Everyone knew Mykhailo, 25-year-old Aleksander Bolavin tells TV 2.
From the time he was 9 to 19, he was trained by the man who was killed in the attack on Saturday.
In the gymnasium at the sports college in Dnipro, several hundred people have turned up for a final farewell to the boxing coach.
– He was a guy who cared about the kids he coached. One who meant a lot to many in Dnipro.
In their hands people hold red roses in even numbers; 2, 4, 6 or more.
In Ukraine, odd numbers in flowers mean sadness.
For the mourners, Mykhailo was a well-known boxing trainer.
To the rest of the world, he is the man with the yellow kitchen.
The pictures of the birthday celebrations with dad Mykhailo and the children in the characteristic kitchen have gone around the world.
On Saturday afternoon, the apartment was hit by a Russian rocket during one of the Ukrainian war’s bloodiest attacks against civilians.
The wife and two daughters happened to be out for a walk when the missile hit the block of flats in the Pobeda district.
Mykhailo never got out.
Called the coach after the attack
Aleksander says that Mykhailo was like a second father to him.
– When I saw that the block of flats he lived in had been hit, I tried to call him, he tells TV 2’s team in Ukraine.
When Mykhailo did not answer the phone, Aleksander decided to go down to help, but in vain.
HOPED: Until the very end, Aleksander Bolavin had little hope that Mykhailo would be alive Photo: Aage Aune / TV 2
– Until the end I had hope that he was alive – when I heard that he was dead it was as if my soul collapsed.
May be the worst attack on civilians
At the same time as the first funerals were underway, another lifeless child was found in the ruins of the block of flats on Tuesday.
So far, 44 people have been confirmed killed.
More than 20 people are still missing.
Rescuers have given up on finding survivors after a large part of the block of flats collapsed in the attack.
The best one can hope for now is to find remains from all the dead.
A total of 79 people were injured.
GRIEF: Mykhailo’s mother had to be helped after she was at the coffin. Photo: Oleksandr Techynskyi / TV 2
The fact that so many are still missing means, by all accounts, that the number of dead after the attack could reach around 60 people.
It is one of the largest single Russian attacks against civilians during the war in Ukraine so far.
A final farewell
Out in the large cemetery in Dnipro, Mykhailo’s coffin is sunk into the ground.
On the gray, sour January day, each one of the mourners kneels at the grave and throws a handful of earth on the coffin down in the ground.
LAST REST: Many people said goodbye to Mikailo Korenovsky. Photo: Aage Aune / TV 2
