July 9, 2025, 10:01 p.m.
(Photo provided by the interviewee)
Master classes for adults, online classes for children, and painting of military artifacts for the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Svitlana Rusyn does all this in frontline Kherson under round-the-clock shelling by the Russian army from her native, temporarily occupied left bank of Kherson region. She speaks laconically about her move to the city. "I knew where I was going and that there would be explosions. However, she just wanted to be closer to home. Despite such conditions, her art is full of bright colors to create a mood for herself and to charge others with positive emotions. Svitlana follows this principle in her life as well. She recalls one of the cases: "When a fellow volunteer from Odesa saw me wearing yellow boots, blue pants, and a yellow jacket, she was surprised and said I was just a huge target for a drone. But I hadn't even thought about it."
"We left just a few hours before the full-scale invasion began. In an instant, I lost a part of my life: my home, my job, my hobbies, my favorite animals. All of this, dear and necessary to my soul, was behind me, and then there was the unknown, with an emptiness in my heart," Svitlana Rusyn begins our conversation.
Until February 24, 2022, the woman and her family lived in Oleshky, on the temporarily occupied left bank of the Kherson region, and worked as the head of the children's fine arts studio We Draw the World. On that winter day, according to her husband's premonition, they managed to evacuate the city, packing their belongings in just 40 minutes.
Svitlana does not hide the fact that she did not believe that a full-scale war could happen until the last moment: "My husband and I were having a big fight. I was sitting in the car and couldn't understand: "Where am I going if I have to be at work tomorrow? The children will come to class, but the teacher is not there. Because she has made up something for herself."
Photo provided by the interviewee
A terrible reality caught up with the woman in Uzhhorod. Despite the fact that she had to rebuild her life from scratch, on February 25, 2022, Svitlana Rusyn was already weaving camouflage nets in the local volunteer community. She recalls that the example of this hub made her realize how much people need such organizations: how they unite and what benefits they bring. Knowing that her wife was in a safe place, Svitlana's husband returned to the already occupied territory for some reason, she had no contact with him. After leaving, he joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
After a while, Svitlana Rusyn started working at a garment factory. At first she sewed elements of military clothing, then she sewed chevrons on a special machine. But all the while, she was homesick.
"I had a crazy dream of returning to Kherson and teaching workshops. Because I realized that this is an opportunity for people to get away from their problems, to switch their attention for 1-1.5 hours, to approach the situation with calmer emotions. I saw how it worked at the volunteer hub in 2022 and at the military hospital I visited in 2021. So as soon as the city was liberated, I started to rush there even more. Finally, my husband could not stand it and allowed me to go. On January 6, 2023, I stood with my suitcase on the platform of the Kherson train station. I had planned to come for a week, but ended up staying for two months. And then I just went to get my things and came back to live here," says Svitlana.
Svitlana Rusyn says that she has been involved in art for over 20 years. That's why she started holding workshops in this area. The first event on clothing painting took place in March 2023, followed by several more on creating cotton toys. The latter art form is a special passion of the artist.
"I really liked the old cotton toys on the Internet, but I've never seen them in person. They were handmade, not factory-made. So I decided to try to make them myself. By trial and error, using different materials (more professional and improvised), I developed my own technology for making cotton toys: modern, but with elements of authenticity, particularly in facial features," explains Svitlana.
In addition, the craftswoman has transformed the idea that a cotton toy can only be a New Year's toy. Recently, together with the visitors of the Na Rozum hub, where she is a curator, she made elderly cats out of cotton wool. The crafts became souvenirs for the World Blood Donor Day for the people of Kherson who donated blood on that day.
Svitlana emphasizes that cotton wool seems to be an easy material. In fact, the process of working with it is long and complicated. It takes at least three hours to make a toy. That's why she divides many of her workshops into several stages or makes pre-made pieces.
As for the customization of clothes, most of the paintings are dedicated to Kherson motifs: steppe flowers, the sea coast, watermelons, and cats. At the same time, Svitlana Rusyn has never stopped at one technique. She believes that the combination of different art techniques, including non-traditional ones, makes the product more exciting and interesting.
"Once I realized that the pysochok, a tool used to paint eggs for Easter, can be used not only for its primary purpose. So I waxed a fabric. Then she started teaching it to children, who were even more fascinated. That's how the magic happened, and I've been following it to this day: looking for a new way of looking at familiar things. I should also note that each work is not a random moment, so it has a special meaning. For example, like the image of swallows that return to their nesting places every spring. In other words, it's a symbol of home," says the artist.
Svitlana Rusyn also paints military artifacts, which she donates to auctions and other fundraisers for the Armed Forces. She started doing this even before the full-scale invasion began. Back then, these were gifts for family friends, including military personnel. Since 2015, Svitlana's husband has been traveling to the Donetsk region as part of the Black Tulip search group (Evacuation 200 - ed.).
"When I moved to Kherson, my husband suggested that I return to this activity. He gave me many examples of volunteers selling artwork for donations, including for the needs of the army. I immediately agreed and started helping his unit in this way. It seems that for the first money raised, the guys bought a very important air defense flashlight," says the artist.
Svitlana paints various types of former weapons: from shell casings to tubes. She explains that it is usually the military who ask her to paint on what and what they choose. Among her favorite motifs at the beginning were a Kherson cat holding a watermelon, a witch cat with a crow on one leg, a Hutsul cat, and a cat with a helmet full of Melitopol cherries. Currently, he mostly works on more serious drawings. Among her recent works, she names an art object featuring two powerful symbols of freedom: a Cossack and hawks.
During this time, the artist's works have raised a considerable amount of money to support the Ukrainian military. It is difficult to calculate the exact figure because donations vary. One of the first sets of painted shell casings went at auction for 70 thousand hryvnias, while a small, 12 cm cotton toy was purchased for 1500 hryvnias. Among the artist's works, there is one that is exhibited at the National Historical and Architectural Museum "Kyiv Fortress".
Another art object by Svitlana is waiting to become a museum exhibit. It is a tube that she dreams of transferring to the museum in her native Oleshky after the liberation of the left bank of the Kherson region. The artist created it for the 940th anniversary of the town. The most iconic places and symbols are reproduced on a kind of canvas, measuring about a meter by a meter.
"I painted the coat of arms of Oleshky with memorable dates, the bell of the Oleshky Sich, the Dnipro floodplains, and the ceiling on the pier, which has already been destroyed to the ground. She added the inscription of the last monument: "God's soul. The life of Ukraine. Honor for myself." This work is not for sale, and it will not be... It is the embodiment of our memory of the home that will never be the same, but to which we still want to return," says Svitlana Rusyn.
Our heroine is convinced that art is a powerful challenge to society. When you can't say or write something, you can paint it. Many paintings only revealed their true meaning over time, years and centuries later, a story written by the author that could not be told "out loud" at the time.
"I chose textiles for my workshops for a reason, because we use them every day. For example, in clothing items or accessories. So even when you walk silently down the street, people around you will hear your voice through a drawing or a statement on the same T-shirt," explains Svitlana Rusyn.
She adds that creativity is also an important therapy today. " The art process gives you an impetus to live, because while you are doing something, you have no time for bad thoughts. There is only a focus on the stages and details of creating something, your own imagination. And it's also about communicating with other people, which many people lack because of the evacuation of their relatives and friends to safe places.
"In Kherson, I have an adult audience, mostly women aged 45 to 70. And they are all incredible. To be honest, I am charged by their energy. They have a great desire to learn new things and an absolute lack of fear of failure. Everything is interesting and necessary for them: painting with texture paste, appliqués on clothes, cotton and textile toys, etc. They make all these things for themselves, their relatives and friends. Now an impromptu exhibition of their works is taking place in our space. They do not hesitate to show their work. This is extremely valuable to me. I am happy to be involved in this process," says Svitlana.
In addition, the artist returned to working with children. She teaches them fine arts in an online format. She combines the transfer of artistic skills with the acquisition of knowledge about history, culture, and local history. In particular, when they paint jeans, they are always interested in their origin: who invented them and when, how the fashion for them changed, and how denim differs from other fabrics. Svitlana is convinced that children perceive information more easily this way. "Dry" teaching will not have the proper result. Moreover, it is difficult to teach drawing through screens: the teacher does not have the physical ability to put a hand on the student or correct a line on the sketch. So the key here is the words, the ability to present and hear them.
Svitlana Rusyn does not hide the fact that there are times when she gets down, but it passes quickly enough. Because she knows exactly what she has to work for and whom she has to work for. She has no intention of deviating from her chosen field of work. She emphasizes that she still has a lot of creative plans. And the students and participants of the workshops will help to realize them. After all, our strength is in unity.
The work on this material was made possible by the Fight for Facts project, which is being implemented with the financial support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Сергій Лозовський, Яніна Надточа