The future is still up in the air for Ukrainian circus performers

budapest – About a year later flee from ukraine In Hungary, amid bombardment and terror from the Russian invasion, more than 100 young circus performers are undergoing intensive daily training sessions in Budapest, waiting to see what an uncertain future holds. I’m here.

The group, whose members are between the ages of 5 and 20, will find a home in the circus capital of Budapest after graduating from the circus school in March 2022, and live in the cities of Kharkov and Kiev.

Fugitive Trainer Svetlana Momot Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest cityIn one of Budapest’s circus training halls, some of the young circus artists swing from suspended rings, hang from aerial silks and rehearse acrobatic stunts with the first group of 12 students last year. I watched it go and go and pondered.

Over the past year, Momot said, performers have had to learn to live, cook, clean and study together in small spaces.But her goal from the very beginning, despite being evicted from her home, she intensive daily training Not interrupted.

“When they are busy (training), they don’t have time to think about bad things. It distracts them,” Momot said. … I don’t think it affected their training and we are trying to maintain the conditions in Ukraine. ”

Hungarian school for circus and acrobatics in Budapest after Russia invades Ukraine extended their solidarity Peter Fekete, director of Capital Circus in Budapest, said it will provide Ukrainian performers with accommodation, meals and the ability to continue training.

“We must recognize that everyone needs a purpose in life. You can ask the question, ‘Is it?’,” says Fekete.

“Providing training opportunities and setting goals that they want to achieve through performance opportunities allows them to fill their daily lives with artistic performances rather than focusing solely on difficult situations. I’m kind of alive,” he said.

Anna Lisicka, a 14-year-old acrobat, said adjusting to life in Hungary was difficult at first after she fled her home in Kharkiv. But staying focused in her training helped ease her transition, she said.

“It was tough at first, but I got used to it a little bit and started attending training sessions,” she said. “I set a routine and started studying at a Hungarian school. We love it here.”

Lysytska’s twin sister, Mariia, said her first favorite thing about Hungary was that “there were no explosions”, but since then it has become easier to be far from home. He said he had made a friendship.

“Since I came to this school, I immediately made friends[with the Hungarians]and started communicating with them, so I have a positive feeling about it,” Maria said.

Some performers plan to eventually join families who have settled in countries such as Germany and Slovakia, but almost all i want to go back to ukraine Momot said after every war.

“We were all in the same situation where we had no choice but to leave our people behind in Ukraine. our family is broken,” she said.

Yet as Russia seek to intensify offensive in eastern Ukraine It remains unclear when the performers can safely return to their homes to increase their influence in other parts of the country. Until then, their futureand the question of where the house is remains up in the air.

The Ukrainian theater company recently returned from a convention in Monte Carlo, Fekete said. There he took home a gold medal and a silver medal with two performers.

“When I hugged one of the little girls at the airport and said I was going home, I corrected myself and said, ‘Well, I’m going home.’ ‘It’s very home,'” he said.

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