On the evening of 20 March 2022, Russian troops hit the Podil district of Kyiv several times. They shelled the Retroville shopping and entertainment centre. Part of the mall, cars parked nearby, a fitness club and a business centre were destroyed. Residential buildings, schools and kindergartens in the neighbourhood were also badly damaged. Eight people died that day.
Rescuers received a call about the fire at 22:48 and rushed to the scene. "We arrived very quickly - everything was on fire, there was no glass on the first floors of the neighbouring houses. There was a Leroy Merlin hardware store on the corner and an axe flew out of it. It flew about a hundred metres away from the blast wave," recalls Pavlo Petrov, a photographer for the Ukrainian State Emergency Service. At the beginning of the full-scale war, rescuers had already been called to many missile sites, so they were used to large-scale destruction. The fire in the Retroville shopping centre was very difficult to extinguish because all the facades of the mall were made of combustible materials. At the same time, they had to remove the debris and prevent the fire from spreading. The rescuers were divided into several groups and worked in different locations - near the facades and inside. They started at eleven o'clock in the evening and contained the fire (i.e. stopped it from spreading) at around two in the morning. More than 60 people and 11 pieces of equipment were involved.
"A pipe broke and the first floor was ankle-deep in hot water. The air was filled with steam," says the photographer. "I remember the center like that - without light, without a ceiling, with the dead. Right at the entrance there was a man who had been torn apart by an explosion, and the boys were putting him back together. It triggers me to go there now."
Rescuers continued to clear the rubble the following day. The fire was very large and was completely extinguished by midday. "Emotionally, this shopping center fire was not the most difficult. Previously we had worked near residential buildings that had been hit by a missile. But this fire was very big and very scary. When we first arrived, the facade was still collapsing and crumbling. It was like hell," says Pavlo Petrov.
Photographer Oleh Petrasyuk arrived at the scene the day after the shopping center was bombed, on 22 March 2022. He says the sight was horrifying.
“I arrived there the day after the shelling. I was filming the aftermath of the shelling of Kyiv on Salyutna Street, I met a colleague there and we decided to go to Retroville to see for ourselves. We took a couple of identical shots, me in color, him in black and white," the photographer recalls.
Oleh says that these photos were not published anywhere at the time, so he took them for his archive.
On 23 March, Russian troops fired mortars at the Retroville shopping and entertainment center. The shelling killed two people: Oksana Baulina, a journalist for The Insider who was investigating the aftermath of the previous attack, and a bypasser.
We would like to remind you that the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers has launched a series of materials dedicated to the key events of the Russian war against Ukraine, where we will publish memoirs and photographs of Ukrainian documentary photographers.
The project is being implemented with the support of the ЗМІN.
The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Katya Moskalyuk
Bildeditor: Vyacheslav Ratynskyi
Literary Editor: Julia Futei
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar
On the evening of 20 March 2022, Russian troops hit the Podil district of Kyiv several times. They shelled the Retroville shopping and entertainment centre. Part of the mall, cars parked nearby, a fitness club and a business centre were destroyed. Residential buildings, schools and kindergartens in the neighbourhood were also badly damaged. Eight people died that day.
Rescuers received a call about the fire at 22:48 and rushed to the scene. "We arrived very quickly - everything was on fire, there was no glass on the first floors of the neighbouring houses. There was a Leroy Merlin hardware store on the corner and an axe flew out of it. It flew about a hundred metres away from the blast wave," recalls Pavlo Petrov, a photographer for the Ukrainian State Emergency Service. At the beginning of the full-scale war, rescuers had already been called to many missile sites, so they were used to large-scale destruction. The fire in the Retroville shopping centre was very difficult to extinguish because all the facades of the mall were made of combustible materials. At the same time, they had to remove the debris and prevent the fire from spreading. The rescuers were divided into several groups and worked in different locations - near the facades and inside. They started at eleven o'clock in the evening and contained the fire (i.e. stopped it from spreading) at around two in the morning. More than 60 people and 11 pieces of equipment were involved.
"A pipe broke and the first floor was ankle-deep in hot water. The air was filled with steam," says the photographer. "I remember the center like that - without light, without a ceiling, with the dead. Right at the entrance there was a man who had been torn apart by an explosion, and the boys were putting him back together. It triggers me to go there now."
Rescuers continued to clear the rubble the following day. The fire was very large and was completely extinguished by midday. "Emotionally, this shopping center fire was not the most difficult. Previously we had worked near residential buildings that had been hit by a missile. But this fire was very big and very scary. When we first arrived, the facade was still collapsing and crumbling. It was like hell," says Pavlo Petrov.
Photographer Oleh Petrasyuk arrived at the scene the day after the shopping center was bombed, on 22 March 2022. He says the sight was horrifying.
“I arrived there the day after the shelling. I was filming the aftermath of the shelling of Kyiv on Salyutna Street, I met a colleague there and we decided to go to Retroville to see for ourselves. We took a couple of identical shots, me in color, him in black and white," the photographer recalls.
Oleh says that these photos were not published anywhere at the time, so he took them for his archive.
On 23 March, Russian troops fired mortars at the Retroville shopping and entertainment center. The shelling killed two people: Oksana Baulina, a journalist for The Insider who was investigating the aftermath of the previous attack, and a bypasser.
We would like to remind you that the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers has launched a series of materials dedicated to the key events of the Russian war against Ukraine, where we will publish memoirs and photographs of Ukrainian documentary photographers.
The project is being implemented with the support of the ЗМІN.
The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Katya Moskalyuk
Bildeditor: Vyacheslav Ratynskyi
Literary Editor: Julia Futei
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar
UAPP is an independent association of professional Ukrainian photographers, designed to protect their interests, support, develop and promote Ukrainian photography as an important element of national culture.
UAPP's activities span educational, social, research and cultural initiatives, as well as book publishing.
UAPP represents Ukrainian professional photography in the international photographic community and is an official member of the Federation of European Photographers (FEP) — an international organization representing more than 50,000 professional photographers in Europe and other countries around the world.
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