In a subway station turned air-raid shelter in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, two puppeteers make puppets live out a fairy tale under the enchanted gaze of a dozen children and their parents.
A whole series of puppets, including a mustache king and a herd of pigs, come to life in the expert hands of Oleksandra Shlykova and Anton Andriouchchenko to tell the story of other princesses. A way to make the children and their parents forget the numerous Russian bombing raids on the second largest city in Ukraine.
The puppeteers use their cellphones to elicit a few laughs and even exclamations from their captivated audience. At the end of the show, Oleksandra bows to this small crowd and invites the children to come and play with the puppets.
“Performing live is always an emotion that is in the present moment,” says Oleksandra Chlykova. “We exchange our emotions and we find our good humor. It’s hard to describe, you have to feel it.”
In Moscow’s crosshairs Kharkiv has seen deadly attacks every day since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he would withdraw his troops from the Kyiv region to focus on eastern Ukraine. The metro stations in this city, just 21 kilometers from the Russian border, have been turned into huge underground bunkers.
According to local authorities, two people were killed and 18 others injured in a bomb attack on the city center on Saturday. And from the same source, ten people were killed and 35 others injured in a strike in a residential area on Friday.
In subway stations, mattresses and blankets lie alongside clothing, toys, and toiletries. The wagons were converted into dormitories.
For Oksana, 37, the puppet show was a welcome enlightenment. “Truth and humor give you an (energy) boost and make you happy,” says this mother, accompanied by her two daughters. They live in an underground bunker not far from there, but have made their way so as not to miss the puppeteers. “When you go to this show, you remember the stories and then it changes the way you see the world,” she says.
Across town, another show, this time of poetry, takes place in a white brick bunker piled with makeshift beds. Serguiï Jadan reads a few verses aloud, with a melody playing in the background, under purple neon. In front of him, a small gathering listens intently to the lyrical and surreal monologue with enigmatic animal characters.
This poem is a “brutal lullaby” inspired by a children’s book, says Serguiï Jadan, a celebrity on the literary scene in Ukraine, where poetry is a national sport.
“A person cannot just live with war,” he says. “It is very important (for Ukrainians) to be able to hear a word, to be able to sing together, to express a certain emotion.”