Home that doesn't exist

I want to go home sooner. To a home that doesn't exist.

Many different meanings merge together in one short word "home". It is a shelter, a roof, a protection from the weather. The house is asaving island among the unpredictability of the outside world. It is a place of connection with loved ones, where you are safe and comfortable. Aplace filled with values, where you can be yourself.

But what home means for those who have lost it in the physical sense?

Just days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Mariupol - a port city of about 450,000 - found itself surrounded by Russian troops. From thevery beginning of the invasion on February 24, the city was under constant shelling. On May 20, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced that the territory of the entire Mariupol was taken under the full control of the Russian military. At that time, 80% of the city's housingstock was destroyed. Most of the population has moved out of the city, but still thousands of people stay there.

People live in semi-surviving apartments, and some live in basements or in what is left of their former housing. Most of the citizens do notwant to leave the city, because it is their homeland. They are not ready to leave even burnt and bombed houses, because together with them theywill leave old memories, their old life and will have to “build” a house in an unfamiliar place.

The scale of destruction and reconstruction is not comparable. The restoration of Mariupol looks like a band-aid on an amputated leg. However, many return to their city, hoping to restore their lives in their former home.

Although the inhabitants of the city still warmly call this place home, bitterness, memories and pain are now behind these words. In my photographs, I wanted to capture the abstract house that we imagine when we talk about it in the family circle. The home, as in the photo from the family archives.