When Lisa, 20, laces in her ultra -high heels for her shift in a comic club in Kharkivivivivivivivivivivere, she knows that, apart from dancing, she should comfort traumatized soldiers.
Since the Russian invasion from 2022, exhausted troops have been the most important clientele of the Flash Dancers Club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian troops.
For some customers it offers a “escape” from the war, Valerya Zavatska said 25-year-old graduated rights that the club runs with her mother, a ex-dancer.
But many are not just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she said.
The dancers act as confidant of soldiers bruised mental and physically through a three-year war without end in sight.
“Very often”, they want to discuss their experiences and feelings, Lisa AFP said in a fitness center, where the dancers practiced choreography for an electro -remix of the “Carmen” opera prior to the show of that night.
“The problem is that they are sober, normal, fine. Then they drink, and that is when the darkness starts,” said Zhenia, a 21-year-old dancer.
Instead of looking at the performance, soldiers are sometimes alone at the bar, crying.
Some even show the female videos of the battlefield – including injured comrades or the corpses of Russian soldiers.
“It can be very, very difficult, so I ask them personally not to show it because I take it too much,” said Lisa.
But Zhenia – who used to study veterinary medicine – said she is looking at the images with something a professional interest and tried to understand how a soldier could have been saved.
– 'Family Gathering' –
When the performance time arrived, they turned on a red underwear, tied up in 20 centimeters (eight inch) platform shoes and covered their bodies with glitter-one trick to prevent married men from getting too close because the shiny speckles would stick to them.
The music started. One dancer turned around a pole, the other listened carefully to a customer, while a third was on a man's lap.
The flash dancers describe themselves as more “Moulin Rouge” than a strip club, and say that the dancers do not enter sexual relationships for money.
Prostitution – illegal in Ukraine – is not unusual in areas near the front line.
Most soldiers – although not all – respect the boundaries.
Sometimes friendships were beaten.
Zhenia remembered how a soldier wrote a postcard to her, selected by his mother – a “great woman” who now follows Zhenia on social media and sometimes sends her messages.
“I know their children, their mothers,” she said AFP.
Some tell stories of their vacations, talking about their lives before the war and even come back with their wives.
“It's like a family meeting,” said Nana, a 21-year-old dancer with jet black hair.
– killed dancer –
A Colombian soldier who fights for Ukraine narrow sparkling wine on a red bank that has paid almost $ 10 to get to the club.
Here come “Clears Your Mind”, told the 37-year-old ex-policeman known as “Puma”-AFP.
“It entertains us a bit. It takes us from the war.”
But even in the dark basement of the club, the war has a way to crawl in.
Many of the regulars are injured and the dancers sometimes take gifts to hospitals.
And “a lot of boys who came to us” were killed, said Zavatska.
“This month alone, two died, and those are just those we know,” she said, adding that someone left a one -year -old baby.
A Russian strike in 2022 killed one of the dancers of the group – Lyudmila – as well as her husband, also a former club employee.
She was pregnant at the time. Her child survived in a wonderful way.
The club closes at 10 p.m., one hour before a curfew starts.
Air RAID reports sometimes force them to stay longer, until they can go home in a short period of relative safety.
But in Kharkiv it never takes long.
Just like everyone else, the dancers are often awakened by the Russian overnight drone and rocket bars.
Even after a sleepless night, the women go back, determined to set up a performance.
“The show must continue,” said Zavatska.
“We have to smile.”
LED-OC/JC/TW
