In Pictures

Photos: Artists team up to make dumplings for Ukraine front line

It takes about 150 volunteers, including artists, to prepare the food in the theatre.

Volunteers prepare varenyky, stuffed dumplings, inside a theatre in the city of Drohobych, southwestern Ukraine. [Bernat Armangue/AP Photo]

By AP

The theatre was empty. The seats were covered against dust. But it was a moment of drama that Alla Shkondina had prepared for all her life.

“There is a saying that when the guns sound, the muses are silent,” the Ukrainian actress said, standing on the bare stage with a shawl wrapped around her to protect against the chill.

“But we are not silent.”

Shkondina has retreated from the spotlight and now makes dumplings to send to soldiers, working alongside fellow artists in the cafe of a theatre in Drohobych, southwestern Ukraine.

It is one small part of a massive war effort by defiant volunteers across the country who often find themselves playing unexpected roles.

In the warmly lit cafe, where snack-bar popcorn has gone stale in the weeks since the Russian invasion, artists in this community are rolling and filling dough to add to the thousands of dumplings they have sent to the front, or to displaced people in need.

“We did more than 3,000 pounds of meatballs,” said theatre director Mykola Hnatenko. “One-hundred-fifty kilogrammes of stewed cabbage with meat. More than 10,000 varenyky (dumplings) with potato. 70 kilogrammes of filling for borscht, 80 kilogrammes of fried fish, 2,000 pancakes with meat, and 500 sweet pancakes. Now we’ve decided to do more food with proteins like meat.”

In the courtyard, men, their hands blackened with soot, chopped wood for the cooking fires, overseen by the theatre’s deputy director, Sergei Havdjak, dressed in military-style drab.

Hnatenko seemed especially proud of the borscht the volunteers sent to soldiers in places like the capital, Kyiv, where some areas have collapsed into brutal street-to-street fighting in near-freezing weather.

He showed a cellphone video of the distribution of food in Kyiv, with a smiling soldier flashing a “V” for victory sign.

Volunteers cook in the courtyard of a theatre in the city of Drohobych — The theatre has become a meeting point where artists, including those displaced from other parts of Ukraine, have turned their talents to making food for soldiers and others as part of a massive volunteer war effort across the country. [Bernat Armangue/AP Photo]

Volunteers prepare varenyky, stuffed dumplings — The theatre workers say they have been shaken by the accounts of people joining them after fleeing from other parts of Ukraine. [Bernat Armangue/AP Photo]

Vasyl Nevolov, an internally displaced Ukrainian from Kyiv — On a golden sofa by a piano, Vasil Nevolov sat alone and contemplated the past. After 50 years of living in Kyiv as an art critic and professor, he abruptly had to flee. “Everything around my house is destroyed,” he said. “There is no more supermarket. There is no more school.” So much of his life’s work now seemed to make little sense. [Bernat Armangue/AP Photo]

A volunteer prepares varenyky, stuffed dumplings, inside a theatre in the city of Drohobych — The food-making effort began on February 25, the second day of Russia’s invasion. It takes about 150 volunteers, including artists who have been displaced from other parts of Ukraine and now live at the theatre. [Bernat Armangue/AP Photo]

A volunteer walks trhough the audience rows of a theatre in the city of Drohobych — A volunteer walks through the audience rows of the theatre. [Bernat Armangue/AP Photo]