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This year, Ukraine’s largest music festival struck a different chord. Gone were the international headliners, the massive performance halls and the hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Instead, the country’s most beloved local artists graced the stage this past weekend at the Atlas Festival. The stage was erected on a shopping mall parking lot, the only option that contained a shelter large enough to contain the 25,000 people that that organizers expected in the event of an air raid.
Carefree youth rubbed shoulders with hardened military commanders and famous singers who crooned songs imbued with national pride. Music was the main draw, yes, but so was shattering the illusion that the capital is invulnerable to the bloody battles playing out hundreds of miles away.
“Such kind of festivals can’t be separated from the life of the country. The country is at war. The core issues here should relate to the war,” said Vsevolod Kozhemyako, a businessman and one of the founders of the 13th “Khartia” Brigade, now a part of Ukraine’s National Guard and defending the frontline in Kharkiv.
“People who are still young and who don’t join (the fight) should understand that they cannot live in a bubble,” he said.
And yet, a bubble is precisely how it feels to be in Kyiv, as the war approaches its third year. While Ukrainian soldiers are killed and wounded everyday along the snaking 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) frontline in the east, the capital is a contrast with its bars and clubs filled with patrons.
Every so often, Kyiv comes face to face with the war. Last week, a barrage of Russian missiles destroyed a children’s hospital and a private clinic, in one of the deadliest attacks since the full-scale invasion. Residents have grappled with power cuts caused by Moscow’s targeted destruction of Ukrainian energy generation at the height of a summer heat wave.
At every corner of the music festival - the first time it was held since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022 - visitors were confronted with the inescapable reality that theirs is a country trapped in a bloody war of attrition. Festival organizers hoped to raise $2.2 million (2 million euros) to help soldiers purchase supplies on the front line.
In the mall’s basement parking lot, various military units, from Khartia to the 3rd Assault, offered interactive games to lure donations, and possible recruits. First-person shooter game offered visitors a chance to improve target practice by gunning down shadowy virtual infantrymen. At another corner, medics brandished severed plastic limbs and offered emergency medical training.
The festival concluded Sunday with a much-anticipated performance from Serhii Zhadan and his band Zhadan and Dogs. Zhadan, a celebrated artist dubbed the poet of the Donbas, himself recently joined Khartia.
“It’s just a small break, an opportunity to take a breath,” said Zhadan, minutes before the crowd roared before he took to the stage. “The most important things, they are happening over there, at the frontline.”
On stage, Zhadan starts with one of his most beloved songs “Malvi” or “Mallow.” The crowd sings along with him, word for word. “But what can you do with my hot blood,” they chant as one mass chorus. “Who will come at us.”
18-year old Viktoriia Khalis was excited to see his performance, she said. She had been to the Atlas music festival once before in 2021. The difference is stark, she said.
“The main thing that has changed, unfortunately, now the festival is connected with donations,” she said. But she also feels more connected to her homeland, somehow. “I feel this entire crowd is related to me. I feel unity.”
She was scared there would be another Russian air attack – a music festival with thousands of attendees would be a prime target – but said she couldn’t miss a chance to see her favorite artists.
For Nadiia Dorofeeva, one of Ukraine’s most famous singers, every concert feels different. “Before, when I entered a stage I was thinking only about if I looked good, sang well and if the people got what they came for. But now, I dream of having no air alarms, I am seeing how people cry at my concerts.”
One of Dorofeeva’s songs, “WhatsApp” is about a girl waiting for her beloved to return from war. “She washed the phone with tears/Like rainy glass,” often moves listeners to tears.
Among the attendees was Lt. Gen. Serhii Naiev, an assistant deputy chief in Ukraine’s General Staff.
“There are well known artists on stage, they are performing their concerts and there are a lot of Ukrainians around who are donating their money, much needed money for the armed forces of Ukraine,” he said.
“We understand that our partners are supporting us, but we also understand that we could do a lot by ourselves, to be stronger,” he said.
