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Kids come down to the bunker at Ukraine's first underground school

Two instructors met them with a smile at the steel door, and down the concrete staircase the mom and child clattered, hand in hand, through another blast door and into the bunker for the first day of school.

Hundreds of kids began lessons this week in Ukraine's. Purpose-built bunker school, 6 metres (20 feet) below the. ground to protect them from Russian drone and missile attacks.

Kharkiv's main school 155 is reached through a door in a. small white concrete box on the pavement. At the bottom of the. stairs class branch off a passage. There are no. windows, however the spaces are vibrantly lit and the corridors painted. in lime and white green.

Ukraine's second-biggest city, situated in the nation's. northeast near the Russian border, has been under unrelenting. Russian attack because Moscow's invasion was halted at its. ramparts 26 months ago. In recent weeks the combating has actually grown. closer and the airstrikes more continuous as a Russian offensive. in the surrounding countryside pushed Ukrainian troops back.

In these days of war, most children in Kharkiv do most of. their knowing at home on a computer. Masha, 9, and her sibling. Oleksii, 6, were giddy over the opportunity to go to a genuine class. with a genuine live teacher, face to face with other kids.

My daughter, a 3rd grader, might barely wait to come,. gown up for the event, meet her buddies that she missed out on really. much, said their mom, Marina Prikhodko. For my kid, an initially. grader, it resembles a festive day, an opportunity to fulfill his classmates. in real life, not online.

The current upswing in combating? Yes, it is frightening, she. stated. However whatever occurs, life goes on and we have to try and. live here and now, every day.

The brand-new school has a preliminary registration of 300 pupils, however. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov stated that would expand to two day-to-day. shifts of 450 each.

We require to make sure that both teachers and students get. accustomed to the school and ideally from Sept. 1 there will. be complete enhance of trainees, he said.

At the school's opening on Monday, lots of students used. standard Ukrainian embroidered shirts, or vyshyvanky, to. celebrate. Children of any ages socialized in corridors and sat. behind desks in large, windowless class. Lunch was. burgers and boxes of juice.

It's like day and night, said headmaster Ihor Voznyi,. comparing the new school with what pupils needed to handle. previously.

Our schools do not have bomb shelters. There are basements,. underground areas which are totally unsuited to conduct any. teaching. The areas here are developed to provide quality,. contemporary spaces..

(source: Reuters)