“We will be back. This is our task: to return. But we understand that we won’t be back anytime soon. We will need several years to recover,” M. Trofymenko said in an interview with BNS on Monday.
The history of Mariupol University dates back to 1991. This high school was bombed last year in Russia’s bid to occupy the city.
“It is important for our students that they can be part of something great. Our so-called mission of Mariupol is this great. I think that many foreign students will want to join us: it’s like touching an important historical moment. After all, we now have our own legend!” – said the rector.
In Kaunas, M. Trofymenko met with students from Ukraine studying here, and later participated in the opening of the center of Mariupol State University at Vytautas the Great University.
According to the rector, there is concern in Ukraine that refugees who have adapted in Western countries will no longer want to return to their country, so this is an important step in order to foster their connection with their homeland.
– Let’s start from the beginning: you were a university like everyone else, then one day everything turned upside down and turned into a tragedy. So what happened to your community, university and how are you living now?
– We were a university in Mariupol and we had many plans: we wanted to build a new building on the university grounds, create a modern campus in Mariupol. Then February 24th came.
We prepared for something to happen, so we prepared to ship the servers with the databases. The information needed to be preserved, but it was impossible to evacuate the archive – it would have required months and trains with freight cars. So we chose the most important: fifteen servers, 30 new laptops, some documents, for example, registration books, in which students who received diplomas signed since 1991, so that we could restore them if they asked.
When we came to work on February 24, we decided to implement the plan created a few days ago: we collected these things on a bus and sent them to Dnipro. We collected other important documents in my car, that of the deputy rector and the chief accountant, and we also left for Dnipro. However, we returned on February 26th to be with our colleagues, students and their families. We paid salaries to the staff and scholarships to the students, then I took a video in front of the university building to let them know I was with them. It was very important for them psychologically.
The next few weeks were hell.
We let them in the hideout. My biggest mistake was letting my wife down: she grabbed me by the throat and forced me to take her and our five-year-old son back to Mariupol. The hardest thing for me was to see… and now I start to cry when I think about how dangerous it was. How hard it was to look my son in the eye when I didn’t know what he was going to eat. in the 21st century. in Europe. I have a lot to say to the Russians…
There are many stories, for example, when I walked around Mariupol while we were looking for ways to feed foreign students. A hundred of them stayed in the university dormitory. I could use stories like this to write a script for a tight action movie – The Terminator or something.
When we ran from Mariupol, we crossed checkpoints, minefields, and had to go around rockets embedded in the road. In Zaporizhia, when we crossed a collapsed bridge over a minefield, we stopped in a line of cars. All the cars were marked with white stripes, with the words “children”, but the Russians opened fire. They hit a car parked ten cars away from mine, the whole family was killed. And what to do then? Take the child and run? But you can also hit. So sit and wait for your fate.
When I was able to buy a Kinder Surprise for my son at the gas station using my bank card, it was the happiest moment of my life.
We fled to the Lviv region, where we tried to recover for a while. We were lost, we forgot what water is: we used to collect and melt snow. We were lucky to have snow in March. There was no water, no electricity, no communication in Mariupol.
– How long did you live like this before you could leave Mariupol?
– We left on March 15. It was difficult to stay there psychologically, because they were firing non-stop with all kinds of weapons. The worst were the airplane attacks, because you couldn’t run away from them. They bombed residential areas without any military infrastructure – deliberately destroying the city.
After escaping, we started collecting information about our staff, colleagues, students, created Telegram channels, and tried to help them. Many of our colleagues lost everything, fled Mariupol on foot, with at best one bag of things.
Later, we started thinking about where to move our university and decided that we should move to Kyiv, because we would be more visible in the capital and we would be able to help Ukraine fight on the information front by telling the truth about the Mariupol tragedy.
We are currently renovating the building in which we are located, we have four buildings in the center of Kyiv for the future that are the property of Mariupol University. We are collecting support to build the university of the future.
– Wasn’t there a nagging doubt? That everything is lost, maybe we should split up, join other universities…
– No. During the siege of Mariupol, our crazy – crazy in a good way – pilots managed to fly through the occupied territories to the Azovstal factory, deliver food, medicine, weapons, and replace some of the people. Yes, some helicopters were shot down. However, we remember and are very proud of this mission of Mariupol. Now our university, each of us, I personally also have our own Mariupol mission: to revive this university, because it is a symbol of invincibility, a symbol of Ukrainian Mariupol. This is extremely important to us.
So there was no thought of going somewhere else: we firmly believe that Mariupol University should be restored and preserved.
– Today in Kaunas, you met with schoolchildren. What is the importance of such meetings to you – do you expect them to come to study at your university?
– Of course, it was an opportunity to tell about our university, but for me as a rector and as a person it is simply important to feel people’s moods. At the state level, we are concerned about how to preserve relations with Ukrainians abroad. We are worried that they will not return: they will integrate into society, learn the Lithuanian language. First-graders already go to school in Lithuanian schools. People will find jobs, solve the problems of their place of residence, salaries here are higher than in Ukraine – and they will not return.
We are worried about this, but I believe that young people will learn the best in Lithuania and then come back – also to study at our university.
You may have heard – in the discussion, I received a question about why we are trying to rebuild in Kyiv, after all, we can be hit there. They don’t understand what it means to be in Kyiv right now because they are here. It’s also strange for me here – I’m sleeping and I don’t hear the air warning sirens, which have unfortunately become a daily part of life in Kyiv. Of course, it is wonderful that our children have the opportunity to live peacefully in Lithuania. I am extremely grateful to your country for accepting our people. You as a family: you understand our problems and are the first to come to our aid.
– How do you imagine your university in five, ten years – let’s hope that it will be a peaceful and happy future. Will he be in Kyiv? Will it work remotely? What will his mission be?
– We see it as our mission to become the center of transformation and renovation of Mariupol. We understand that after liberating the city, it will take a long time to rebuild it: we want the university to be in the core of the city.
We will be back. This is our task: to return. But we understand that we won’t be back anytime soon. We will need a few years to recover. We will definitely have a university campus in Kyiv: we will have headquarters in these cities to organize the process, because we understand that many people will not return to Mariupol. They will be able to study in Kyiv or remotely.
It is important to our students that they can be a part of something great. Our so-called mission of Mariupol is this great. I think that many foreign students will want to join us: it’s like touching an important historical moment. After all, we now have our own legend!
– Thank you for the interview.
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2024-10-04 05:29:46
