Daryna, from Kharkiv, has been in the city since the beginning of the full-scale invasion without leaving. She stayed because of her grandparents, who raised her.
“I couldn’t go without them, and it’s difficult to move people at that age. After a week, which was needed to recover, I immediately asked myself the question: okay, what can you do?”.
The subconsciousness said that no one needed haircuts now, but it was necessary to get yourself out of that state and do what you know how to do. She put up a post that she did not leave the city, has tools, and can provide services.
“It was an attempt to save myself, but it turned out that there was a demand. In those first weeks, I gave a lot of my old machines to the front lines, where the boys cut their own hair, and I cut those who were in the city,” the girl says.
On March 14, Daryna and her colleagues opened a barbershop. They were the first to open in Kharkiv.
“Back then, the curfew in Kharkiv was until 4:00 p.m., so we worked from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Before the war, the staff, including the administrator, was 25 people, and when they left in March, there were three of us. On the second working day, already four,” the craftswoman recalls.
Customers of the barbershop before and during the war.
Before the invasion, the master’s clients were mainly people from the IT field, sometimes businessmen and rarely politicians. Now they are representatives of the State Emergency Services, police, military, border guards, judges and politicians.
“When the barbershop was opened, the governor came to me for a haircut. I remember how he asked then how I got to work. I answered that by a taxi. He clarified – have prices been raised? My answer was honest, that when the price tag is 100 UAH, then the order is not accepted. And as soon as you increase it in steps (but not 5 UAH, as before) to 100 UAH and the amount of the order becomes 200 UAH – the car is found. The next day I was already driving for 100 UAH. I don’t know if this happened because I conveyed what worried not only me at the time, but unexpectedly became the voice of the people.”
