00:00Since 2023, Kharkiv has expanded its network of metro schools where pupils can study underground to keep them safe from
00:08Russian attacks.
00:09This is the seventh one to open. The metro is still running. The doors are back there behind me.
00:14But around here is the entrance to the school.
00:19At this location, four schools operate.
00:24The schools work in shifts and the headteachers take it in turns.
00:28Each one for a whole day at a time.
00:41The city is alive, yes, underground. But this is our way of resisting.
00:49And I think that sooner or later Ukraine and its allies will defeat this insidious enemy of ours.
00:54Because what is happening should never have happened in the 21st century.
00:59But these kids are full of potential and they will rebuild this country.
01:09Apart from the seven stations of metro schools that are operational in Kharkiv, we also have eight specially built underground
01:16schools and there are six nuclear bunkers that are now being used as educational establishments.
01:22So overall, there are 21 safe places to study in the city and that allows for 20,000 pupils who
01:28live in Kharkiv to have a combined in-person and online education.
01:35The Kharkiv authorities say that opening the underground schools has encouraged families who had left the city to return and
01:42also displaced people from frontline areas or occupied territories to move here.
01:48The city's population currently stands at an estimated 1.2 million.
01:52The building.
Comments