Slow Progress

The refugee camp was the first day that we had with our translator Bogdan, a 19 year old Computer Science student from Mariupol. So far he has worked out great and has been integral to helping find new contacts and is also passionate about what we are trying to do. After finally getting in contact with a military representative the mood quickly changed from helpful to suspicious as we could not verify our previous employers. We were supposed to meet him after returning from Sjdove however it got a little bit late and he stopped picking up his phone. We continued to try and contact him throughout the weekend with no luck.We finally managed to get through to him on Monday morning however he seemed increasingly agitated and told us he was very busy and would phone us when he has the time. This was a massive blow to our progress as we had spent a lot of time and effort trying to make a strong link with the military both for our personal safety and so we could obtain better access and information about current events in the east. As there was no more progress to be made we decided to take the time to explore some different parts of the city especially as our Australian photographer friend Bohdan arrived from Kiev.

This trip out on the town in the city of Mariupol was certainly interesting as it seems due to the current situation in and around Mariupol there hardly seemed to be anybody out. After watching the first half of Costa Rica vs. Netherlands we unfortunately ended up in a Karaoke bar where we managed to clear the small amount of people there out in than one song flat.

We eventually managed to stumble home even though all the street lights had been switched off by the time we left and resumed our research the next day.