For Ukrainian circus performers, future still up in the air
Nearly a year since fleeing Ukraine for Hungary amid the bombs and terror of Russia’s invasion, more than 100 young circus performers still hold intensive daily training sessions in Budapest while waiting to see what an uncertain future holds
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Nearly a year since fleeing Ukraine for Hungary amid the bombs and terror of Russia's invasion, more than 100 young circus performers still hold intensive daily training sessions in Budapest while waiting to see what an uncertain future holds.
The group, whose members are between the ages of 5 and 20, found a home with the Capital Circus of Budapest after leaving their circus schools and lives behind in the cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv in March 2022.
Trainer Svetlana Momot, who fled Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, with an initial group of 12 of her students last year, watched and reflected Monday as some of the young circus artists swung from suspended rings, dangled from aerial silks and rehearsed acrobatic stunts in one of the Budapest circus' training halls.
Momot said that in the past year, the performers had to learn to live, cook, clean and study together in close quarters. But her goal from the beginning was to ensure that, despite being uprooted from their homes, their intensive daily training would not be interrupted.
