I return to Kharkiv and children return to school
Shortly before I returned to Ukraine I was sitting in my mum's garden, from where we could hear the sound of children laughing and shouting in the playground on their first day of school. It's a lovely sound that, sadly, is not heard in Kharkiv or in any other city near the frontline. In Ukraine, the new school year traditionally begins on 1 September. After Russia's invasion in 2022, schools in Kharkiv and Kharkiv region switched to online learning. In 2023, local authorities set up underground schools in Metro (underground) stations and began building schools underground. Now, there are 10 underground schools in Kharkiv. They are much in demand and, generally, reserved for younger children for just a couple of days a week. Air raid alerts are, of course, part of life for everyone now and out on the street it doesn't appear that children even notice them. But in a local article on returning to school underground, a first-grade pupil, Sofia, said: “I’m not a...