“The scariest place during the occupation was our village school.” The story of a teenager from the Kyiv region who decided to restore the school theater
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Ivan Storchak is a 10th-grade student at a school in the village of Katyuzhanka, Kyiv region. He is a volunteer and member of the UActive program. Together with the team, he created a project and won funds, which he spent on the restoration of the school theater and the STEM room for junior school students.
Ivan talks about his experience of the occupation and his passion for theater in the special project of the UP “Victory Generation”, dedicated to children from the de-occupied territories.
The project was initiated by the GoGlobal educational foundation, which generates, pilots and scales projects for teachers, schoolchildren and young people.
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The village of Katyuzhanka was under occupation almost immediately after the start of the full-scale invasion. Some families left, but Ivan’s family decided to stay in the village.
The memories of the occupation that Ivan shares are still vivid and sometimes resemble a real thriller.
| Ivan Storchak, 10th grade student. Photo: Sasha Maslov |
Occupation
“My family lives closer to the forest, forestry begins right next to my house. And that’s where the block post of the occupiers was.” – says Ivan.
The boy recalls that almost no one could leave the village. The occupiers intimidated people, took things, sometimes shot.
“We took in refugees and people who were not let out. The first time a car drove into our yard with three frightened people in it: a woman, her husband and grandfather, their neighbor. They were not allowed in, so they had to look for a place to stay.”the boy recalls.
He remembered a story about a man who worked at a construction site and wanted to return home to another village when the invasion began. The man miraculously escaped and for some time lived simply in the basement of the family, hiding from the Russians.
“The scariest place during the occupation was our village school. People were interrogated and mocked in it. Then, even after the liberation, we had a long time to recover from the Russian inscriptions on the school blackboards. For example, there was a portrait of Yanukovych and the inscription “don’t lie!” Ivan adds.
Deoccupation
“After the deoccupation, many “surprises” remained from the Russians: mined territories, looted houses, broken buildings. The school was also looted. AndBut we were so glad that the Armed Forces came and that we remained alive!
Immediately they began to actively restore life, a dream appeared to restore the school. And we got down to business!” Ivan recalls.
The first grant
“In order to receive a development grant from the UActive project, we needed to come up with some innovative idea. Therefore, the school created several teams, mine was called MAK (Young Activists of Katyuzhanka). My friends and I had many ideas: from environmental initiatives to tourism agencies. But our team decided to create a real drama theater at school!” Ivan recalls.
The guy says that Katyuzhanka was once famous for its theater, where a real theater troupe was active. This inspired the youth to revive the tradition.
“There was a lot of work. First, the assembly hall, where performances could be held, was completely destroyed by the occupiers: the projector was taken away, the faucet was broken, and the furniture was broken. Our great desire was to restore the hall in order to hold theatrical performances there! It is this project that we and applied to UActive and won a grant” – adds the schoolboy.
However, the students later found out that the real theater is a little more complicated and expensive than they imagined.
“One of our teachers, who has theater experience, joined the rehearsals, and we started preparing our first play – “The Kaidash family.” Our new joint theatrical dream is to find another grant and create professional scenery, costumes, and lighting. Very we want everything to look great”– says Ivan.
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The #ПоколенияПеремогы project was created in video, photo and text format. Famous photographer Sasha Maslov worked on photo stories of teenagers, whose works are regularly published by publications such as The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Newyorker, Guardian, Wall Street Journal Magazine and others. His lens captured not only touching moments, but also the power that pulsates in the heart of every child talent
Text: Yana Altukhova
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