The first of September. Street near the metro station “Akademika Pavlova” in Kharkiv. More than ten explosions (we'll definitely start counting them instead of sheep when we can't fall asleep) — ten minutes after them. This picture was taken by photographer Georgy Ivanchenko. The moment when the explosions were heard (already someone counts), he was sitting in a Kharkiv coffee shop and immediately left there, heading for a smoke. There were already doctors working on the site, and they alreadycame under repeated Russian shelling when they provided assistance to injured Kharkov residents.

It is impossible to cover the full, but quite obvious day of war, and the devastating circumstances in which time does not stop, but momentarily catches the eye. Three doctors. The two are rolling the stretchers on which their colleague is lying — he is either talking to one of them or examining his injured leg. The man pulling the stretchers in front appears to be already preparing to drag them inside the ambulance, and the one behind may be listening to the injured man. The picture seems spontaneous and rapid: people seem to move through the whole frame directly into the broken door of the ambulance, which is about to move, and while you look at them, you just wait for the door, closed in a nervous hurry.

That day, the wreckage wounded two medics. The doctor on the stretcher is anesthesiologist Dmitry Piddubny, later his leg will be operated on. His colleague, 21-year-old Yevhen Yurko, a fifth-year medical student and ambulance paramedic, was wounded in the head. Kharkiv residents collected money for the treatment of the guy, but within a few days Yevgeny died in the hospital.

Photo by Georgy Ivanchenko

This is the first of September. The day when Ukrainian children went to school, in particular in Kharkiv. Because it is when you live constantly in a war: no matter how many explosions count, children will go to school or study at home (many children in Kharkov study on the subway), adults will go to work, and they will all go to sleep at home, although no one guarantees them anything here. On these or other days, children return to school in different countries of the world. And in some lesson, for example, a law class, they learn that after World War II, the civilized world has built a system that will surely protect them.

The first of September is the Day of Knowledge. For example, the knowledge that the Geneva Convention provides for the unconditional protection of doctors. Or that the state that holds prisoners of war should encourage them to “intellectual and recreational pursuits.” Or that shelling of cities, executions and extrajudicial executions can be condemned in very different ways: sharply, sharply, boldly, decisively, categorically, firmly and in every way.

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Material created with support The Free Word Foundation.

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Text: Vera Kuriko

Photo: Georgy Ivanchenko