Kirill “Pride” Marchenko is a fan of the football club “Metalurg” (Mariupol), a representative of the team “Youth”.

Kirill Andreevich Marchenko was born on January 21, 1991 in the city of Snizhne (Donetsk region). He studied at school No. 7 m. Snowy. In 2003, he moved with his family to Mariupol, and after that he joined the Donetsk Institute of Tourist Business (DTB). Since childhood, he loved to play football, in school and student times participated in competitions and was a good goalkeeper. He was interested in geography, the history of the First and Second World Wars, but most of all he liked to watch football matches.

In 2008, Kirill came to the fan stand of the main team of his hometown. He actively supported the team at his home stadium, and also traveled with the team virtually the whole country. In 2012-13, he made the “Golden Season”, which was the last full-fledged pre-war championship. According to the memories of his teammates, he was a real fan, tried to attend every away match, getting to the seats by trains and trains. He also went to European Cups and for the national team of Ukraine. He did not shy away from defending the colors of the club outside the stadium when such an occasion occurred. Repeatedly stood side by side with other Mariupol fans during football events.

From those times comes the callsign Cyril - “Pride” (Proud). And he really was such a person, for everything he had his own opinion, his ideas. That in the sector, in the football battles and also in the war, he did not stand aside and proudly endured all adversity. He was one of the founders of the young football team “Youth”, which before the war managed to shine in interesting events in which Kyrylo took part. When the war began in the east of Ukraine in 2014, he defended his land from the invaders. In September of the same year, together with his comrades from “Youth”, almost fully joined the ranks of the battalion “Azov” where he served until 2022.

Close ones remembered the story of Cyril about the events during the Shyrokyn operation in 2015: - “We are storming the separatist block-post. We are unsophisticated ideological fans from the sector who are up to Military affairs had nothing to do with it. The bands begin to pour out of everything that was in them, we are all wet in the mud, hungry, frozen going forward, in sight of fire and eager to drive out the enemy.”

Later, his brother Nikolai will recall: - “After the assault, my brother and I decided to rest in the building on the ground floor, because it was impossible to fall asleep in the basement because of the frost. And then my brother wakes me up, says something next to the hail separators, we need to go to the basement. After thinking 10 min. we still went down to the basement, and after another 1 min. in this, and next to it, the rooms are hit by a hail shell. When we went upstairs after the shelling, there was no living space in that room. So the luck of the war helped a lot and we looked at it with a smile, and there were a lot of such stories and luck.”

After the beginning of a full-scale war, Kirill called his brother extremely rarely, i.e. there was almost no communication in Mariupol. Already then he called from the completely surrounded city, but Nikolai says that he did not hear from his brother any pity or strong fear: - “He said in surprise that the Russians were talking with Mariupol, he said that Chechnya was resting. Many dead civilians lie in the streets and no one takes them away, constant air and artillery shelling, ship attacks from the sea. Endless attacks by orcs who died in packs but still climbed.”

Kirill Marchenko died on March 29, 2022 while performing a combat mission. He and five other brothers left to replace the road with commercial vehicles. He was called to perform this task voluntarily. On that day, the fighters came under air attack with these mines and arms. A devoted fan from Mariupol ran for his hometown, from where he did not want to go anywhere.