In a dance studio that doubles as a bomb shelter in northeast Ukraine, the little girls in pink tutus prance in like gusts of air.
In a dance studio that doubles as a bomb shelter in northeast Ukraine, the little girls in pink tutus prance in like gusts of air.
Timed to classical music, the 9-year olds jump and glide. Occasionally, they misbehave, prompting a curt rebuke from Marina Altukhova, their instructor.
The Princess Ballet Studio is a spartan, windowless space under an apartment complex, but for an hour, the ballet class offers levity and escape from the daily horrors playing out above ground in the northeastern city of Kharkiv.
Reminders of Russia’s war against Ukraine are inescapable: Buildings lie in piles of rubble, and sirens are constant. Practicing in a bomb shelter means the girls can keeping dancing through the almost hourly air raid alerts.
Owner Yulia Voitina has done what she can to lighten the place up: Pink ballet slippers hang from a door knob, a bean bag offers comfortable seating for waiting parents.
Altukhova tells her students to plié, and the little girls bend their knees, staring at their reflection in a large mirror to perfect the stance. As the music swells, she tells them to rise up on the balls of their feet and raise their arms. Some lose their balance.
“Very good,” she says.
The Kharkiv region cuts across the snaking 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where Ukrainian and Russian forces have been locked in vicious battles for over two years since Moscow’s invasion.
