For 7-year-old Maksym Timchenko, school often feels like the safest place in his hometown, Ukraine's second-largest city.
"It's under the street," he says, in a classroom built into a subway station some 32 feet below ground. "You can't hear bad noises here," he adds, then mimics the sound of an explosion.
The Russian border is just 20 miles away, and Russian forces shell Kharkiv nearly every day. The strikes have buried families in the rubble of their homes and destroyed hundreds of buildings, including schools second-graders like Maksym would be attending. Recently, strikes also hit the city's power grid, leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity for days.
So the city is taking the drastic step of moving classrooms for primary and secondary education underground. About 1,500 children, including Maksym, attend classes in five subway stations. Kharkiv is also building nine subterranean schools to accommodate up to 9,000 children from kindergarten to grade 11. The first one is set to be completed sometime this spring. With Russia's war on Ukraine in its third year, and Russian troops on the offensive, it's a realistic long-term solution for families who want to stay in Kharkiv, says Mayor Ihor Terekhov.
"Lives should not stop because of war," he says. "Life should go on. And our main task is to help people feel secure and live their lives to their full extent."
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