By Isabel Coles and Ievgeniia Sivorka

In a brochure, the property developer touts the "majestic style" of the building's architecture and its prime location just a 15-minute walk from the sea, adding a caveat: It was damaged during "military events."

The building that once stood there was in fact demolished by developers after Russia conquered Mariupol in a brutal onslaught that killed thousands of people and devastated the Ukrainian port city's housing stock.

Residents of the Clock House counted themselves lucky to survive, but are now excluded from the redevelopment of the building, which has been sold largely to newcomers from Russia.

"We, the previous owners, don't have the right to be there," said Elena Pudak, whose mother owned a spacious apartment in the building but now lives in Germany.

Once a landmark of Mariupol's unique heritage, the Clock House now stands as a monument to Russia's transformation of the city for both profit and its own political designs. Across occupied territory, Russia-backed authorities have seized thousands of apartments after declaring them "ownerless," leaving the Ukrainians who fled faced with growing barriers to return and prove their ownership or claim compensation.

Newcomers from Russia, meanwhile, enjoy a range of perks, such as 2% mortgage rates on new building developments.

The strategy of replacing the people who once lived in conquered territories with ethnic Russians is one that Moscow has long pursued. The eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, for example, was flooded with Russians in the 1930s as the Soviet Union industrialized the region while starving millions of Ukrainian peasants to death in what the Ukrainian government and many historians consider a genocide.

Mariupol is a symbol of Russian brutality and Ukrainian resistance during a siege in the early weeks of the war that destroyed swaths of the city, including the smoke-billowing Azovstal steel works. Real-estate agents tout the city's newly-clean air.

One new arrival, a Russian woman from Siberia, said she was dazzled by the bright orange of the sun when she first visited last year. She bought an apartment there needing only minor repairs and intends to retire there, fulfilling her husband's dream of living by the sea. For now, she said she would rent it out to a tenant -- a woman from Moscow who now lives and works in Mariupol.

Oleksandr Nosochenko, a former Mariupol resident, said a Russian military service member had taken over his summer cottage by the seaside on the city's outskirts. As a man of military age, Nosochenko couldn't make the journey back to Mariupol to claim compensation himself, and his wife, who had endured Russia's siege of the city, refused to return there on principle.

The Clock House, built in the 1950s, was one of the most coveted addresses in what had been a thriving city. A new clock was installed during repairs to the building's roof and facade in 2021, with a light show that then-mayor Vadym Boychenko hailed as a symbol of "the era of Mariupol's rebirth."

Months later, residents found themselves huddling in the basement as Russian forces besieged the city. In March 2022, a missile tore a hole in the Clock House, killing several residents.

"That's when we realized we had nowhere to go back to," said Pudak, who had escaped the city with her husband and three children days before, leaving the keys to her mother's apartment with a neighbor.

Mass displacement and destruction threw open the real-estate market. While workers started clearing rubble, realtors snapped up property on the cheap from fleeing residents.

Residents of the Clock House scattered across Ukraine, Russia and Europe, but some remained in the building's basement until a leak appeared in the summer.

Despite the damage, residents hoped the building's historic value would ensure its preservation. In a master plan for Mariupol's redevelopment approved by Putin in 2022, the Clock House was marked for restoration.

The bulldozers arrived toward the end of 2022.

Residents watched helplessly as the building was torn down. Three diggers broke in the process, according to the head of the residents association Maria Tikhovskaya. "The house itself was fighting the demolition," she said in a video posted online. Satellite images show most of the building had been leveled by early 2023.

Still, residents expected to receive apartments in the new building. A 2022 decree entitled them to be rehoused on the site of their former home.

Unknown to them, however, the building had been allocated for redevelopment by a subsidiary of a company called Roskapstroy, which is owned by Russia's construction ministry.

The reality began to sink in when they saw the floor plans and computer generated images of the new building on a Telegram channel that popped up in July 2023. It was several stories higher than the building they knew, and had a completely different layout. Instead of spacious two-bedroom apartments, it had been subdivided mainly into studios.

Residents attempted to contact the developer, RKS Development, but were ignored. The developer instead opened a sales office near the site. Among the buyers was a real-estate agent from Mariupol, who reserved three apartments in the new Clock House. "There was a lot of interest," said the 28-year-old.

Most of the other buyers he encountered were from Russia, he said.

As for the former residents, he knew of their grievances but had little sympathy. If they wanted to keep living there, they could have put down a deposit like everyone else, he said. Nevermind that the price was about three times what residents say they were offered in compensation for their apartments.

"It's barely enough to buy a burial plot," said one resident.

Even if they could have afforded it, many former residents objected on principle: Why should they pay the price for the destruction of Mariupol?

Within a week, the apartments had sold out, the real-estate agent said. The bulk of the planned construction cost of 850 million Russian rubles, or around $10.5 million, was covered by future owners, according to a project disclosure statement from the developer. The U.S. sanctioned Roskapstroy and its subsidiaries for operating in occupied Mariupol later in 2023. The developer didn't respond to a request for comment.

As construction work began, residents mobilized, appealing to official bodies in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian name for the government it installed in eastern Ukraine.

In response, they were told the law had changed: Residents were no longer entitled to be rehoused on the site of their former homes, but anywhere within the city limits.

Meanwhile, Elena Pudak's mother attempted to travel back to Mariupol to claim compensation for her apartment. She was denied entry at Russia's Sheremetyevo airport -- the sole legal entry point for Ukrainians seeking to return to occupied territories. There was no explanation, but Pudak suspects the authorities are trying to keep people with property claims out.

With dwindling options, Clock House residents filed a lawsuit against the Donetsk People's Republic, arguing that their rights as newly minted citizens of Russia had been violated. In a letter addressed to Putin, they pleaded their case.

There was no response, and late last year, the court ruled against them.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 03, 2025 23:00 ET (03:00 GMT)

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