Lyudmyla Tabolina
The story of Lyudmyla Tabolina, a teacher and school principal from Kharkiv.
TRANSLATED ABSTRACT of original article
Lyudmyla remembers the first day of the full-scale invasion, how she went to work that day not fully aware of what was happening. When Lyudmyla arrived at the school on February 24, the supply and maintenance manager together with several men met her. They asked her to open the school shelter for locals from neighboring houses.
On February 24, one third of the teaching staff went to work. Teachers began to hide documents, seals, work books, personnel files and other things together so that they would not fall into the hands of the occupiers. At the same time, it was necessary to equip the bomb shelter.
A day later, all transport stopped, so Lyudmyla had to walk the 11 kilometers to school. Once, on the way home, she was caught in a blast wave from the firing of banned cassette ammunition. If the shelling had started 10 minutes earlier, Lyudmyla would not have had time to avoid the direct hit, so she considers herself lucky to have survived that day.
Volunteers brought things, school employees sorted them and distributed them to everyone who needed them, because people were left without anything when their houses were destroyed by rockets. Fortunately, Lyudmyla’s school survived.
Later, Lyudmyla joined the “Free and Careless” foundation, which helped people evacuate the areas under shelling. So she became a volunteer. This work helped her to keep going. Even in such conditions Lyudmyla and her colleagues organized a graduation party for pupils in an online format.
“Against all odds, my beloved Kharkiv stands and fights, and I am with it. It rests on the resilience and courage of its residents, so as long as they resist from basements, hospitals and volunteer hubs, the Russians will not break it,” Lyudmyla says.
About the Author
Liudmyla Tabolina was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She graduated from the School of Educational Managers of Kyiv-Mohyla Business School. She is now a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature at the Kyiv Lyceum “Inventor School”, a trainer for various educational training programs and an expert in gender education at the Center for Gender Culture. She won the all-Ukrainian competition of Euroclub projects of the Representation of the European Union in Ukraine.