Within two years, the parents of Mariia Pedorenko, a journalist from Crimea, died. They both died of cancer but these two experiences were quite different – a funeral, which Mariia could not attend and about which she was only told, and a bribe in the Crimean morgue. She now has to experience their deaths once again because according to the Ukrainian legislation, death certificates issued in the temporarily occupied territories must be verified. This is a difficult task from both a moral and a bureaucratic point of view. Read more about this in the first-person narrative.
"When we pass away…"
I am Mariia and I am a double orphan.
The first time it happened when I was almost three. Cancer killed my mother after several years of remission. I did not know my father at all. All I had from him were the same eyes, a few photographs, and a unique paternal name — Zhyvkovna. My father was a Serb. A family legend says that he died in the early 1990s during the war in Yugoslavia.
I was not left without care as I stayed with the family of my aunt and uncle who took me from Kherson to Crimea while my mother was fighting for her life. De jure, I was an orphan with an uncle-guardian, and de facto, I had a real family and people whom I called “mom” and "dad" all my life. They were elderly and their grandson was only a year older than I was. So, besides care and unconditional love, I was accompanied all my life with instructions that began with the words "When we pass away…"
My parents passed away a few years ago. Dad died in 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and mom died six months after the start of the full-scale war. They died in the occupied territory but, fortunately, not at the hands of the occupiers. The reason was the same — cancer. The doctor who treated my mother until the last days once asked, "What are you going to do with such a rich history of cancer in the family?" I did not think about it then. In addition to the memento mori imposed by the parents, at the end of the summer of 2022 I was thinking about the news from the front (occupation, liberation, demarcation lines, and cities far from the front line) and about my mother who was getting worse each day.
Almost two years later, I found myself in a bureaucratic paradox. During my last visit to Crimea, I placed fresh flowers on the grave of my parents. However, I recently learned that according to the Ukrainian legislation, they are still considered alive, at least in documents, until I register their deaths in the nearest civil registration office.
"A funeral ceremony that I could not attend and about which I was only told"
When my father died, there was no quarantine in Crimea. It was May 2020, and then the occupiers did not yet recognize the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic. While in mainland Ukraine the deceased were buried in dense bags, my father was buried with the military salute. He was a retired Soviet army officer, had a military pension and all the accompanying "bonuses" from the aggressor country (in my lexicon, I called it "reparations").
My mother was not crying while the cadets were firing the salute. When relatives mentioned it in a conversation, they always added in the end, "A true officer’s wife". My mom was not crying because she did not like "funeral sniveling". Being 87, she had attended many funerals and did not like when people lamented, "Who did you leave us for!" A true officer’s wife.
In addition, my mother was not crying because she had no more tears left. Oncology never kills instantly. My mom had a lot of time to cry before the funeral.
I cried a lot. Until the end, I did not believe that my father could die. In addition, I was crying in Kyiv while my dad was being buried in Crimea. "A funeral ceremony that I could not attend and about which I was only told," I wrote under a black and white photo on Instagram. I managed to visit my father’s grave only in six months after his death. The official reason for that was the pandemic. The unofficial reason was fear. I knew that I could enter the occupied territory with my Crimean residence registration, and I knew that I would not be able to return because I did not have a residence permit in Kyiv. I had only half a day to decide whether I was ready to put on hold everything that I had gained little by little during the years of living outside the occupied territory. My mom said, "Don’t come."
The psychotherapist later said, "Your father taught you to do the right things," and I sobbed with guilt for not being there for him. However, the psychotherapist was right — my father’s death showed me what I really had to do when he was dying. I did it when my mother was dying.
"We were able to say goodbye to each other — it is quite a privilege in the time of war"
My mother had been diagnosed with stomach cancer a week before Russia started the big war. Then, in order to pull myself together, I invented a pathetic phrase, "Putin sentenced my country to death in a week after the doctor had sentenced my mother to death". Today I know that Putin did not succeed. My mom was less fortunate.
I came to Crimea one and a half months before February 24, 2022. I left it in October, a week after the explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge. I experienced remotely the first strikes on Kyiv and the occupation of the region, the capture of my native Kherson and the siege of Mariupol, Bucha and Izium, Vinnytsia and Kramatorsk... I wished I could put my mainland life on hold, as I was afraid to do two years before, I wished I could distance myself from the news about mass deaths and not worry about my friends who were in the risk zone each day. However, the mentions of deaths came from everywhere and multiplied with the proximity of my mother’s death.
What is it like to be dying in occupied Crimea? This is when you are lying in a dusty and noisy ward, which was decided to be repaired in the ninth year of the "return" [of Crimea] (because the money from the "federal target program" had to be used). Or when painkillers are sold in only one pharmacy in the city, and if they are not available you only dream of hospitalization because the clinic will provide them. Or when you meet in the hospital reception department a family that was hit by debris after an attack on an airfield in a nearby village captured by the Russians. Or when you stand in line for an X-ray with the wounded Russian military, because of whom there are no vacant places in the wards and you are offered only a gurney in the corridor.
At that time, it was still prohibited to visit hospitals in Crimea due to the COVID pandemic. However, my mother and I were allowed to say goodbye to each other. We knew that it was the end; she had to be taken to an operation without which she would definitely not survive, but she was unlikely to survive it either. We knew that the most important things had already been said over the phone, that the "burial dress" had already been ironed, and the money for the funeral had been kept in a drawer for many years.
I cannot describe these memories in words. I will not even try to find the words. However, we were able to say goodbye to each other. In the time of war, it is quite a privilege.
What is a funeral like in occupied Crimea? It is to meet a classmate in the morgue. 10 years ago, he dreamed of becoming a pathologist, and I felt bitter that he fulfilled his dream in the occupation. Or to hand another pathologist an envelope [with money] with the words, “Everything must be in a proper manner”. "In a proper manner" cost two thousand rubles.
However, at the same time, fortunately, a funeral in Crimea means that the ritual service takes you away from the morgue and does not require big money. Or that the nurses give mom’s things perfectly folded and show where the clean ones lie. Or when a death certificate is issued at the civil registration office within 10 minutes and they say, "Just have a smoke [while you are waiting]."
I was not crying while my mother was being buried. Oncology never kills instantly, and I had plenty of time to cry before the death. I am not an officer’s wife. At that time, I was a 30-year-old child who became an orphan for the second time, and this time I realized everything. Unfortunately or fortunately, I had enough words to talk about it then and have enough now. However, I did not have enough tears. I had to hide my eyes behind dark glasses so as my dry eyes did not attract the attention of those who were lamenting.
"I do not want to bury my parents once again"
Last year, I had an interview with Tamila Tasheva, the permanent representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. For the first time during the years of occupation, targeted attacks of the [Ukrainian] Defense Forces on Russian military bases on the peninsula gave hope that this [occupation] would finally come to the end. My Crimean neighbors who refused to pay utility bills to the occupiers, after being threatened by the court, said, "No, we will wait a little longer, maybe we will not have to pay to them." I had this hope (and still have it), so I went to the interview to understand what life will be like in Crimea after the occupation.
"We do not recognize any decisions of the occupation administrations or documents issued there," Tasheva stressed. "However, of course, life in Crimea continued, and all this was accompanied by an array of various documents all of which require verification."
In particular, two death certificates that are kept in the drawer in my Crimean home [require verification]. I left them there because I did not want another mention of death after living side by side with it for six months.
They can be verified at the civil registration office in the place of residence. However, even the state bodies note that documents issued during the occupation have no legal force, and the civil registration office will not accept them. What is the way out? To apply to the court so that the fact of death is established at the official level. To do this, it is necessary to pay the court fee, collect photo and video evidence of the graves, testimonies of people who can confirm the time and place of death.
I have not addressed the civil registration office yet. The official reason is that I have no time. The unofficial reason is the lack of moral strength. I do not want to prove to anyone that my parents are really dead. I do not want to collect evidence from eyewitnesses or ask acquaintances in Crimea to photograph the grave. I do not want to establish their death through a court verdict as it is required by the Civil Procedure Code. I do not want to bury them a second time, even in documents. At least for now. Maybe it is worth waiting a little longer. Maybe I will do this already in Crimea. As a proverb says, everything is easier at home.
