Irpin’s School of Music

Jan 18

January 18, 2024

The director of Irpin’s School of Music, Natalia Didikina, prepared an immersive experience of her school for us. Anastasia Molner (video) sang a Ukrainian folk song. Valeria Romanchuk played classical and ragtime pieces, Ilya Bilous played a Ukrainian accordion and Serafim Shikhaleev belted out a patriotic song, the gist of which I can best decipher as “get out of our country, you bastards.”

In the first days of the full invasion, the school building was severely damaged by artillery, much like every building in sight, including an elementary school that was completely destroyed. Its repairs and reconstruction are a source of proud defiance. The rusians came, but did not conquer. Granted, things are not the same. Most of the school’s original students have fled in a mass exodus in the spring of 2022. Scattered around the world, many receive recognition for their musical talent and training. Today, the school is home to a new cohort of students who fled from occupied Ukraine; places like Mariupol, Bakhmut, Berdyansk and scores of other cities and villages now subjugated to russian tyranny. The music school is a place for these kids to heal. Their music has endured through the worst days of their lives; it transcends their past, present and future. It their solitary place of solace.

The school is small but its pride looms large and not just for its students. The staff members talk with pride about the teacher who died in the first days of the town’s invasion. As a single unmarried man, he insisted on volunteering right away to prevent those with children from having to risk their lives. To honor his memory, his colleagues preserved his tiny office in its original form as a small shrine to their very own hero and as a reminder of their own personal loss.

Natalia, who took us to her house for a homemade lunch, explained how she and her husband survived 10 days of occupation by piling mattresses on the floor of their interior hallway. They huddled in the mattress, covering their heads each time bullets and shrapnel started whizzing by. Every window in their home was blown or shot out. Stray bullets hit all around them, some burning holes through the carpet, one grazing Natalia’s piano.

One minute Natalia explains the ballistic damage to their home, the next minute she sits down at her piano and conjures a mournful melody. ”A little improvisation,” she says with a cheerful smile as she strikes the last key in a languid move.

Anastasia Molnar, age 11, singing “Viburnum.” Anastasia, her parents and two siblings have been internally displaced after russians destroyed their home in occupied Ukraine.