Mariupol is a symbol of Ukrainian resistance for 50 days of war. Both Ukrainians and the world community are watching the defense of the city with anxiety and hope, helping those who left the city, feeling anxiety about those who remained.
We ask the Rector of the Mariupol State University Mykola TROFYMENKO how they faced the war at MSU, whether students and professors could leave, in what condition the university buildings are.
During the conversation, Mr. Trofymenko does not talk about the University in the past tense, and when he says “was”, he immediately corrects himself and emphasizes: “is!”.
– Mr. Trofymenko, tell us, please, what was the University like before the war? What are you proud of, what progress has been made in recent years?
– We have a beautiful, modern University, with new educational specialties. The city of Mariupol was developing actively in recent years, and our institution was developing as well. This year, ten million hryvnias have been earmarked for the city’s urban programs for university development. A state investment project of a Museum of Science also started.
We had a very potent University center. But why do I say “was”, it is! The University is not walls, but people. Our professors and students strive to work and study. We will restore everything.
In November last year, the 30th anniversary of the institution was celebrated. Over the decades, we have gone from a college of humanities to a classical university. In 2010, the higher education institution was renamed and became Mariupol State University instead of Mariupol State Humanities.
I had the honor to become its rector at the end of 2020. At the time of signing the contract I was the youngest rector in the country (at that time I was 35 years old). The contract was based on the key performance indicators, KPI, that were more than 50 percent exceeded. For example, we doubled the special fund. This is not the money received from contracted students: we earned these funds by implementing various projects and contracts, attracted funds from sponsoring organizations.
Our university has strong scientific schools that allow us to implement new projects and scientific areas. For example, the presence of a potent scientific school for preschool and primary education allowed to introduce a new specialty, “Biology”, on September 1, 2021, aimed at training secondary school teachers. Next should be “Chemistry”, “Physics”, “Geography”, “Mathematics”. We want to meet the need for teachers who teach in schools of Donetsk region. Recently, the psychological and pedagogical scientific area was transformed into a separate faculty.
We have a potent IT area (cybersecurity, systems analysis, computer science).
Last year, Donetsk State University of Management (one of the relocated higher education institutions in Mariupol) merged with the Mariupol State University. We have established a new Management Institute, which has already started training managers with new thinking.
Four and a half thousand students (including 500 foreigners) study at the University.
We maintain strong international ties, major Erasmus + projects, and academic mobility agreements.
We have a very modern base – everything is renovated, beautiful, comfortable. (At these words, Mr. Trofymenko is silent for a moment. Before the conversation, he sent photos in which well-kept, beautiful buildings turned into ruins – author). Young people studying at the University match with the city that is rapidly moving forward: they are inquisitive, proactive, active.
– How did the events of February 24 develop? What did you do, what decisions did you make?
– We have lived with the war since 2014, because Mariupol is a front-line city. We considered the University an outpost of Ukraine, we had “Donbas-Ukraine”, “Crimea-Ukraine” centers, students from the temporarily occupied territories studied here. Our philosophy is as follows: people is the greatest value. We will get back the occupied and annexed lands, and personnel for their revitalization must be trained today.
We associate ourselves with the center of community transformation, because it is not enough to just say, we need to change the way people think. The entrants from the temporarily occupied territories enrolled at the University, they were systematically brainwashed by Russian propaganda. Not surprisingly, at first, they were skeptical of our words and actions. But very quickly they changed (and change!) their opinion, thinking. They become the same state-minded persons and patriots of Ukraine as other students. Our graduates take part in the development of our city and other settlements of Ukraine, participate in changes in communities. In other words, the University helps to strengthen the State.
On February 24, 2022, we loaded our minibus with servers, legal documents and some computers (as many as could fit) and took them to the city of Dnipro. On February 26, the chief accountant and I returned to Mariupol. We could not stay out of Mariupol, we had to be together with the team, with professors and students.
In the evening of the same day, Russian troops “closed” the ring around the city.
On February 27-28, Grads, mortars, and tanks began to fire the city. Houses burned, exploded. Thousands of people died during the blockade… I could not even imagine that it was possible to so brutally shoot at residential areas. And this is a Russian-speaking city! What kind of “liberation” and denazification are we talking about? ..
– How many professors and students were in the city at the time of the blockade? Did they manage to evacuate?
– We took seriously the warnings about the possible start of the war. Students who lived in dormitories were asked to go home (both Ukrainian and foreign students). Most of them left. On February 24, about a hundred students remained in the dormitories, they left the city every day (before the blockade began). Fifty students remained in the dormitories at the time of the blockade.
The electricity disappeared on February 28 (later it appeared and disappeared again), then in early April everything disappeared – gas, water, communications, heating.
We moved through the city on foot, under fire. We tried to provide students with food and water. Our heroine, the dormitory supervisor Viktoriia Zinovieva, cooked on the fire for students. City council deputies and volunteers delivered water under fire…
Fortunately, all the students eventually managed to leave the city. Viktoriia Zinovieva stays in Mariupol, I really hope that she is fine.
My family and I left Mariupol on March 15. In the morning I was at a meeting in the City Council (policemen brought me there), representatives of the Red Cross announced that the evacuation was being prepared and strongly advised families with children to evacuate.
I decided to go, to take my son (he is 5 years old) and my wife. For the last few days, we’ve been picking up snow every day and boiling water on the fire to cook porridge for my son. We looked for firewood to light a fire. There was almost no food and water left. At that time, our house was without roof and windows.
It was possible to evacuate only by private transport. I asked the policemen to take me to the parking lot, where I left the car. Since 2014, I have had the habit of always keeping a full tank of fuel, which saved me. The fourth and fifth floors of the parking building were burned by Grads, but the lower one remained intact, only the glass near the driver’s seat broke in my car.
By this time, the surrounding nine-story buildings had already been seized by the Russians, and they opened fire on us. But fortunately, we passed.
We gathered at home in a few minutes and left the city. The convoy stretched for fifty kilometers, there were almost four thousand cars. We left Mariupol at 11 am and reached occupied Berdyansk at 9 pm. Rashists checked documents at 5-6 checkpoints. On April 15, they had not yet established a method of inspections, and if I had left a few days later, they would not have let me pass.
Within a few days, the Russian occupiers began to identify persons and “weed out” officials, deputies, and journalists. (Mykola Trofymenko is not only a rector, but also a deputy of the city council, – author).
We spent the night in Berdyansk, then left for Zaporizhzhia. At one of the 15 checkpoints, they asked, “Do you support the Nazis?” I replied that I did not support the Nazis. And this is true, because today the Nazis are the Russian troops who practice the genocide in Ukraine.
The bridge in front of Vasylivka was blown up, so we went around the country roads. When we lined up in a column, the rashists opened fire. They hit a car that was driving near me, there were parents with small children in it. Parents died, children were taken away by ambulance.
At last we broke through to Zaporizhzhia, and then immediately moved to Dnipro. At that time, our Vice-rector took the University’s servers and documentation to Lviv.
This allowed to quickly start work of the University in a remote format, to provide financial activities.
– What is the fate of the professors of the institution?
– We are trying to find it out. We created groups on social networks, we record who is where. About 70 percent of the University’s professors have left the city.
Today these people are safe, we are very helped by the rectors of other institutions in Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Rivne, Lviv, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, Kyiv. Colleagues place our teachers in dormitories, help with food and clothing. The Zaporizhzhia City Council, which has set up a shelter for people who have left Mariupol, also helps us.
It is in a crisis situation that who is who is checked. I am very grateful to everyone!
Unfortunately, two of our colleagues died. These are Natalia Loskutova, PhD in Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of German Philology (she stood in line for water and died with her husband) and Olena Lysetska, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Human Health (she also stood in line). Doctor of Biological Sciences Oleg Fedotov also died of a heart attack.
– In what condition are the University buildings today?
– The buildings are completely destroyed. Everything was bombed, burned, looted. Today I got a call from a man who managed to leave the city; he told me that everything at the University had been destroyed, even the linoleum and sockets had been removed. I don’t think locals who don’t have food and water are interested in linoleum…
– Are there any plans to resume the work of the University?
– We work, we pay salaries, scholarships. From April 18 we resume the educational process remotely.
The Academic Council considered the future of the University and decided to appeal to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmygal, the Minister of Education and Science Serhiy Shkarlet and the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk to host the University in Kyiv.
It is in the capital that we will be most useful, we will be able to draw attention to the reconstruction of the hero city – Mariupol. After the victory and the reconstruction of the University we will return to our city.
– How do you see the University after the victory? What do you want it to be?
– It will be modern, beautiful. With a comfortable campus that has long been dreamed of; we wanted to begin its construction this year. We have a European project and funding for its construction. We will have the best material base!
In addition, we understand today what the mission (vision) of the future institution should be. The University from the city like ours should play a state role. Mariupol is a symbol of firmness and steadfastness of Ukrainians. And the University is a part of the city, it should become a symbol of revitalization, the center of development of new Mariupol. I am convinced that it will be a wonderful city!
The interview conducted by Svitlana GALATA