Harkova lives between a hammer and an anvil with every breath she takes. Russian strikes from across the border from Belgorod are pacing the everyday life of Ukraine’s second largest city, as smartphones blare with air alerts and electricity goes off due to damage to the energy grid.
While the sirens are screaming above the streets, below them some of Kharkiv’s children are studying in schools that are hidden near the city’s metro stations. In these facilities, the children’s lessons can continue without having to evacuate the children separately due to air alarms.
– Behind the wall is a platform where trains run. This has been soundproofed so that we don’t hear it, says the director of general education in Kharkiv Iryna Tarasenko53.
Metro drivers have also been asked to start braking earlier than usual and to accelerate more slowly at the school station, Tarasenko tells the reporter. At the beginning of April, STT visited the underground school, which has been established at the university metro station in the center of Kharkiv.
“Children have fun”
There are a total of five metro schools in Kharkiv, and children from 27 schools that were in operation before the war study in them. Metro schools were founded in order to get children safely back to common study facilities after a long distance learning period. Both the children and their parents had longed for a return to local education.
– The children have a good time here, and the parents also like this kind of system where the children are safe. The children get to talk with their peers, says Tarasenko.
The mecca of happy groups of children echoes in the corridors of the metro station when STT visits. Many children have colorful scarves that were used to identify students from different schools at the beginning of the school year in the fall. Now there is no need for scarves anymore, but the children like them, says Tarasenko.
The era of distance learning began in Kharkiv with the coronavirus pandemic and continued after Russia began its major invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Kharkiv has been the target of Russian attacks since the beginning of the major invasion, and many families had to flee abroad or to other parts of Ukraine because of the war, which caused disruptions to regular schooling.
At the beginning of the extensive Russian attack, the Kharkiv regional administration decided that children could only study in bomb shelters. Later, the mayor Ihor Terehov decided that the premises of the metro stations would be transformed into schools.
Support from the Church’s foreign aid
When the metro school opened at the beginning of the school year in the fall of 2023, the students who were returning to classroom teaching were bursting with joy, the teachers say.
– Now they have already gotten used to it and have understood that this is a school after all, but at first they considered returning to teaching like a celebration, says the first grade teacher Hanna Nieielova42.
Teaching at Metrokoulu has had its own problems, but Nieielova has gladly accepted the challenge.
– As a teacher, I always try to study myself, and any experience is an opportunity to learn something new. I told my colleagues that you shouldn’t be afraid of anything new, new challenges also bring new opportunities to develop.
Metro schools have also attracted other international guests. Just before STT’s visit, representatives of the UN visited the place, and were met by Mayor Terehov. Kharkiv’s metro schools have also been supported from abroad by the Church of Finland’s Foreign Aid, whose international Finn Church Aid logos can be found in the school’s furniture.
The church’s foreign aid says that over the past two years, it has supported the schooling of Ukrainian children and young people by, among other things, equipping bomb shelters and organizing psychosocial support.
Pupils from the occupied territories
Accustoming children to a new and different environment took time, a school psychologist tells STT Valentina Latyka29.
– In the beginning, it was also very difficult for us as teachers, because this is such a limited space. The children are active and there is very little space here, in the beginning it was a difficult challenge to calm the children and get them to study.
In the cramped spaces of the subway station, we try to organize movement breaks, during which we dance to the rhythm of the music, as much as possible.
As a psychologist, Latyka has seen the long shadow of the Ukrainian war in the minds of children. Many of the children have seen the horrors of war with their own eyes.
– There are also children here from the occupied territories, who were liberated during the Ukrainian counter-offensive. In the beginning, the children had quite a lot of problems. Over time, the children began to tell about their own experiences, for example, we have a boy from the town of Vovtshansk, which was occupied and the Russians were kicked out. He has told about his own experiences of how the tanks rolled into his town.
The eastern parts of the Kharkiv region were liberated from Russian occupation in the fall of 2022. The Ukrainian counterattack in question was the last time when the front lines of the war have changed in a large area. In the counter-offensive launched by Ukraine in the summer of 2023 in the south-eastern parts of the country, it was not possible to recapture large areas.
“Changes for the better in children”
According to Latyka, school psychologists use various exercises to help children relax and get over the traumatic experiences of the war.
– Children can see changes for the better after they have gone through this therapy, Latyka says.
Latyka, who originally worked as a kindergarten psychologist, is herself from the eastern parts of the Kharkiv region, which were liberated from occupation in the fall of 2022. Like many Ukrainians, he has been speaking both Ukrainian and Russian since he was a child, but when doing an interview, he wants to make sure that his name is written in the Ukrainian way.
The city of Kharkiv and the area of the same name around it have traditionally been a bilingual region with strong cultural ties to Russia across the border. In the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia has claimed that it was defending the rights of the Russian-speaking population when it attacked Ukraine, yet Kharkov has been the target of continuous Russian attacks since the beginning of the Great War.
Power outages are not a problem
Power outages resulting from damage to the energy network are a daily problem for Harkovalians. However, in Metrokoulu, power outages are not the same problem as in residential areas.
– There are no power outages here, because we use the same network as the metro, and the metro has its own backup system, says Tarasenko.
Even the metro has not survived the city’s problems without any problems. While STT was in Kharkiv on April 5, the metro temporarily suspended operations. The reason for the suspension was not disclosed at the time, Kyiv Independent reported.
Along with the metro schools, a new underground school building has been completed in Kharkiv, which can accommodate more than a thousand students. According to Tarasenko, the city mayor’s goal is to open three more similar schools in the near future.
From metro schools to museums?
What will be done to the metro schools in Kharkiv one day, when the war is over?
– I just spoke with the manager of the subway and we asked him how the subway plans to use these facilities after the war ends. The director of Metro said that this school should be turned into a museum because it is unique in the world, says Tarasenko.
However, in Tarasenko’s opinion, the premises should be kept ready for use just in case, even after the current war has ended.
– Because we have such an unpredictable neighbor, says Tarasenko from Russia.
According to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, more than 360 educational buildings have been destroyed and more than 3,400 damaged in the Russian war of aggression.
– Russian forces are destroying schools and universities, kindergartens and orphanages, the ministry’s website says.