- Ukraine’s first bunker school, located 20 feet underground, began classes this week with hundreds of children in attendance.
- The school aims to protect students from Russian drone and missile attacks.
- Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city near the Russian border, has faced relentless attacks and most children have been urged to study at home.
Two teachers greet them with smiles in front of the iron door, and mother and daughter walk down the concrete stairs, holding hands and rattling through another blast door, into the bunker for the first day of school. entered in.
Hundreds of children began classes this week at Ukraine’s first purpose-built bunker school, located 20 feet underground to protect them from Russian drone and missile attacks.
Kharkiv Elementary School 155 is accessed through a door located in a small white concrete box on the sidewalk. At the bottom of the stairs, the classroom is divided into hallways. Although there are no windows, the rooms are bright and the hallways are painted white and lime green.
Only a few hundred people remain in Vovchansk as Russian advances intensify in northeastern Ukraine
Ukraine’s second-largest city, located in the country’s northeast near the Russian border, has been under relentless Russian attack since its walls stopped a Moscow invasion 26 months ago. Fighting has intensified in recent weeks, with airstrikes becoming more regular as Russian attacks in the surrounding countryside push back Ukrainian forces.
Students head to classrooms for lessons at the first heavily fortified underground school allowing children to safely return to in-person learning in Kharkiv, Ukraine, May 13, 2024. (Reuters/Vyacheslav Madievsky)
Today, during the war, most children in Kharkiv do most of their learning at home using computers. Nine-year-old Masha and her six-year-old brother Oleksey, along with other children, were dazzled by the opportunity to take lessons directly from a real teacher.
Her mother, Marina Prikhodko, said: “My daughter, who is in third grade, couldn’t wait to get dressed up for the day and meet the friends she had missed.” “For my son, who is in first grade, it’s like a day of celebration and a chance to meet his classmates in person instead of online.”
What’s the latest excitement in fighting? “Yeah, it’s scary,” she said. “But no matter what happens, life goes on and we have to try to live in the here and now, every day.”
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The new school will have an initial enrollment of 300 students, but Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said it will be expanded to 450 students in two shifts a day.
“We need to allow both teachers and students to become accustomed to school, and we hope to have a full student population from September 1,” he said.
At Monday’s opening ceremony, many students celebrated by wearing traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts, known as Vyshyvanky. Children of all ages gathered in hallways and sat behind desks in spacious, windowless classrooms. Lunch was a hamburger and a box of juice.
“It’s like night and day,” Principal Ihor Vozny said, comparing the new school to the situation students had to face before.
“We don’t have air raid shelters in our schools. We have basements and underground spaces that are completely unsuitable for teaching. The space here is designed to provide a high quality, modern space.”
