KYIV -- Hidden behind a dusty green sheet, all that remains of Kateryna Kolmykova’s store and warehouse are scorched, twisted metal shelves and piles of ash.When the market where the premises were located was hit in a Russian drone and missile attack on June 16, it was the second time that Kolmykova had lost a business due to Russia’s war on Ukraine.Four years earlier, she and her husband, Maksym, had left behind a chain of successful stores in Mariupol, as it was attacked by Russian forces which devastated the city before occupying it.
“This was our past life, after our second beginning,” she reflected, as she looked on the blackened ruins of the household goods outlet that they opened after arriving in Kyiv.Now the couple must rebuild again.Mariupol: From Dream To NightmareBefore Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the couple had eight stores in Mariupol, on Ukraine’s Sea of Azov coast. Maksym’s outlets dealt in home appliances while Kateryna sold handbags.“Sometimes it feels like it didn't happen to me. I opened my first large store in 2015. Then, in 2018, a second one in the center of the city. It was a dream,” she said. “We were working, we knew what we were working for. It was that phase when the kids were growing up. The business was stable. We had money. It was time to live for ourselves. And that’s what we planned to do.”She also performed in a local theater and enjoyed Mariupol’s beaches. But it was a full life that would be destroyed by war.
