”They are furious! Their land became private and they were sent to the four corners of the city, they can say goodbye to their beautiful sea view”, confides a retiree from Mariupol. The man has seen, with his own eyes and on social networks, the various gatherings organized by a handful of grandmothers in recent weeks. They denounce a privatization of buildings rebuilt on the ashes of their old housing. Opposite his home, number 82 on Nakhimova Street illustrates the situation: housing destroyed by the war was rebuilt and transformed into “luxury” apartments. The privatization of the land was decided arbitrarily by the occupying authorities. And to ensure that no legal recourse was possible, those responsible registered the building at the address of a perpendicular street, making the property titles of the previous inhabitants obsolete.
Corrupt entrepreneurs and politicians
The reconstruction of Mariupol is a goose that lays golden eggs for corrupt entrepreneurs and politicians. Some help register housing in Russian registers for owners who are determined not to set foot in occupied areas again and who wish to sell at all costs. Others privatize land when the company linked to the Russian Ministry of Defense, responsible for constructing buildings entrusted free of charge to residents, enriches its own.
The first of them, Timur Ivanov, former deputy defense minister, was dismissed on April 25. He is officially accused of corruption. This is certainly not the real reason for his arrest but this official has indeed enriched himself with the reconstruction of the city. An investigation carried out by relatives of the opponent Alexeï Navalny shed light in August 2022 on the extent of the luxury in which the soldier and his relatives live thanks to the Mariupol construction sites.
The grandmothers of Nakhimova Street were indeed rehoused free of charge, in one of the famous “Putin’s white buildings”. Hastily designed on the outskirts of the city, with low quality materials, they are a godsend for corrupt officials. This cynical market is gigantic: 90% of the buildings and 60% of the houses in the city were destroyed during the siege.
Twenty days in the hell of Mariupol: “When you accept the idea of dying, you almost feel liberated”
“Sad and painful”
Louisa Guenadevna has been a real estate agent in Mariupol for 25 years. This forty-year-old has set up her offices in a new building surrounded by burned buildings. Not very calm about the idea of responding to a foreign journalist, she refers to an interview given to a Russian media outlet and denounces goods monopolized by the Russians. “It is sad and painful for me to see that today only citizens of Great Russia are able to buy an apartment in Mariupol”, she assures. They would be attracted by the prospect of a future “seaside city”.
”Everywhere in the city center, buildings were severely affected by bombing. A commission decided that it was necessary to destroy these buildings and people, who have property rights to this land, who are registered there, are invited to live on the outskirts. It is not normal”, she regrets. But the young woman is not, however, an opponent of these new occupants. Like others, she regularly shows them apartments that are still charred and filled with personal objects.
The investment is risky, the war is not over and Russian insurance companies do not recognize the occupied regions. But Russian interest in this port is increasing the price of real estate in a city where no one can afford to buy property. Prices would have reached those of Russia’s second largest metropolis, Saint Petersburg. Today it takes up to 5.5 million rubles (around 56,000 euros) to afford 35m² of apartments, sometimes stolen from owners in exile or who died during the fighting. Real estate agents in the city sometimes find themselves showing properties that still have an owner. Enough to push the last Ukrainians still there to protect themselves by writing on their portals: “Here, there is an owner”, followed by their telephone number.
