Ukrainian gamers are working on a digital reconstruction of Mariupol in the game Minecraft. The project is being implemented on an international server dedicated to recreating real cities in virtual space.
The platform was launched in 2020 at the initiative of American blogger PippenFTS, and later teams from countries including Ukraine joined it.
To create a model of Mariupol, participants use satellite images, detailed maps, and street panoramas. Real coordinates are transferred to the digital environment to recreate the city structure as accurately as possible.
The game recreates not only the general landscape, but also key elements of the infrastructure: transport interchanges, tram tracks, residential areas, building facades, signs, and other details of the urban environment. The team paid special attention to street art – in particular, large murals, which were an essential part of Mariupol. Among them is the mural “Milana”, dedicated to a girl who was injured during the shelling of the Skhidnyi microdistrict. The original mural was destroyed during the city’s occupation.
Work on the project is being carried out in the game’s creative mode. Virtual Mariupol is open to all users with a licensed version of Minecraft. In this space, you can walk along familiar routes, see the streets as they were before the full-scale invasion, and feel the atmosphere of a peaceful city.
The city council notes that the initiative is essential not only as a gaming experiment. According to the team members, the main goal of the project is to preserve the memory and identity of the Ukrainian city in digital format.
