In place of an epigraph

when I was four, I always had glitter on my forehead, even though my mum never bought me cosmetics. these were particles of metal dust from the air that settled on my face. it was only me who had it — no one else in our family did. I felt special. when I talk about it now, people feel sorry for me.

the plant and the city \\ cityplant \\ introduction 

Mariupol could really be called a paradox city for multiple reasons. One that comes to mind to me is that Mariupol was included in the list of the most comfortable cities while topping the Ukrainian ranking of cities with the most polluted air. 

Before 2022, I was often asked whether the air in the city really tasted special, whether I found it strange to see clear air, and whether it was true that Mariupol residents coughed up black dust when they visited the Carpathians or Crimea. Even after 2014, the city would mainly be associated with dust, factories, and the sea. Stories of pink night skies, grey or black snow would shock anyone but people from Kryvyi Rih.

Mariupol was home to 56 industrial enterprises across various industries and forms of ownership, and ferrous metallurgy was the dominating sector. The largest of them were: PrJSC Azovstal, which included the Markokhim coke and chemical plant (closed in 2005), PrJSC Mariupol Illich Iron and Steel Works, and the Azovmash concern, which also included several companies that manufactured tank cars, port cranes, and other equipment. By the end of 2005, Illich alone employed about 95,000 people in a city with a population of 481,000. Then all the metallurgical enterprises merged into a single image of the plant — finally becoming part of a single holding company, Metinvest, with Rinat Akhmetov as the beneficial owner.

The plant was everywhere. Not only geographically, with Azovstal being visible from the city centre and the waterfront, while a whole city district was named “Illich” after one of the industrial giants, or environmentally, with its predictable impact on the air quality, sea, and the city’s river. It was also omnipresent in the infrastructure: cultural centres, stadiums, children’s sanatorium, orphanages, a chain of pharmacies, a dairy brand — the plants used all of this as a basis to create many affiliated companies unrelated to metallurgy. The influence of the management and owners of the plants extended even further. Over the years, Metinvest steadily increased its representation within the City Council and executive committee.

In 2015, Vadym Boichenko, who previously served as the deputy director of Illich Iron and Steel Works before entering politics, became the mayor of Mariupol. Many members of his party had also previously worked in the company or in the management of the holding’s enterprises before starting their careers in local government: notably, 19 of the 54 members of the City Council were former Metinvest employees. Despite the mayor’s claims of impartiality and discreteness, the connections and lobbying on behalf of the holding’s interests were obvious to the public. 

The company’s interests were also promoted through local media. Eighty per cent of the city’s news media were linked to Metinvest: the Mariupol TV channel and the website Mrpl.city belonged to Akhmetov’s media holding. The latter also owned eighty per cent of the shares in the newspaper “Pryazovia Worker”, which had been funded from the city budget since 2019. Later, the nominally independent TV channel TV-7 became a municipal channel and was financed from the city budget, thus becoming controlled by Akhmetov’s interests. 

As a result, Mariupol, which was already a mono-city economically, with 70% of its budget relying on revenues from metallurgy, also became a mono-city in a political sense, as the city was controlled by representatives of Rinat Akhmetov’s interests. Such was the microclimate in which Mariupol environmental activism developed.

I was always surrounded by talk of industrial emissions. Since childhood, I had heard about factories poisoning us and old filters that were only switched on during inspections. Now, recalling such conversations, I realise that this information seemed to be fundamental knowledge that did not raise any questions. Things were always very bad. Could it have been different? In another reality, yes, because in ours, it seemed that everyone around me was just constantly complaining about emissions, broken filters, and the greed of the factories’ management. At the same time, people would not even entertain the idea of closing the plants, taking pride in the resilience and strength of our folk working in such complex and dangerous industries. Did anyone try to do anything to improve the situation? Back then, as a teenager, I was not interested in this. At that time, as an eighteen-year-old, I had no idea that I could make a difference.

Years later, being around the same age, a friend of mine shared similar concerns, although it was already well past 2014… In early January 2020, Serhii Morzhov staged a solo action near the Drama Theatre, the central meeting place. He held a handmade sign that read, “Are plants more important than winter?”. Not that he had an answer to his question: “I don’t know shit. Dude, I’m studying to be a translator, why should I be the one to answer that? But I am part of the youth who worry about this and understand that if you don’t come to your senses about what you’re doing now, we will have nowhere to live tomorrow. Or we will all die of cancer at the age of forty.”¹From my interview with Serhii Morzhov (May 2024) Still, this rebellion was enough.

Serhiy had something I lacked at his age — the desire to protest and the awareness that he had both the ability and the right to do so. The young man showed up every week. He stood near the theatre. Alone at first, friends, friends of friends, strangers and passers-by began joining him: “People would come and say, ‘You’re doing the right thing’. Someone would offer a cup of tea. Someone would stay with us a bit and shout some slogans with us.”²From my interview with Serhii Morzhov (May 2024)

Eventually, the activist group that Serhii had dubbed Ecoriot moved to the pedestrian underpass, and the focus of the gatherings – what Serhii referred to as ‘’happenings’’- shifted from environmental issues to “let’s try not to go crazy” during the lockdown and the endless end of the world: “It was a very cool gang. We’d get together, dance, sip on some pu’er. And we dreamed that, in a year’s time, it would turn into a street festival that would last for a whole week, something like that. There was something very hippie-like to it…”

Inspired by Pussy Riot, Marina Abramović, and Fridays for Future, Serhii dreamed of doing something provocative and vandalistic, although nothing that might have disturbed public order ever happened. The square near the Drama Theater was an integral part of daily life, serving as the primary meeting point for the people of Mariupol. Serhii expanded its purpose, highlighted its potential as a space for spontaneous expression and dialogue: “It provided another way for people to discuss, to ask themselves questions, hear questions on the street, to approach some weird dreadlocked teenager to listen to his perspective. Then tell him to fuck off or think about his words and possibly reconsider their own views the next day.”³From my interview with Serhii Morzhov (May 2024).

Despite the fact that Ecoriot did not gather rallies of thousands, but by dreaming, at least in my opinion, the ”gang” was accomplishing something significant. Having the habit of dreaming and imagining a future — albeit utopian — is, in my view, one of the first steps that can help us break free from the mindset of hopelessness and the belief that living differently is possible.

I am not sure how detached from reality this opinion might be, but without the ideological side, it is difficult to stay engaged in public activity and continue trying to have an impact on anything. By ideology, I mean the values that people choose for themselves and the political views that guide them in setting their goals. In our case, I believe these views and values often clashed among the activists and, unfortunately, these conflicts hindered cooperation.

In 2012, the Stop the Smog! protest rally on Myr Square (then known as Lenin Square) led to the creation of the public initiative Razom (meaning “Together”). This initiative actively monitored emissions and tracked the fulfilment of commitments to modernise industrial enterprise until 2022. The rally was an important event in the history of Mariupol, and it is still considered one of the largest protests that happened in the city. According to Maksym Borodin, one of the organisers, it gathered around 10,000–15,000 city residents and collected 13,000 signatures supporting their joint demands addressed to the plant’s management and the city authorities. 

Critical levels of air pollution and rise in respiratory illnesses were among the reasons that drove the people into the streets: “Sometimes it was impossible to go out in the evening without a respirator. And at home, even with closed windows, it stank from the coke plant.”⁴From my interview with Maksym Borodin (July 2024)

“A number of factors came into play: warm winter, fog, and a lack of wind. And on top of that, Azovstal started having problems,” explains Maksym⁵From my interview with Maksym Borodin (July 2024). According to him, the plants were constantly ramping up production, while the equipment was steadily aging due to a lack of adequate upgrades: “It became clear that there were huge problems with the coke oven batteries and at Azovstal’s sinter plant. These coke oven batteries outlasted their lifespan and simply needed to be shut down and extinguished, they were done. They were not to be modernised. The sinter plant could have been modernised, but it was small, and that’s why they [Metinvest] didn’t want to invest in it, even though they had a six times bigger one at Illich. But it also needed modernisation.”

The Stop the Smog campaign was an example of how public anger and fatigue can unite people. Its common goal was to foster an understanding that Mariupol residents would not back down and that the company was at risk of suffering significant reputational damage in the eyes of its foreign partners. Losing this battle was not seen as an option: “We will be heard, because otherwise, the revolution will start from Mariupol,” Anastasiia Bohdanovych, one of the organisers, told a Radio Liberty journalist during the action. The mayor of the city, Yurii Khotlubei, was pelted with snowballs as he addressed the crowd from the stage.

The protest was initiated by a self-organised coalition of activists and initiatives, including independent ecologist Anastasiia Bohdanovych, head of the international youth NGO “Civil association ‘Conscience’” Eleonora Haivoronska, coordinator of the initiative group Give Us Oxygen! Maksym Borodin, along with other representatives of non-political NGOs in the city. The organisers also relied on the help of the city residents to spread the word about the campaign by all possible means: for example, they printed leaflets with information that could be left at work, in their neighborhoods, and particularly at playgrounds and polyclinics, at cancer and pulmonary departments of hospitals. The event’s online page on Facebook, which was not yet very popular among Mariupol residents, featured many photos of smog and industrial emissions, posts about the air quality, and comments such as “I’m not in the city, but my thoughts are with you!”

The protesters demanded:
– a significant increase in fines and penalties for environmental pollution;

– the modernisation or complete closure of Azovstal sinter plant, with the transfer of production to Illich Iron and Steel Works and its subsequent modernisation; 

– the shutdown of the two non-operational coke oven batteries;

– job security guarantees for sinter plant employees;

– the installation and modernisation of refiners (filters);

– the resignation of the oblast leadership and the mayor of Mariupol, Yurii Khotlubei..

A few days before the protest, one of Azovstal’s coke oven batteries collapsed. Fortunately, none of the workers were injured. This incident allowed the protesters to  pressure Metinvest’s management, which led to the acceptance of a significant portion of their demands. The sinter plant at Azovstal was closed, the workers were not fired, production was moved to Illich Iron and Steel Works, and modernisation began.

Later, from 2012 to 2014, Maksym Borodin and other activists continued to monitor the modernisation process by attending roundtables with representatives from the holding company and the city authorities, making numerous inquiries; in 2014, they established the NGO “Initiative Group ‘Razom’”. Thanks to public fundraising, they also implemented a project for independent online monitoring of emissions, publicly reported on the monitoring results, and shared information about pollution in Mariupol by posting videos on Facebook. The initiative also focused on anti-corruption efforts and access to information, particularly regarding land-related issues. Among the founders and management of the initiative were Oksana Budzynska, Afina Khadzhynova, Olena Zolotariova, Petro Andriushchenko, and others.

Later, some members of this team became City Council deputies from the Power of the People party, namely Maksym Borodin, Oleh Kharchenko, and Roman Ameliakyn. According to Maksym, being a deputy was merely an additional tool for their activism, enabling them to access information and influence the city authorities..

“In the years that followed, the dialogue always took place in the same way, a reasonable discussion with pressure from our part. That is, we consistently presented reasonable options, and if we were heard, it was okay; if not, public pressure would ensue. Essentially, that was how it worked.,” tells the activist about the initiative’s work⁶From my interview with Maksym Borodin (July 2024). The main principles that Borodin and Razom relied on were specificity and consistency, putting forward specific realistic demands that could feasibly be implemented. During our conversation, Maksym repeatedly mentioned those who, as he put it, “wanted to do stuff” with vague demands and quick results, and therefore quickly “burned out”. In these words, I sensed fatigue and an echo of misunderstandings between activist initiatives in the city.

In my imagination, the counterbalance to the highly liberal and highly formal Razom organisation was an informal grassroots initiative, which was, in fact, it happened to be an online community on Facebook called For Ecologically Clean Mariupol. This was confirmed in a later conversation with one of the group’s administrators and a member of the initiative, Olena Zakharchenko: “They [Razom] are so liberal, and they are more about agreements, about some kind of cooperation. Our position was that there can be no agreements with the mayor, the authorities, or with scoundrels in general. We were more radical.”⁷From my interview with Olena Zakharchenko (June 2024)

The page For Ecologically Clean Mariupol was created in 2018, as was the group of people who spread their ideas offline. The description states that the group, which has more than 10,000 members, serves “to unite and coordinate the actions of all active residents of Mariupol who care about the future of this city, which suffers from Metinvest’s environmental genocide.”

Among the active members of the initiative group were Olena Zakharchenko and her husband Makar Antypov, music teacher and activist Oleksii Leontiev, as well as Anton Yasin and Valerii Avirianov, whose fate remains unknown. Olena shared, “We were joined by people from different communities. There was also a platform called Act!. It included Vanda Vierovska and Iryna Chitno. Anyone could write to one of us if they wanted to. We kept in touch with everyone who was interested in it. There were workers who filmed what was happening on the inside, and they later said that, yes, there was pressure, and their management threatened them that this could result in dismissals.”

In addition to running the online page where followers collected news and photos about the city’s pollution and the accumulation of hazardous waste along the shore of the Azov Sea, the initiative focused on two main areas: public pressure and raising civic awareness. 

About once a week, brightly dressed and wearing medical masks, Olena and her friend would go out and put up posters at bus stops and on community boards, and hand out leaflets that Olena and her husband Makar had worked on together. These primarily consisted of informational leaflets that outlined the laws of Ukraine protecting the environment, provided hotlines for reporting environmental violations, and included data about the composition of the emissions from the plant. Additionally, they included ideological content, explaining, for example, what democracy is.

Thanks to these expeditions, the group engaged in many conversations, got to know various citizens, and learned stories about their health problems that had worsened due to the emissions; some told them about relatives who had been injured or killed while working at the enterprises. However, there were also workers who were aggressive and believed that the activists aimed to close the plants and put them out of work. “We talked to them. We explained that we were for modernisation. That, in fact, you also have accidents there, you also work there in terrible conditions, you breathe all this stuff. It can be done in a better way, and the quality of your workplace and your life can be improved. And some people agreed. They joined our side — at least emotionally, at least in the moment. But this, I believe, is already a small step towards victory over this system of injustice. This is how we communicated with people,” Olena recalls.

The second area of their activism was to put pressure on the oligarchic system directly, specifically on Rinat Akhmetov and his sore spot — his reputation. The logic was to organise large protests that would draw attention to the problem in the media and that could damage the company’s reputation among its partners, including international ones, and contribute to a decline of its shares. “We wanted to… well, engage in such activism so that Rinat Akhmetov, under external public pressure, would come to the conclusion that it would be cheaper for him to take action, to somehow adapt to these new demands of our society,” the activist explains.

The initiative group organised one of its actions under the slogan “Akhmetov Is a Murderer,” and another event was held on City Day, for which the mayor had been busy launching various renovation projects. The protest took place on the central square, near the Drama Theatre, next to the place where new tiles were still being laid. At the time, between 4,000 and 6,000 Mariupol residents came out to protest, which caused a big stir in the information space of Mariupol. It seemed that it genuinely made the city authorities worry about their reputation. The news website mrpl.city, owned by Metinvest, published four news stories about the rally. They called the rally “nobody’s” in an attempt to undermine its legitimacy; they also wrote that it was a political PR stunt by deputies from the Power of the People party, and downplayed the number of participants, citing police data.

At the rallies, participants often showed up wearing gas masks and protective suits, with emotional slogans on their signs, steel barrels for drums, and pink smoke torches symbolising the smog: “We saw what we wrote on the posters more as a kind of revolutionary art. Of course, all slogans are emotional. Their task is to convey some kind of moral and ethical idea. They are designed to do that.”⁸From my interview with Olena Zakharchenko (June 2024)

The activists faced bot attacks in the comments section and rumours being spread about their political ambitions and alleged financial backing. Some members of the City Council could not believe that the group could sustain itself solely on its members’ enthusiasm, only carried by their own efforts and resources. For instance, at one of the council sessions, Oleksii Leontiev was asked how much money their initiative received for its activities. The deputy that asked this estimated the amount to be around 6 million hryvnias. “And we thought at the time that, given that it was actually ‘zero’, we did a very good job,” Olena commented⁹From my interview with Olena Zakharchenko (June 2024). She remains optimistic about the initiative’s potential for growth had it not been for the full-scale Russian invasion: “We noticed that we were constantly joined by new people. And we could have continued to work, perhaps on improving our internal communication.”

The environmental movement in Mariupol extended  beyond merely protesting against polluting plants. Less visible (in my opinion), yet equally influential in the city was the work of environmental activists from the initiative group Mariupol Zero Waste (formerly Mariupol Is Sorting).

Behind the smog of Azovstal and the general indifference or ignorance regarding the harm its waste inflicted on the environment and our lives, the importance of sorting was often overlooked, complicating the efforts and adding to the workload of activists.

In 2022, there were two large landfills in Mariupol, of which only one was operating. The landfill on Krasnoflotska Street, which covered 17.5 hectares, had long been closed. The only operating landfill covered 6.2 hectares and (according to various estimates) was supposed to be full by 2024-2025. In 2021, 450 tonnes of waste was brought to the landfill every day and dumped in one big pile. There were no sorting lines in Mariupol, nor was there a solid waste recycling plant. At the landfill, groups of homeless people sorted through the waste on their own, which they handed over at the collection points.

Rumours about the construction of a new recycling plant had been circulating when Khotlubei was still mayor; however, in 2018, the next mayor, Vadym Boichenko, stressed that there was no money nor investment. Nevertheless, the news that both an incinerator and a recycling plant, as well as sorting lines at the new landfill, were planned for 2023, appeared periodically in the information field, in the city’s strategies, and in statements about the importance of an eco-conscious approach. The year 2023 was approaching, but no changes were in sight. Neither did the local authorities try to adapt to the immediate reality of the lack of solid waste sorting, abandoning any hopes for the arrival of a messiah in the form of a newly built waste processing plant. 

While environmental values were being arbitrarily included in the city’s development strategies, activists from Mariupol Zero Waste were undertaking the work that the authorities had promised to do. This included informing citizens about the importance of sorting, creating the first opportunities for it, and gradually building the infrastructure, as well as attracting entrepreneurs from Mariupol and other parts of Ukraine. However, the initiative’s goal was not limited to organising waste sorting in Mariupol: in 2019, in addition to waste issues, the movement also began to tackle other environmental concerns. 

An active cluster of the initiative was formed by 6 Mariupol residents: Valentyna Abalmasova, Anna Cheban, Olha Pavlenko, Iryna Nevaliova, Maryna Artemova and Nataliia Haietska. They worked according to the principle that “whoever initiates must carry out most of the job”, aided by others who had the time and opportunity. As part of the movement, Anna Cheban, the head of the Ecogurt organisation, started an enterprise for recycling shrink wrap into pellets for new products made of plastic film, such as garden greenhouses. “We were constantly visiting the procurement base on Flotska Street. This was the place where we could see how recycling works in practice: what is accepted, what is not accepted, why it is not accepted,” Nataliia recalls¹⁰From my interview with Nataliia Haietska (August 2024).

Another member of the initiative, Valentyna Abalmasova, with the help of her fellow activists, engaged in what the head of the department of ecology would call “profanation”: she introduced solid waste sorting first within her own homeowner association, and then in almost a hundred associations across the city. As part of the Bin It project, the buildings were equipped with mini-sorting stations, and residents were taught how to use them. Subsequently, recyclers would come collect and buy the sorted waste for a small price. 

“It was organised in such a way that we did not just provide some containers, we also worked with people to ensure they understood how it worked, so they wouldn’t stop participating and could actually exchange all the sorted materials for money. Unfortunately, the amount was very small because Mariupol is at the farthest point that the purchasers could reach. That’s why the price was the lowest in Ukraine,” Nataliia explains¹¹From my interview with Nataliia Haietska (August 2024).

In addition to cooperating with homeowner associations, the initiative created a “Drop-off” section on its social media pages, where people could find a map of collection and sorting points that accepted clean, sorted solid waste. “We collected information about all the so-called ‘garage drop-off points’. They may not be beautiful, they may not be big, interesting sorting stations like in Kyiv or Kharkiv. However, they accepted materials that were guaranteed to be recycled. We supported, encouraged, and motivated our Mariupol residents to engage in separate waste collection so that they did not think that it would go to some landfill.”

A solution was also found to deal with the waste materials that could not be collected in Mariupol: the activists found sorting and recycling centres in other cities and organised bulk shipments of the collected materials to those locations. These were liquid packaging boards and polypropylene bags (used for cereals, spaghetti, crisps, etc.). Although such material cannot be recycled, someone in Kharkiv came up with the idea that, when cut into strips, it could be used as stuffing for pouffes.

“We organised three collection centres at our partners’ premises. One was a healthy food store on the Left Bank, the second was Vezha¹²A creative space based at the centenary water tower, one of the historical landmarks of Mariupol. And the third — our first partner — was the KraboFF printing house.”

The initiative group’s projects were developed on a voluntary basis, with grant support occasionally secured to implement certain ideas. Several of the projects were supported by local voting and won a participatory budget competition. This was how five giant, fish-shaped containers appeared on a Mariupol beach for collecting recyclables, which were subsequently sent for processing. The project was called Re_mo_re.

The last project to receive funding from the city budget at the beginning of 2022 was a permanent collection station for hazardous waste, such as mercury-containing thermometers, as well as various batteries and accumulators.

“Ukraine did not and does not recycle any hazardous waste. However, there are organisations, such as Batareiky.ua and Environmental Investments, that collect it and send it abroad responsibly. These organisations are trustworthy,” said Nataliia. “We had already purchased special metal containers. It was agreed where they would be installed, and these places would be protected to prevent anyone from breaking in or setting them on fire — you know, anything can happen… Just as we were starting to implement the project, the full-scale invasion began, so all of this remained in Mariupol.” ¹³From my interview with Nataliia Haietska (August 2024)

Mariupol Zero Waste devoted a lot of time to educational activities as well: they held lectures, workshops, sorting games at educational institutions, “audited” Mariupol businesses, advising them on how to become more “green”; they launched the GreenFest eco-festival.

When asked about instances of cooperation and confrontation with the local authorities, Nataliia said that they tried to avoid conflicts, maintain communication, attend meetings and ask for help. The city picked up the initiatives of Mariupol Zero Waste: “There used to be no sorting in the city; to be honest, absolutely nothing was sorted, nothing was put in place for it… What the authorities implemented later, for example, when they set up sorting bins in schools, was a huge achievement.”
While Metinvest provided financial backing to environmental projects, Nataliia points out that in doing so, they were trying to steal the spotlight: “The festival [GreenFest] was also supported by the city, but Metinvest representatives tried to present themselves as the primary supporters, highlighting their own green initiatives… But it was mostly our work.” ¹⁴From my interview with Nataliia Haietska (August 2024)

Sources:

1. Metinvest Media. Istoriia Azovstali (The History of Azovstal)
2. Metinvest Media. PRAT “MKK im. Illicha” (PrJSC “Illich Iron and Steel Works”)
3. Website of the city of Mariupol. Ot koho i cheho zavisiat deputaty Mariupolskoho horodskoho soveta (On whom and what do the Mariupol City Council deputies depend. 26 October 2019.
4. Iryna Horbasiova. Yesli ostanovitsa zavod, Mariupol stanet kurortnym horodom i budet zarabatyvat bolshe — Borodin (If the plant stops, Mariupol will become a resort city and earn more — Borodin). Radio Liberty. 13 November 2017.
5. Olena Povoliaieva. 10 tysiach mariupoltsiv vyishly protestuvaty proty smohu ta vykydiv (VIDEO) (10 thousand Mariupol residents protest against smog and emissions (VIDEO). Radio Liberty. 5 November 2012.