Theater, drag shows, and art studios — Kharkiv’s cultural scene thrives, even in wartime (Photos)

Kharkiv, located a stone’s throw away from Russia’s border, continues to pulsate with a resilient spirit despite the invasion. Each cultural event that takes place in this eastern Ukrainian city is more than just artistic expression — it is a poignant reminder of what Ukraine stands to lose in the war.

Documentary photographer Amadeusz Swierk traveled to Kharkiv to capture the city's cultural scene for his photo series “Art in the time of war.”

While the war has forced a reimagining of how cultural events take place in Kharkiv, it has not prevented them from happening entirely. Kharkiv locals and visitors to the city alike still flock to theater performances and musical concerts, although they’re sometimes staged in clandestine venues for safety. Artists who remained in the city continue to create in their studios, and a LGBTQ+ friendly club, where drag performances illuminate the night, continues to host performances.

It is a city where cultural expression and freedom of speech endure, making the continued existence of Kharkiv’s cultural scene a defiant stand against Russian aggression. Each cultural event, each output of artistic expression, serves as a bold reaffirmation of Kharkiv residents' unyielding desire to live in a free Kharkiv that is an integral part of a democratic Ukraine.

Amid this cultural resilience, however, Kharkiv also faces the harsh reality of frequent Russian bombardment. The city, which Russian forces attempted to capture at the start of the full-scale war, continues to fight to avoid the fate of occupation suffered by other parts of Ukraine. Attacks occur on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, plunging Kharkiv into darkness, destroying homes that took a lifetime to build, and taking away precious lives.

This tension between Russian aggression and cultural life in Kharkiv dates back to even before the start of the ongoing full-scale war. In the early 20th century, Kharkiv was temporarily the capital of Soviet Ukraine, and all young artists looking to make something of themselves felt like they had to be there.

However, during the Stalinist purges of the 1930s, a number of artists residing in Kharkiv were arrested, interrogated, tortured, and even executed for perceived anti-Soviet agitation. Many of them envisioned Ukrainian culture in the greater sphere of European culture, which was considered a crime in the eyes of Soviet authorities. Ukraine’s persecuted cultural figures from this period later came to be known collectively as the Executed Renaissance.

Kharkiv’s contemporary cultural scene carries a deep understanding of the city's delicate equilibrium, remaining aware of its turbulent past, its resilient present, and the future all Ukrainians are fighting to protect.

The "Berezil" Kharkiv drama theater stages “Shevchenko 2.0,” a play critical of Russian heritage in Ukrainian history, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 7, 2024. The event took place despite the city government’s ban on large public gatherings in state-owned buildings above ground, with the trusted audience gathering in secret, informed by word of mouth. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Actor Dmytro Petrov, 45, photographed in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 10, 2024. Since gathering restrictions limited the Berezil theater's performances, he has lived in a state of artistic and existential crisis. He has occasionally visited the front lines and performed for a handful of troops in the trenches. In July 2024, he began preparing to join the Ukrainian Armed Forces, finding purpose in his life once again — not as an artist, but as a soldier. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

A conversation table representing Kharkiv as part of an exhibition in the Literature Museum, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 3, 2024. The event challenges the stereotype of Kharkiv as a city of steel and concrete. The string-bound figurines of people, buildings, and greenery symbolize the delicate relationships of the objects they represent. Visitors, who may choose to hide behind symbolic masks, are encouraged to discuss troubling topics of war, death, and loss in a safe but thoughtful setting. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Konstantyn Zorkin, 39, an artist of many disciplines and a teacher, in his underground workshop in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 5, 2024. In the past he worked with many other artists in his studio, but most left the city after the invasion. Now, Konstantyn works here alone, tirelessly painting and sculpting, building a varied collection of wartime works. The purpose of art — binding local context and eternal themes — holds special significance for him during the war. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Guests hang outside the Switch Bar just before curfew in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 6, 2024. After the closure of competing venues, Switch Bar remains the only place in Kharkiv hosting LGBTQ-themed shows and performances for the community. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Drag queens Evelina Smile, 32 (L) and Katy Loboda, 24 (R), getting ready for a performance at the Switch Bar in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 7, 2024. Evelina Smile, a cook, English language teacher, and experienced drag performer, views the wartime shows as a positive but detached distraction from the grim reality. Evelina hopes that, after the war, the audience will be able to enjoy the shows more fully, appreciating the bright and liberated messages in all their unconventional glory. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Drag queens Kira Wazovski, 35, Evelina Smile, 32, Monika, 27, and Katy Loboda, 24 performing on the Switch Bar stage in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 7, 2024. Katy Loboda, the youngest of the drag artists at Switch Bar, has been an army cook for four years and received a bullet wound at the beginning of the full-scale invasion while defending the city. While the shows don't provide much money, they offer a desperately needed distraction, especially now when furloughs are scarce. Katy cannot imagine well-being without an inclusive place to express oneself without ridicule. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent

Hamlet Zinkivskyi (37), paints “loves me… loves me not…” on a grenade in his home workshop in Kharkiv, Ukraine on July 10, 2024. Known as the "Ukrainian Banksy," Hamlet's art adorns many streets in Kharkiv and beyond, and he is a renowned figure in the international street art community. He often repurposes war trophies and army equipment into art pieces, selling them for substantial sums. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Muravskyi Shlyakh, a group of Kharkiv folklorists, perpetuates folk songs and stories of Sloboda, Kharkiv’s ethnographic region, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 11, 2024. Since the beginning of the invasion, during the sieges, they sang in city parks and crowded subway stations used as shelters. In the spring of 2022, the group launched a two-year project called "Folklore and War," traveling to front-line villages to preserve old Ukrainian songs and cultural legacy shared by the elderly citizens. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Serhiy Petrov, 48, a world-renowned artist and founder of Bob Basset studio, which creates masks, bags, bracelets, and other accessories in the techno-romanticism genre, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 5, 2024. Many of Bob Basset's works are in private collections worldwide, appear in music videos by famous artists like Slipknot and Ghost, and are appreciated by the likes of director David Lynch and writer William Gibson. Feeling closely tied to Kharkiv and supporting the army efforts by auctioning many of his works, Serhiy decided to stay in the city alone in a house with a window broken by a rocket. He couldn’t bring himself to fix it, seeing it as a memento. His wife and child evacuated and currently live in the West. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Artem Bubeltsev, 22, a skater and roof jumper from Kharkiv, performs a jump over an anti-tank hedgehog left in the center of the city, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 9, 2024. On that day, Artem successfully completed this complicated trick for the first time, becoming a forerunner in the entire crew. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Oksana Dmitrieva, 47, main director of Kharkiv's puppet theater, among the puppets displayed in the theater's museum exhibition in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 7, 2024. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

In addition to the ban on performances on the main stage, the Kharkiv puppet theater faces severe underfunding. Due to financial struggles, Oksana Dmitrieva has been unable to pay artist and crew salaries since April and was forced to send the staff on leave. The future of the theater, like many other venues, remains uncertain. Photo taken in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 7, 2024. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

“Keeping the balance,” a street art piece by Hamlet Zinkivskyi in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 7, 2024. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Ilya Sayenko, 35, a rock musician and entrepreneur, recently wounded in a car crash during a volunteer trip to the front lines in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 9, 2024. Ilya is the founder and owner of the “LF” club in Kharkiv, the only venue open 24/7 since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, hosting civilians as well as Ukrainian and international soldiers on furlough. Over the past two years, Ilya has delivered about 20,000 burgers to the front lines, evacuated hundreds of people from war-ridden areas, and organized concerts in the besieged city to raise money for the army. He plans to continue his various voluntary endeavors after a moment of respite. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Lead Singer Tamara Harmash (60), accompanied by the orchestra conducted by Dmytro Morozov (47), on the stage of the Kharkiv State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. The massive basement of the monumental theater building has been repurposed into a literal and metaphorical underground concert hall. Despite the peculiar location, the performances are typically packed with people.

Dina Chmuzh, 26, brushes a poem on boarded windows, a frequent sight on the streets of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 13, 2024. For Dina, who left the city during the initial invasion but returned, making art is a dialogue with the city, with recurring themes of loss, resilience, feminism, and historical memory. The boarded windows, her canvas of choice, draw passersby’s attention and mask the brutality of destruction. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Oksana Rubanyak, 21, poetess and commander of the Reconnaissance unit of the 153rd Separate Mechanized Brigade, poses for a photo in a destroyed school in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 14, 2024. Coming from the Carpathian Mountains, she started as a machine gunner but rose to the position of commander before turning 22. Poetry accompanied her during the full-scale invasion, becoming a means to forge her dark experiences into a warning message for the future. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Apart from skateboarding, Artem Bubeltsev is also a parkour artist. Artem survived the early invasion with his grandma in Saltivka, the urban area most impacted by shelling. They spent a month sheltering on and off in a crowded subway station. His only escape was skateboarding: “One kickflip and I felt alive again.” His dream is to gather enough money to leave Ukraine with his grandma and pursue his career somewhere safe. When he turns 25, he will be enlisted in the army, but he can’t imagine himself hurting any living being. Photo taken in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 11, 2024. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

The MUR music group performs the musical “[You]Romantica,” based on the texts of the Executed Renaissance, a generation of Ukrainian poets, writers, and artists from the 1920s and early 1930s persecuted and purged by the Stalinist regime, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 3, 2024. MUR is a recent art phenomenon in Ukraine. Many Ukrainian youth discovered the Executed Renaissance through MUR’s music and social media. The group was proud to perform in the city of origin of the stories that inspired their musical. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

A house party of staff and friends of the Switch Bar in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 7, 2024. Kharkiv was often called a city of kitchen parties, with many people moving their get-togethers from public places into private accommodations after nightfall. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the saying has become even more meaningful due to the curfew. Partying after 11 p.m. is tantamount to staying overnight, with no working taxis, planned blackouts, and police patrols. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

A couple near the bar Pokh, one of the few bars in Kharkiv, Ukraine, that stays open right until the curfew at 11 p.m., on July 4, 2024. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

The NAFTA theater performs the “Rainbow on Saltivka” play in the “Some People” concert venue, newly opened despite the official gathering ban, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 11, 2024. The NAFTA theater gained national prominence after the full-scale invasion with their surrealist tragicomedy about life, war, and the largest residential area in Kharkiv — Saltivka. This neighborhood, home to around 400,000 Kharkiv residents, has suffered greatly during the full-scale Russian invasion. "Rainbow on Saltivka" encourages a rethinking of stereotypes and calls for consideration of the values of the district, often seen by many as dangerous and destroyed. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

The audience leaving the NAFTA theater performance in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 11, 2024. For the main actor and founder of the theater, Artem Vusyk, the play is "a reason to remember childhood." He lived in Saltivka for 17 years. Since his childhood, he associated Saltivka with rainbows, often seen in the area. Artem wants his audience to view the district differently — not as a gray desert of derelict and war-torn apartment blocks, but with a renewed perspective. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Oleksandr Kobzev, 31, a tattoo artist, in his home studio in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 7, 2024, doing his last civilian tattoo before joining a special unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He plans to bring his equipment to continue tatooing in the army, with his art serving as a source of support during his service. A talented tactical medicine instructor with experience in medevac teams, he’s inspired to take on a more responsible position as a senior medic for an army brigade. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Kharkiv youth hold a concert on the main street of the city, minutes before the 11 p.m. curfew, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 12, 2024. Such events are a frequent occurrence near the “Drunken Cherry” bar, which closes at 10 p.m., with guests staying late outside. Partygoers often sing popular old songs in Russian but always end by shouting “Glory to Ukraine” and “Glory to the heroes.” This dichotomy is natural for Kharkiv, where both Russian songs and nationalistic cries are heard with equal sincerity. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)

Oleksandr Kud, 31, musician, poet, and founder of the LitSlam poetry group in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on July 12, 2024. A drone operator in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, he is applauded by the audience during an event dedicated to his writings. Right before the applause ends, he leaves the concert room, feeling overwhelmed by the distance between his artistic and soldier personas. Devastated by the grim reality of the front line, Oleksandr desperately attempts to maintain his identity as a man of art within the army. The guitar and pen are key to keeping his mental balance. His poetry is now filled with war metaphors, but he still surprises himself by occasionally writing pieces about love and nature. (Amadeusz Swierk / The Kyiv Independent)