I was born and live in Kharkiv. Kharkiv is dangerous zone of Ukraine due to constant missile & drones attacks.
Many years ago, motanka dolls appeared in my life and helped me to survive through a personal tragedy.
When the war started, motanka dolls brought emotional help for me again, now in wartime Kharkiv. And then I realized that they can support not only those who makes them, but also to help those who defend our land and those who suffered in this war.
I started to participate in the master’s project “Author new interpretation of folk dolls” and planned to make just 1-2 dolls, but could not stop. When I make a motanka doll, I feel that I am chain link in a number of generations of women, who made motanka dolls long before us and will make after us. I believe in this. I like the powerful feeling of belonging of something undestroyable, which pass from mothers to daughters, from grandmothers to granddaughters.
Most of all I like to make master-classes, I love to see, how dolls are born from simple rugs, pieces of fabric, threads. Each one is unique and brings it’s own emotion. That’s important now in Kharkiv, where people can die every day. But I create dolls and make master-classes, which can help people emotionally, to relax and fix their emotions. Motanka dolls bring joy.
I stay in Kharkiv no matter what, because this is my city. In order city to be alive, city needs it’s citizens, their hearts and breath. So I stay here, as thousands of Kharkiv citizens. I volunteer and make master-classes to relief people, who came from destroyed places, where they lost everything. Now I participate in exhibitions and charity projects. And I make dolls, which I united in album “Dolls of wartime Kharkiv”. I look at pictures from this album, when I hear explosions in my city. But with time my motanka dolls become more optimistic and more bright, even in wartime Kharkiv. Because we, citizens of Kharkiv, are optimists.