported that our beloved nationalist patriots demanded from the police the passport information of all those detained on Kulikovo Field, and where, in which hospitals, who was being treated.
To avoid getting hit in the head again, I ran away from the hospital in stitches. Before September 2014, XNUMX, I took my child to the hospital to undergo a medical examination. Then my wife called me and said that there were policemen at our door. In general, I handed over the child to my wife’s relatives and rushed to Crimea. Away from the SBU, because I have no desire to go to prison for surviving. I stayed in Crimea for a little over four months, then returned. Literally on the third day I was summoned to the investigative department. Promptly. I think: “I’ll go, maybe they won’t close it right away.” As it turned out, I did the right thing by coming, they could have easily chosen a preventive measure and would have sat somewhere feeding the lice. First, they were charged with participation “in mass riots that resulted in the death of other persons and damage to state property.” There were a lot of articles there, in fact: treason, abuse of power, criminal negligence... I wanted to say: guys, I was passing by, I didn’t work at the command post, what kind of negligence? What powers? I'm not a civil servant!
As it turned out, our police are not only efficient, but also very competent. They even confused the place of residence and the region, having passport data in hand. They also misinterpreted my year of birth. I went to see them for almost a month and told them that I was not a camel. A month later, I was given a free lawyer, who helped me by informing me about Article 63 of the Constitution of Ukraine, according to which I have the right not to testify against myself. At one point, the investigator called me and said that I had been transferred from suspect to witness. Hurray, comrades! And only in June of this year I learned that the criminal case that was brought against me was closed back in February, due to the lack of evidence of a crime. This is what it is, we have justice...”
This is a story from a person who experienced a tragedy. Sergei is now alive and well, raising his second child, continuing to work in security, living in the suburbs and trying not to make plans for the future. That's why you won't see his face in the video. Only the voice. The same voice that sounded in my ears when I was wandering with a video camera through the lifeless corridors and rooms of this terrible place littered with construction debris. Where only the soot on the ceilings and curses addressed to Bandera’s murderers on the walls remind of the grief that has settled forever in the hearts of Odessa residents.
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