Viktoria has gotten a couple of updates over the past two or three days. First, she heard from her long-time work friend Angela over the weekend. She, along with her husband and son, had stayed in a coastal village during the worst of the siege and takeover of Mariupol, but they are back in the city now. Their apartment suffered some damage, but was still habitable. (That was the case for many buildings — but not all, of course — that weren’t street-facing.) They’re getting by, I guess; Viktoria didn’t say otherwise.

Naturally, Angela had been learning what she could about friends and the people she’d worked with. (She and Viktoria were the only two women on their 10-person crew at Azovstal, and they’d worked together for many, many years. So, work friend, yes, but real-life friend as well.) Angela passed along news that two of the men from their crew had died. Some people asked how Viktoria was, which (a) is nice to know that she hasn’t been forgotten since moving to the US, and (b) is super nice of them to ask given all that’s going on their lives.

The second bit of news came today (with a smidge yesterday): Viktoria was able to talk with Baba Katya and Rodion for a bit. They are staying with a friend in the village of Staryi Krym (“Old Crimea”), which is just outside the border of Mariupol to the northwest. They’ve got water and electricity there but no communications, which still puts them better off than many people in Mariupol. Katya’s apartment in Mariupol is good — locked up and looked over by a neighbor; minor damage but habitable if they wanted to move back, but there are no plans to do so at this time.

Rodion’s doing OK. He’s in “school” — a Russian brownshirt indoctrination center by another name — for a couple more weeks. He had to get a severe buzzcut a few weeks back to address any possible issues of lice or other vermin from their weeks in the basements and generally unsanitary conditions, but it looks like it’s growing back in now. (I’ll get V to forward a photo; she got a couple from Katya prior to their conversation.) He asked Viktoria about his mother, which I’m sure was a tough question for V. Unfortunately, there’s still no information about Inna, so I’m not sure what she told him.

The friend that Katya and Rodion are staying with does have a car, so there are some plans to do a couple Mariupol runs over the next days or weeks. Katya will go by the apartment block and do a little recon and recovery of Zhenya’s and V’s mother’s apartments. There’s probably nothing to really see or do at this point, but who knows. And, after school is finished, they’ll plan to go visit Artem and his family, to see how things are going.

I’ll write up any updates as soon as I know them.

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As promised before, a couple photos of Rodion, along with a new friend he made in the country.

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Also, Baba Katya went into Mariupol sooner than I was told, and got a look at the two apartments. She described them to Viktoria as “horrifying.” The only things she found was a coin in the family apartment, and a personal safe from Zhenya’s apartment. The safe was technically fire-proof, but as you can see from these photos, “fire-resistant” might be a better description.