The city of Mariupol, from the metallurgical industry to seaside tourism?

File photo: People enjoy the sun on a beach in the port city of Mariupol, in September 2014, after the signing of the ceasefire.

AFP - PHILIPPE DESMAZES

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

While Russia, according to the British Ministry of Defence, is making " 

 " towards a breakthrough towards Kramatorsk, a major city in the part of the Donbass under Ukrainian control, water and electricity have returned to the Mariupol hospitals.

While the siege of the Azovstal factory continues, the city's new pro-Russian authorities are already making plans for its future.

Their ambition: to transform this industrial center into a seaside resort.

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With our special correspondent in Mariupol,

In Mariupol, 

, just survival and a dashed future.

The new authorities, however, are already talking about rebuilding everything and making this city, with its industrial identity, almost a clean slate.

"The ecology of the city and its surroundings has been negatively affected by the work of the Azovstal steel plant," said the chairman of the DNR, the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk.

Denis Pushilin has decided, he wants to make Mariupol a seaside town.

“ 

 ,” judges a driver in the queue to get water from two plastic tanks in front of the central hospital.

Everyone here works in the factories, and if we became a seaside resort, what would we do?

Where would we work?

Frankly, I think we just have to rebuild everything.

I don't see what else to do.

And then we live here.

Like everyone in Mariupol, this man knows the economic weight of local metallurgical factories: 40% of direct employment in the city depends on them.

Even those who, before February 24, were campaigning for a change in the economic model, are now divided.

" 

 ," said a nurse.

There are so many big factories here, four in total: Azovmash, Azovstal, Aglofabrica and Ilyich.

That means there would be less work.

And the metallurgists, what are they going to do?

Of course, for me personally, that would be good.

A seaside town is better, it's easier to breathe, the air is cleaner and the sea would be cleaner.

But it's temporary, it's for the summer.

What would we do in winter?

Silence, on the other hand, on the ongoing fierce struggle for control of

, despite the columns of smoke rising from it and obscuring the blue spring sky.

Smoke rising in the sky above the Azovstal factory in Mariupol, where the last entrenched Ukrainian soldiers are besieged by pro-Russian and Ukrainian forces.

© RFI / Anissa El Jabri

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