The dark side of the stage

I was 17 when I entered the university; I studied from Andrii Fedorovych Bilous in the bachelor course for four years, from 2016 to 2021. Since almost the very beginning, he was very complimentary about my breasts. These were comments rather than compliments even.

He often told me that I had to grow up. I perceived it all as a 17-year-old child who seemingly had to take more responsibility. Now, looking back at these eight years, I understand that there might have been other interpretations as well.

One day, all the students of our term staged a performance, “Where Should I Go” [with nude scenes], but it was staged in a censored form since it was being done at the university. He used to tell us that the university was filled with very old people who did not appreciate modern art. Like, old men at the department were afraid to talk about sex aloud, we were not understood at the university, but we were all very brave because we were talking about such things as people’s sex, betrayals, and all this filth. He was convincing us that we should do the same performance at Molodyy Theatre and that it would finally be real art.

In the uncensored version that we were staging at Molodyy Theatre, there was a moment when two girls took all their clothes off, and I stripped myself down to the waist so my breasts were seen. And even during the rehearsals, I heard his comments, like “how can we not demonstrate your breasts”.

Compared to other girls, he didn’t write me often but made frequent comments about my breasts. I have our texts from way back in 2020; I was in the fourth year of study if I am not mistaken. In these texts, he sent me the picture from one performance, where I had been stripped to the waist, and my breasts had been naked. And he made his comments about them to me. It never occurred to me that he could do something abnormal. So, I reacted to all such comments with the thought that he was kind of weird.

When I finished his course but still studied at the Karpenko-Karyi University, learning theatre study, I used to come to the exams of the next acting course who was one term younger. Bilous could sometimes ask me how I liked his new course students. I have our texts where I told him what I thought about boys and girls and which performances I liked. And after that, he wrote to me, “And do you know what I remember from that show? Your boobs, your nipples, sticking through your short sweater, and your naked belly.”

Then there was another case. It was sometime in my fourth year, and I can’t remember when exactly. I used to come to his office just to talk. I viewed him as my theatrical father, I guess, and I used to tell him about some things from my life. We were sitting on the sofa within arm’s reach. At some moment of my monologue, he touched one of my breasts. I couldn’t make any sense of it; I was in some strange, shocked state, and I guess I didn’t fully realize what had happened. I don’t remember exactly what I told him but I surely moved aside, finished what I was saying, left his office, and never entered it on my own ever again.

I was about 18–19 y.o. at the time, and Andrii Bilous liked me at a creative contest. He said that he wanted to take me in, that I suited him. At first, everything was fine; I had good relations with my groupmates and him. In general, the beginning of the study seemed to be normal.

In my second year, I started painting. One day, we were sitting at a rehearsal, and I said that I could copy-paint some pictures for him. On his phone, he showed me two painters on Instagram who painted in nude style. He showed me the photos of their pictures that he would like me to paint for him. Frankly speaking, I didn’t consider it some kind of an abnormal request. I agreed. Then I wrote him on Telegram in the evening, and he sent me the pictures of these two painters again. I asked him what exactly he wanted me to copy-paint, and he said that he would like to check my taste, so it was my choice to make.

These pictures were of a rather intimate nature; mostly, they depicted naked women or some immodest scenes. I chose the most modest girl, in my opinion: she was covering her breasts and demonstrating orgasm. I painted this picture and presented it to him, and then there started a strange correspondence between us. He would mostly write me after midnight. First, he would just ask me how I was, how the situation in the course was, how some classes were, and so on. And I answered him, I told him what I was worried about. So we formed some bond.

After about a week or two of this communication, he wrote to me something like, “Your picture is really cool, of course, but I would like to see you in the same circumstances yourself.” I said that I could not paint myself. And then he asked, “So, do you not achieve orgasm?” And I answered, “No, I don’t have any problem with that.” And then he wrote to me, “Well then, you can shoot a video of yourself or make a picture.” I joked about it at the time, but it made me feel uncomfortable. Later, there were evenings when he would write me something like, “So what is going on?”, “How long do I still have to wait?”, “When do you intend to do it?”

I didn’t know how to behave; I was a girl who had not built her personal boundaries yet, who didn’t quite realize what kind of communication should be between me and my teacher. My parents had never talked to me on such topics; I had never had any sexual education. So, at that time, I was a very naive person who held a strong belief that these were just jokes, that it was just his manner of communication.

In reality, it is a very complicated Soviet story about creating some kind of an idol. Your teacher is your god, your father. And there is a sincere belief that this person will lead you to a better world of creativity, provide you with great resources for your future, and that this is a person of immense greatness and intellect. So, when victims get into a situation similar to mine, they feel very isolated. You see the great attitude of the course students towards him. He was an actor, shot in some movies, and had many influential friends.

And you start just absolutely adore [him], you really start making excuses for all these stupid actions and this behaviour. He really played it very well, because there actually was this cult of a master. All this worked well on me, on my groupmates. It seemed like after each lesson, we got some new revelation. Like, this was the only way to live. Like, this was the only way to build one’s family and one’s relations. Like, this was the only proper attitude to sex.

For you to understand what our lectures looked like, and how he was concealing his actual desire to convince us to do something, to make us think the way he wanted us to: he presented it all as a review of characters, he covered it with a phrase “this is human nature”, like a human being has only this particular essence and can behave only in this way.

We often had admonitions on the topics of sex and love, and our overestimation of it, our improper attitude to it. In his words, sex was just a physical activity and satisfaction, pure physiology. And men merely had a natural function to distribute their semen. Thus, all men were unfaithful, and one had to reconcile with the idea that a man would have many girls because it was his nature; he could not restrain himself.

So it did not seem strange to me that at first, he asked me to paint something of intimate nature, and then tried to convince me to send him my intimate pictures. I wasn’t surprised because I solemnly believed that he was just a strange man, a kind of an artist, a director, and that it was his way to communicate. Like, he was just teaching me to get rid of some complexes because I really had to view sex in some other way.

Good thing I had a boyfriend at the time, and I told him everything. He was the one who made me reject it abruptly and explained that it was not good. And I didn’t stop it at once; it could have ended badly. And you see, even at that moment, after a conversation with the person, dear to me, I couldn’t stand my grounds directly. I told Bilous not to write to me again, but I made it sound like my boyfriend insisted on it. Like it was not me who thought so.

If I didn’t have a boyfriend, I am sure that I could have ended up like one of those girls who suffered as they went much further in it with him because I really was brainwashed.

I had a situation with Andrii Bilous in 2019 when I was in my 11th form at school. I really wanted to enter his course because I had heard many good things about him. I decided to talk to him and wrote him a personal letter. Strange as it may seem, he was willing to exchange letters with me immediately.

Our correspondence lasted for about two months. When he asked me about my repertoire for the creative contest, I answered that I already had a programme, but I wasn’t sure about it and waited for the consultations to begin. To that he replied that there would be many people at the consultations and there was a chance that I would not get to his course at all, so he suggested that we should meet and I could tell him about my programme for the creative contest.

He arranged our meeting in Molodyy Theatre, and when I came there, he led me to his office. On hearing about my programme, he made some remarks and gave some pieces of advice. Then he started asking me about my life, where my parents worked, and which relations I had with them. At some point, he said that my dress made me look fat and asked me whether I had any other garments under my dress and whether I could take it off so that he could have a look at my figure.

I was at a loss, but then I thought that he just wanted to see my figure and that there was nothing wrong with that. When I took my dress off, he came up and started touching my body. While doing that, he said I was too stiff, and it was a huge disadvantage in the acting profession. He also asked me what I was willing to do to get rid of stiffness. In a few seconds, he was already touching my breasts and started taking my top off. That was a moment when I stepped back from him abruptly.

He might have understood that I would not react to his actions the way he imagined it, and he said that I was full of complexes and fearful of a man who wanted to help me. After that incident, I terminated all communication with him.

In 2018, when I was already working in the theatre but still was a student, he invited me to his office. We had some tea; then I went to wash the glasses. While I was standing at the sink, he came up from behind and started squeezing my breasts. I froze and then ran away.

Another story happened a little bit later, but as far as I remember, it was the same year. This case happened in his office, too. After some conversation, I was leaving, but he hugged me. After this hug, not letting me go, he stepped back just a tiny bit, looked at my face, took it with his hand, and started kissing me. I just remember how hard I tensed my face, trying to hide my lips.

After all these cases, he finally lost all interest in me. Except his indecent and vulgar jokes, of course, and pointing at my breasts. By the way, another thing about breasts: one day, I had a tight jumper on, and he asked me to jump a little.

I heard similar or even worse stories from some colleagues at the theatre and some of my female groupmates from as far back as 2020.

When I entered the Karpenko-Karyi University in 2020, after obtaining the students’ contact data, Andrii Fedorovych started writing to me and asking me personal questions. Who was I? Which past did I have? Who were my parents? Did I have a boyfriend? Whom did I like? Did I have relations? Why did I decide to enter? Why did I choose him specifically? Several weeks later, when I got to know all my coursemates and other students, he appointed me a monitor, although I didn’t want to be one. I thought that it was comfortable for him to communicate with me. I shared everything with him because I really considered him a great and marvellous artist and a talented director.

Yet, the more we communicated, the more frequently I noticed some strange things. He often manipulated our conversations, asking more and more personal questions. For instance, he would ask whether I liked girls or send me the profiles of my female coursemates and ask my opinion of them. He asked me whether I would like to try having relations with a girl, and he specifically named the one. He went ever deeper into intimate matters — what I liked and disliked. He tried to win my trust, convincing me that I was special and my opinion mattered.

Later, I realized I wasn’t the only one he had written to. He used to ask me what I thought about other people — my coursemates, teachers — getting the bits of information and opinions about everybody. At first, I felt special because I could share things with him, but then I understood that something bigger was behind it all.

With time, Andrii Fedorovych would ask me about my personal preferences more and more, especially in our correspondence. For instance, one day, he asked me which intimate pictures I liked and which styles or images I considered attractive. When I shared my preferences by sending him beautiful aesthetic pictures from Pinterest, he replied that his style was quite different and sent me absolutely opposite examples: private pictures of women, most probably from the Internet or other unknown sources, depicting completely naked private parts without faces. It roused my deep indignation. I couldn’t tell anyone about it, fearing that they wouldn’t believe me because he would delete messages immediately. Each time we had a personal conversation, he never gave a hint at us having this private exchange of messages.

One day, he sent me an intimate picture of a body part of another female student or theatre employee and said, “Look what they send to me as a friend.” I was horrified and didn’t know how to respond. Then he asked whether I could do something similar for him. I firmly answered, “No”.

I thought we had friendly conversations, but when he started sending me pictures of other female students and sharing his preferences for women, I realized that our correspondence went beyond decent boundaries. I got scared, but I didn’t know whom to talk to about it because I thought they would not believe me.

When I wrote to him about the schedules of classes or other organizational moments, he would reply, “Why do you want to talk to me only about work? Why don’t you want to arouse me?” or “Your messages arouse me.”

There was one moment when he invited me to his home. I don’t remember the exact time and circumstances, but he wrote that if I so wanted, I could come at any time, have some tea, and talk about whatever. But each time he made indecent comments or vulgar jokes, he would delete these messages immediately. He deleted everything regarding intimate topics or indecent proposals, not leaving any traces.

When the full-scale war started, his behaviour in terms of intimate correspondence became even more persistent. He began recommending books of intimate variety, like Emmanuelle, and asked me if I could write anything like that, inspired by such topics. Trusting him naively at the time, I agreed because I had already disclosed many things to him and thought that he could be trusted. I wrote two stories and sent them to him.

He said that my stories were too childish while he expected something more rough, sexual, and open. But he admitted that he felt intense arousal due to my stories and liked them very much. He started making intimate comments about me more frequently, which scared me, and I didn’t know how to react to it.

Looking back, I understand how manipulative and indiscreet his behaviour was. I trusted him as my mentor and director, but he abused my trust, crossing boundaries and making me feel vulnerable. Even now it is difficult for me to process this experience and share it, fearing distrust and disapproval from others.

Volodymyr Halytskyi taught us cinematography in our first year. One day, he decided to do a masterclass in portrait photography. He selected me as a model for posing. It started pretty innocently – he would just point out how I should turn correctly or where I should look. Then he started touching my face with his hands, turning it the proper way. Gradually, his hands began moving lower and lower. At first, his touch on my breasts seemed to be an accident, but then he moved down to them more and more often. At some point, he didn’t even pretend not to touch them. And all this was happening in front of my entire group; he just groped my breasts completely.

Frankly speaking, I didn’t even know how to react. I was frozen. It lasted for about half an hour: under the pretense of a masterclass, he was just groping my body, not asking for any permission.

But I suffered much less than my other female group mates: there were situations when he made personal masterclasses for them and suggested their having sex with his wife, all three of them together.

And everyone at the Karpenko-Karyi university knows about it as well as about Bilous. Everyone in the theatre sphere has known that he harassed female students. The same is true about Halytskyi, everyone knows that he does it with his female students. The university administration knows about it, too. So, it is not a secret.

Moreover, when there was this situation with Talashko і In 2021, Volodymyr Talashko, a 75-year-old actor and teacher at KNUTKiT, was publicly accused of harassing female students, several months later, he left the university , our university launched the trust line for us to be able to call and tell about such cases. That’s when I called and told this story, but I have not received any response yet. Now, they have launched this trust line again.

I was 21 at the time. The situation was like this: I entered the second year of study (I had studied in Belarus before that) and had to do the additional transfer work. I had to find Volodymyr Halytskyi to pass the exam in cinematography. Yet he was busy all the time, and we could not arrange a meeting at the university. One day, he told me to meet him at a metro station; it was in the afternoon, sometime around 2 pm. I had a very-very old Xiaomi phone at the time, and its battery was down after one hour of usage. On that day, I charged it and didn’t use it to save its charge and show the teacher the pictures I had taken. In Belarus, I had worked in commerce as well, and I had worked with a model agency. I had taken some non-standard, quite artistic, art-house pictures, and they often depicted nudity.

This was the portfolio I was bringing to the meeting. I apologized for the long delay because, unfortunately, public transport got broken down and I was about 30–40 minutes late. Halytskyi was rather strict in his reply, “I don’t even know you, and yet you demonstrate your disrespect to your teacher so much, being late to a meeting.” And I thought that it actually was very unprofessional of me. Then, he switched the mode from a strict teacher to a caring father. “Oh, why are you dressed so cold? Would you like some coffee?” There were some booths with coffee, and he bought me some.

Then he started asking me who I was, what education I had, etc. Nothing untoward, actually. I showed him the pictures, he looked through about 10–15 of them, and he liked them. He was really curious as to why I was interested in this type of pictures. I think at the time, I said that I had taken a course in sexology and was attracted to all these Jungian motives, archetypes, and the like.

I can’t say that he is the kind of a teacher who, excuse me, starts pulling your pants down immediately. No, he is a great psychologist, a wonderful manipulator, and very professional, I’d say… At first, he let me experience some guilt for being late. Then, he abruptly switched to this caring attitude.

It relaxed me a bit, nothing seemed strange. I thought that he was such a professional teacher who didn’t consider me a weird person with weird beliefs. Meaning that I wasn’t shooting grandmas, nature, cute cats, and dogs; at that time, I was shooting women and men in provocative and extravagant contexts. I didn’t have much support at the time. He was the first person to encourage and support me, and say, “Wow, that is so brave of you, that is high quality and cool”… Nothing set me on guard; I thought he had such an open artistic personality.

At some point, my phone switched off, and I had to do something about it… He suggested charging it in his car. I suggested that I could show him the rest of the pictures some other day, but he insisted. When we sat in his car, I started showing the pictures, and the phone switched off again because, for some reason, the charging didn’t work. Then he said that his working studio was nearby. He noted that it was cold outside, and he had some things in his studio, he was saying something like, “You are dressed so cold, you will get sick, you don’t even care.” I was refusing, but he was like, “Come on, cutie, you’ll find something to put on.” “Cutie” was his favourite form of address. So we went to his studio, which, as it turned out, was a usual apartment.

When we came in, I started charging my phone right away and tried to get warm since I really was cold. Then he suggested that we should eat; he had buckwheat and some salad or something like that. We started eating, waiting for the phone to get charged.

Then we started talking about the pictures, about life, and at some point, he took a bottle of vodka and asked me, “What do you do when you get drunk?” I didn’t get it at first, and he explained, “Do you become aggressive? Or do you cry?” I answered that I had never been aggressive, I had a high threshold of alcohol intoxication, and I usually became cheerful — I could dance or sing, and I liked talking about philosophy, culture, psychology, life, and so on. He said that it was cute and compared me to his former wife, who, in his words, would become more aggressive instead.

Then he suggested that we should have a drink. And I thought, why not? He was supportive. And he was very good at instilling confidence and relaxation in me, a person who had moved to a new place and lacked some support. So I felt comfortable and calm because he always manipulated me with some cool phrases, like I was special, and said something like, “All those other girls, they are such tiny pussies; they don’t yet know what sex is, what art is.” For some reason, I was not worried about those phrases at the time.

He complimented me and said that he liked talking to me about everything. We drank a lot. Then he started talking about my sexual orientation, and I told him that I was homosexual. He started persuading me that I could be bisexual, that he loved bisexual women, and he told me some intimate moments, the stories about his puberty period, his childhood, and his teen years. He said, “You are seductive, men want you,” and things like that.

At some point, I started pouring vodka away to some places not to drink it anymore because I realized that I felt bad. We still talked about different things. Probably, he felt so lonely that he was trying to find out from a student what women liked in terms of sex. At that time, I thought that I was in full control, I was behaving like an experienced woman since he said that a rare few women aged 40+ had adult thoughts like me.

Then something went wrong when I got a call from my groupmate I lived with: she was worried and couldn’t understand what I was doing at a teacher’s apartment. I saw that it was about 9 or 10 pm, and I didn’t know where I was, since I didn’t know Kyiv. My friend said that the metro would close down soon, so I had to run from that place. I told Halytskyi that my groupmate asked me for help, in short, I lied to get him to understand that I had to leave. And he started telling me some improper sexual jokes, “Let her wait. Lord, she can survive one night without you.”

Then I said that my friend really needed my assistance with something. So he asked to tell her that I would come the following day. “Where will you go right now? It is far from the metro station, and there are no buses.” So, he convinced me not to leave. Then I thought, “Okay, and what shall we do?” He suggested that I should stay at his place and show him some more of my pictures.

We went on drinking and talking about sexual, quite open topics, and then he suggested a photo session. He said, “I have an idea. You will be like the Virgin Mary, so virtuous, the first archetype of a woman.” By that time, I was quite drunk, so I decided that it was interesting and agreed to do it.

He suggested my getting completely undressed, that is, even removing my underwear and going naked to the studio. At first, I wasn’t sure; I thought, wait, we are drunk… But he said that it was work that I should be willing to do and that I should be up to any challenge in any circumstances. So I agreed.

I had only a red blanket on since it was cold. And he told me, “Come on, work, show me the passion, show me the repentance.” In principle, I was okay, and I felt comfortable. The only thing I didn’t like was imagining that it would be shot with a phone and that he was a teacher… But I tried to push these thoughts aside.

Then he took a book, found the pictures with the Virgin Mary in them, and asked me to sit on it with my vulva. So I did. Then he asked me to masturbate on camera. That’s when I got scared and uncomfortable. But I obeyed and started to do it. I imitated satisfaction and moaning well, but I couldn’t stimulate my squirting. So he just licked his fingers and touched my vulva with them.

I actually have gone through all this with my therapist, but I am still disgusted to recollect these moments on the physical level.

This photo session lasted till 3–4 am. All this time, I was comforting myself with the thought that it would end sooner or later.

When it ended, he suggested our taking a shower. I refused because I didn’t know what might happen there. I got lost and thought that I was losing control over this situation. When this illusion of certainty gets ruined bit by bit, you feel your heart racing and think — I just have to wait for the morning to come.

He took a shower and came back wearing only his underpants. I lay on the sofa, pretending to be asleep. And he said something like, “I would like to relax, do you mind? Would you like to relax with me?” And he suggested our masturbating together. I refused to do it for him. So then he suggested that everyone should do it themselves. During this process, he asked me to touch his penis. So I did. And that was it.

In the morning, he deleted all the pictures he had taken at night. When I was ready to leave, he gave me some warm things and a huge dildo as a present. I joked about it since this is my protective reaction, took this dildo, and left.

I lived with one groupmate and a friend, and I told them what had happened. My groupmate accused me and said that I was to blame because I could have stopped it. And I believed her. As for my friend, she was more aggressive and radical. She said I was guilty of nothing and all this was not okay. She was extremely worried. She took this dildo as evidence and said that we should go to the department administration, throw it in their faces, and demand that Halytskyi be discharged. I was hysterical because I didn’t want to lose my place [at the university], I had just got settled, I had just come, I hadn’t got my bearings yet, and now for this to happen. I didn’t want to lose a chance to study there, and I liked the art of cinema; it was my first higher institution of art, and I was very-very scared.

So I asked my friend to stop and managed to dissuade her. Now I realize that such information should be disclosed to prevent cases with other girls because all this is very scary.

Due to my age and lack of experience at the moment, I didn’t realize what was going on. I still do not understand Halytskyi completely. I always tried to explain his ambiguous behaviour with his eccentricity. Nonetheless, I felt some mysteriousness about him, not understanding what he wanted from me.

He would ask me about sex, about my partners, and at the same time, he would tell me about his similar “adventures”. It happened only once, but I still don’t understand why I had to listen to all this.. Of course, he asked whether I was mature enough to talk on such topics, and at first, it seemed to me that there was nothing wrong (like, we are all adults, and there is no censorship on such topics, like in Soviet times). With time, I realized that it was not professional. Fortunately, he did nothing to me.

Our communication was bizarre. I perceive this experience as my training of mind and mental capacity. On the one hand, nobody forced me to say anything, it was me who replied to him. Yet! Now I think that a teacher should not raise such topics from the ethical point of view. Freshmen are still children who do not quite comprehend their own actions. I don’t shift all the responsibility to him since I considered myself mature enough at the time. But at that moment, I felt that I was successfully manipulated.

It was sometime in 2001 or 2002, I was 17. I studied in the art college. We were staging a performance in which adult roles were played by the actors of the theatre, and college students played children, pupils. I played the leading role in this project. After this performance, my teacher told me that Yurii Marchak, the director of the Chernivtsi theatre, wanted to train me for entrance to the university. So it was arranged that one day I would come and he would help me get ready.

When I came, I told him about myself, and everything seemed to be normal. He was very nice and friendly; his voice was well-set, and everything was great. I asked him how much I had to pay, and he said that I was very talented, so no payment was required. My parents called him many times, and he always said that he didn’t demand any money.

Actually, everything was fine during this training; the only uncomfortable thing was his kisses at the beginning and the end of the class. If anyone disturbed us, he would lock the door with a key. During the class, he would drink some cognac and offer it to me as well.

It seemed to me that it had to be normal, like a person was just really glad to see you, but some boundaries, some limits, felt missing. And it seemed to me that I was being ungrateful to feel ashamed of it.

One day, he appointed a meeting rather late, let the guard go home, and locked the theatre from inside. There were only the two of us in the theatre. I remember that intuitively, I felt that something was wrong, but I convinced myself that he was my teacher, and I trusted him 100%. He said that this time, we would go to the choreography auditorium instead of his office. And we came up to the room with many mirrors.

That’s where it happened. He just rushed to me, grabbed me, lifted me in the air, and started undressing and kissing me. I had a feeling that I was being raped. It could not have been interpreted in any ambiguous way — it was very specific. That’s when I started screaming, but nobody could hear me because there were just the two of us. I was trying to break away, which was very hard because he was tall, about two metres high. Finally, I was extricating myself so hard that he let me go.

And then he told me, “Go to the stage.” I don’t even remember whether he carried me there or whether I walked to it myself, but somehow I got to the stage. I listened to his monologue; he can do it very masterfully; in fact, he made a short performance for me. He told me that it had to be that way, that it was normal, that this was what the profession was like, and that I had to realize that this would happen to me later on. So, in fact, he turned everything that had happened into some kind of a lesson for me, like he had shown me what would happen further on in this profession. And he made it look like he was being so noble; he had not raped me after all!

After that, I didn’t go there anymore. I just stayed at home for several weeks, crying all the time and not knowing how to live my life, because it seemed to me that it was over. He called me on a landline phone; I heard his voice, which I could not mistake for any other — it is a very well-set, deep, and mellow voice. I would just put the receiver down not to talk to him.

Later, when I went for entrance exams to the university of theatre in Kyiv, I saw him there. I was completely shocked by it. I was shivering. He greeted me and wished me luck in the entrance exams. Like nothing ever happened. He came there with a girl whom he brought to the entrance exams. As it happened, I entered the uni, but she didn’t.

Later, when I completed four years of studies, and we were staging some performances, one day, I saw him coming to the university again. I hid in the bathroom and asked my coursemates to find out why he was there. I didn’t want to run into him. The girls told me that he came to persuade our dean that I should be sent to the Chernivtsi theatre after graduation.

I was very scared that it might happen. Then, I was asked whether I wanted to be sent to Chernivtsi. I pleaded with them not to do it. I didn’t explain why; I just pleaded for a right to choose, and I was granted it.

Many years later, when I worked in the theatre, we intended to bring our performance to a festival in Chernivtsi. For the sake of this performance, I went to the theatre to talk to the director. When I entered his office, he got up and tried to come up and kiss me like nothing had happened. I evaded it very strictly and unambiguously to demonstrate that it would not and could not happen. Then he asked me how I was, and I said, “You know, your system doesn’t work, and I have never tried to achieve anything the way you have shown me. It can be done in a different way.” And he said, “Well, my congratulations.” But our performance was not accepted to that festival.

So, here I am, 16 years old, in the 11^th grade of school. I decided to enter the Karpenko-Karyi university and become an actress, so in my vocalism classes, I was recommended to get ready for the entrance exams with the help of the director of the Olha Kobylianska Chernivtsi Theatre. He was a former groupmate of the teacher, whose course I wanted to take, so I was glad and thought that he would train me right.

My mother and I came to the first meeting. He gave us an overview of how it would be happening: classes twice a week. I think I was supposed to start classes sometime in October. There was nothing special for the first month. There could be some vulgar jokes, and that was it.

Then, each welcome and saying good-bye were accompanied by very tight hugs and kisses. It could happen that his tongue was so deep in my mouth that no evading could help. My ears and cheeks were covered with saliva. It could come to the point that he would just push his hands into my pants, under the underwear, and touch my genitals or breasts in the same way. Each evening, I would come home, take a shower, and try to scrub hard all the places he touched.

And can you tell your parents all this? How can you explain it? How can you explain that this is happening in your classes? And you are attending them because you realize that you want to enter the Karpenko-Karyi university. Not this way, of course, but you don’t have any acquaintances who have studied there or are somehow related to this sphere. So you are trying to endure each moment like it will end soon and everything will be fine. Because even when you tell him not to do it, you are not heard.

I always wore jeans and sweaters. But even if I wore shorts, I was 16! If he manipulated the fact that this profession was just like that, that in the programme I was preparing, I had to play the emotions he was leading me to, I still have a huge question! Is this what Tolkien meant in “The Lord of the Rings” or Lina Kostenko suggested in her poems? The most awful thing is that being so young, you are grabbing all the chances you see; you don’t have any other choice because you need to enter that Karpenko university very much, and finally, his groupmate does not accept you.

You always feel guilty that you have done something wrong, and due to this guilt, you can’t tell anyone.

It is October–November 2020, I am 16, and I intend to enter the KNUTKiT. My mother and I are actively searching for a teacher to prepare the entrance programme.

At that time, I was attending a theatre studio for children at the Chernivtsi Theatre, and one of the teachers suggested this person. Just imagine a girl who dreams of becoming an actress and is told that she can learn from the director, no less.

The classes in the theatre studio at the theatre were wonderful, and we had marvellous teachers-actors, I am still deeply grateful to them for their love and professionalism. This story has nothing to do with the Olha Kobylianska Chernivtsi Theatre.

So, our private lessons with Yurii Marchak would start with intense (not just friendly) hugs and kisses with a tongue and end in the same manner. Sometimes this “good-bye” could last 5–10 minutes.

I neither demonstrated any attachment nor returned the affection, but no matter how much I tried to break away or push him aside, I couldn’t do it physically because this man was about two metres tall and 60+ years old. Imagine him pushing his old and wrinkled tongue into your mouth, cheeks, and ears. Sorry for such details; I just need you to understand this situation completely.

He could just casually put his hands into my underpants or bra while I was reciting a fable, or a poem, or prose. And to my questions, “Why are you doing it?” the reply was, “You are a future actress who has to be adjusted to any circumstances, so recite like this!” And it happened at almost every lesson.

Spring, 2021, a time for creative consultations in Kyiv. He convinced my mother that it would be really helpful for me to go with him since he would have a business meeting at the same time and could get me acquainted with the teachers at the Karpenko-Karyi university. He said he knew a man who would help with the accommodation for two days.

On coming to Kyiv, we settled in a room rented by one of the Kyiv theatres. To answer my question about my place to sleep, he pointed at two single beds, which were pushed together to make a double bed in a room. There are no words to describe the horror I felt. As soon as he went to the meeting, I started pushing beds aside to at least sleep separately.

As he came in the evening, there was a question, “And why have you separated beds? Do you want to sleep separately?” “I do”, I said.

When I came from the shower, I saw the beds pushed together again and him lying on it. I sat at the very edge of the bed, and he ordered me to lie down and watch a movie with him. I used a chance to turn on the first movie on YouTube I could think of to distract his attention from me. He moved closer, put his hands on the inner side of my thigh, and, thankfully, fell asleep. I couldn’t fall asleep till the morning since I was shivering with fear, but I managed to push him away from me at least a little.

The day following my audition he did get me acquainted with different teachers and got so drunk with them that I had to beg the passenger car attendant to let him into the train. Just imagine a 16-year-old girl asking this lady to let her 60-year-old teacher in, when he is as drunk as a sailor. Of course, in some private lessons, he was also drunk and even more relaxed. These are the most vivid experiences I can think of, but they were numerous.

Now, you might think, “And why did you continue attending his lessons? Why did you go to Kyiv with him? Why did you let him touch you?” The answer you will hear is this – because of fear and, certainly, his manipulations in saying, “It is normal for an actress. Everybody does it, and you should be ready, too. I am doing it for your own good…”

How could a dreaming girl, still at school, know that it should not be like that? There is no way she could… With time, it becomes a norm, and you get used to it, finding an excuse for it in your dreams.

I didn’t enter the university; it was all in vain, all this suffering. I was crushed, disappointed, and broken because of this person who got away with it.

Fortunately, I succeeded in entering the Ivan-Franko Art Institute, where I realized that it should not be like that, and my study there was great, and that’s where I received possibilities, and marvellous people, and knowledge.

Time passed by, and I didn’t think about it every day and didn’t have nightmares every night anymore. And I understood that I was left on my own, without any evidence. Unfortunately, I can’t forget it, and this story will remain with me for all my life.

Female students were treated with anticellulite massage in special classrooms (because actresses were not supposed to have cellulite, and he was also an expert in massaging, and not only in that). I didn’t go to those massages, but my coursemates did. Nobody understood that if a 60+-year-old, sorry, old man is touching your legs and higher parts — it is not okay.

He was addressing female students with the words “prostitutes” and “cunts”. I personally was a “cunt”, sorry, the exact quote is “like a cunt”, for a picture on Instagram or for acting after the second year of study; well, it does not matter what it was for.

Admonitions on who one should date and sleep with. And sexual harassment. I personally listened to a lecture in which he said that I was a very clever actress, and only an energetically strong man could be my sexual partner. And he should have a status above an average actor or something. I don’t know what it was and whom he had in mind. I told him that for me, sex was related only to deep love; he had no more conversations with me, but after that, I fell victim to his statements about me as a student and an actress, which were far from ethical.

It happened in 2016; first, I came for a consultation, and then the studies started. And it was strange from the very beginning. It started with us being told that it was very hard labour, that we would not be needed by anyone, and that we should grasp our own strength and will.

The first alarm sounded in our first year. We had an initiation evening, like every freshman does, and were told to perform a very strange dance. None of our ideas was accepted even then. There was a moment when the music was playing, and I had to enter the rhythm, but I failed to do it. So Balaban told me something like, “Well, I do understand that being slow-witted is normal. This is just an acting profession, you can be slow-witted.” And everybody started laughing as if it was a joke. And I thought that it must have been funny, too.

And then, my friend and I were invited to participate in another number. We were to perform in leggings and have masks on our faces. And when Balaban found out that during the initiation evening, we danced with someone else, he started shouting, “You are all cunts”, “You all are prostitutes”, meaning that nobody performs in leggings, and real actresses cannot do that. “You ceased to exist for me; you are nobody in this course.” Nobody talked to us for about a week, and we were ignored. Then, sometime later, when he felt like it, he would take a decision that he could finally forgive us.

We had late rehearsals six days a week. That is, we were sitting in the same classroom, and we were told that we didn’t need general education, that there was no sense in communicating with anybody, and that we just had to think about our acting part.

I had a situation in the first year: we were in a rehearsal, and I needed to use the restroom, as I could not hold it any longer. When I came back, everybody was looking at me. And there was this swirl from Balaban again, saying, “You are a damned prostitute and a fool”, “in the times of Stanislavsky, you would be expelled.” After that, I learned to hold it for four hours at a time.

There was another situation when we were staging a performance, and he said to the girls, “Now you all are to take your top off and dance with your partner.” And there we are, with our backs to the spectators, but with our naked upper part to all the actors on the stage. And it was not done for any particular reason, for any theatrical purpose. Nobody asked us if we were comfortable or explained the need for it. Usually, when you play some scenes with exposure, you are explained why it is done, but here, we were just instructed what to do.

In my third year, we had a rehearsal of the diploma paper, and mine contained a scene with a partner. And here Balaban takes the text to say the words instead of my partner, and says, “And now you are turning around.” I am turning around; there are spectators in the auditorium — students from other courses, and he comes up, takes my undershirt off me himself, and strokes my back with his hand. I am just standing, waiting for all this to end. Then, I am turning back, and he says, “What, are you uncomfortable?” I reply, “Yes, I am uncomfortable.” And he says, “Remember, this is what you should play.” And at the time, it seemed like this was the way it should be.

He would tell us about actresses, all of whom were prostitutes for him, and he would say who he slept with. And you are sitting there, listening, because you just have no chance to leave. If you leave, you will be stripped of all your roles. And you have come to free of charge studies, and it seems to you that if you lose this study, you are done completely.

I had a boyfriend from the same course, and everybody knew about it. One day, as one performance was coming to an end, Balaban didn’t like something, so, looking at my boyfriend, he said, “So, how is sex going for you? Is everything okay? Is he fine in bed? Because you are so lazy that it seems to me not everything is great in your sex.” That was just absurd.

And after that, you were sitting there, and nobody could say even a word against him. You were longing for someone to defend you, but in reality, everybody was as scared as you were.

I remember going to the university one day and just dreaming about his death. It seemed to me that if he died, I would just have a normal life, just like other students. You see, we were not allowed to talk to anyone; if he saw you talking to someone, he would say, “You shouldn’t talk to him. You should only be here and talk to one of these persons.” So, you graduate, and you don’t know what to do next. You can neither act nor communicate with people since you have had no communication at university.

I just really want him to understand what it is like when you come as a young and ambitious person, and you are just blocked. I want people to make a stand for their rights. I want people to be able to tell some old guy who imagined that he could do these things that it was not right, they don’t want it, they don’t like it. I want people to enjoy their studies because it was just torture for us to wake up and go to classes in acting skills. Because vocalism, acting skills, stage language, and stage movements — all these were just Balaban’s stories about his life. Nothing more.

He would undress female students on the stage, and if you refused — you were not an actress. If you started insisting on your unwillingness to get undressed down to your underpants, you were just taken off your role and humiliated publicly with all the consequences.

Constant massaging by a drunk artist, with everyone present or in closed rooms, tête-a-tête, so to speak. And all this under the pretense of “You are somewhat tense, honey,” or “You have become fat”, or “It is just for the sake of prevention”.

Disgusting and absolutely ambiguous scenes involving the denudation of girls were the norm. We knew what the breasts of each female coursemate looked like. Literally, against our will.

Girls were claimed to be prostitutes, and boys were supposed to end up selling rape. These were the things we would hear numerous times in a day. It was unacceptable to go to the bathroom during a rehearsal or warming up. It didn’t matter whether you were sitting there for an hour or five hours.

Badgering, bullying, control, direct accusations and intimidations, disclosure of personal information, stalking — this was our existence in the university. All this is not okay, to put it mildly.

I studied from 2015 to 2017, I was 17 or 18 at the time. I studied from him, and as it happened, I also started acting in serial movies, communicating with other actors who were grown up and experienced. This was how I started learning that he was not that good. And despite his positioning himself as a god in the studio, the attitude of other actors toward him was not too good.

In the conversations with other students, I started complaining a little about the fact that we were studying from 7 am to 10 pm. This was the notion propagated by Somov: we should be only in the studio; if you were not in the studio, you were a traitor.

Since you were in the studio all the time, everybody knew all the circumstances in your life. The fact that my father left our family, that I was short of money — he knew absolutely everything about everybody. And he used to press a lot on that, using it, of course.

When I started expressing my opinion, he would press me. That was before the demonstration of independent work: all of a sudden, he decided to arrange a pre-stage performance just for himself alone. I played with his favourite actor. During the entire rehearsal, he brought me to tears, saying, “You are walking on the stage like a prostitute, just like your mother”, “No wonder that your father left your family”. I was in tears.

He voiced the intonation in which he wanted me to pronounce a certain phrase several times. I couldn’t repeat this information; I didn’t feel what he wanted and why I was supposed to do it. It happened three times, after which he came up on the stage to me and slapped my face. It was completely unexpected; spectators were still in the auditorium, and there were students from other terms.

Then, when I left the course, Somov told everybody that it had not happened, saying that they had to believe him and not their own eyes. In fact, one boy is willing to confirm this story even today as a witness.

After he slapped me, the rehearsal lasted for about an hour. I played everything I had to. Then there were other performances. You have to wait for everyone to complete it, and then there is a meeting of the entire course, where you are told about your mistakes. Instead, I did the worst thing I could do to Somov. I left without waiting for this meeting. My group monitor called me and said, “Somov is asking where you are.” I said, “I have gone to earn money together with my mother, just like he said.”

The following day, we had a première, and prior to it, he gathered me and two more people I played with in that part. I was listening about how bad I was for two hours in a row; he said that my coursemates were afraid of me, that I should not play at all. I realized that I would be made to fail in the première, which proved to be true. After the première, we were all gathered together, and my coursemates were told, “We are very sorry that you have had to play with this person”, that is with me. I was stripped of my roles and replaced by substitutes. Then, I left his course of study.

When we entered the university, the course master gathered us together, and the first thing he told us was [in Russian], “I hate you all so very much.” I just laughed at the time and considered it a joke. Yet, I could not even imagine what hell would expect me for three years of my studies. The more he knew us, the more he allowed himself to do. “You are dickheads”, “You are a term of shit”, “A cunt, professionally fit for nothing”, and “You are out of your fucking minds” — that’s what we heard all the time. But when you are a little girl, you think that he is just angry at the moment, yet everything will be fine. It won’t.

Somov’s teaching methods: an extract of a play is being staged, and a girl fails to play surprise in the way the master wants her to, his shouting does not work, and he doesn’t even try to explain. He gets up from his chair, walks up to the girl, and says, “Now I will be your partner, and you have to turn your head and demonstrate a surprise.” They start playing their scene, and there comes a moment for her to turn her head. And Lev Mykolaiovych Somov, with all his talent and performance, spits the girl in the face. Time stops. The girl is shocked, and there go the words, “This is exactly the surprise I needed.” The words about us not being heard were also strengthened with “Scream, bitch, you have a vagina instead of lips”, “I’ve been talking to you too long, get out”, and “I don’t have a magic pill for you to play normally.”

Add to this the fact that bottles of water were constantly thrown at us, and to prove that we were good and loved him, we fulfilled his wishes — to buy cigarettes, to clean something, to wash something, to find something very fast, to buy some marshmallows for him. Or, we would not start working until he completed his cigarette, looking at us silently and angrily, then told us, “You are fucking morons.”

No relationships in the course. If Somov found out that someone had a relationship, especially if these were groupmates, then, believe me, you became his enemy automatically. And it is a tradition to destroy your enemy, which he did. I saw situations when he found out that his “favourites”, a girl and a boy, were dating. He punished them in the worst possible way for a student: he started ignoring them and didn’t let them on the stage for months, didn’t even look at them. But, of course, first, he shouted at them, especially at the girl, like she was the seducer, and she was to blame, “All you want is to fuck, you scumbags.”

When he learned that my former boyfriend was from the Franko Theatre, he told me personally, “Myronenko, you should lie down not for Franko’s studs, but at my feet only”, “You’ve cut a swath, get out.” He humiliated my best friend with his words as much as he could for the same, for dating her groupmate — “Dumb skirts, and when one comes to your place, you are all shitbirds.”

The look is my most painful topic because this was how Somov ruined me. At first, he told me that if I didn’t lose weight, I would play mothers and collective farm workers. Then he stopped using my name and said, “Until you lose weight, I will call you a fat ass or a fatso,” which he did. Every time I was to blame for anything, he emphasized that I was fat and professionally unfit. That’s when I broke down; I stopped eating completely, I only read a lot and exhausted myself with training.

To get a quick result and to make him see that I was making attempts, that I was thin, I drank different medicines to lose weight, and I gave away all the food sent to me by my parents. When I lost control and ate, I would run to the bathroom, tie my hair, and trigger vomiting.

When I lost weight, only then he started addressing me by my name and praising me, sending other girls to me to find out how to lose weight so nicely, and I would look at them and say, “You don’t need it, please, do not follow my example.” When I reached the critical limit of my weight, he told me, “Myronenko, when will you not be on a diet?” and I told him, “When you say that it is enough.”

I came to the course in acting art taught by Lev Mykolayovych Somov, who was teaching at the Kyiv International University. Everything was taught in Russian, and the communication was in Russian too.

And now imagine, please, that you are a student, an actress of 16–17, you have just finished school, and this is your first experience in the university; in fact, you are still a child with a very unstable mind, not yet formed completely. The master of your course, who represents himself as the Honoured Artist of Ukraine, whom you view with adoration, can let himself say phrases like [in Russian], “You are not humans, you are scumbags”, “Men have one more organ, and it is not the one you have thought of”, “You are a shit of an actress”, “If you look me in the eye once again, I will show you my dick”, “You don’t have 26 girls in your course, you just have 52 boobs”.

Do you consider it absurd? Like, a university teacher could not have said that to his students? Well, this was just a trifle. As his former student, I can confidently say that these phrases and this manner of speaking were an absolute norm. It was also considered normal that during the rehearsal, he could throw a lighter at you, you could be slapped if you stood in the wrong place, did a wrong mise-en-scene, said the wrong word, or recited a text with some improper intonation.

I was in my third year of study, it was 2011. At first, everything was very good in the auditions, but then he could dislike just one thing and change his attitude toward you completely. Yet, he had students whom he treated without these radical shifts.

One day, we, the entire term, were completing a task, and someone had an idea that he would copy Vysotskyi. There was a huge scandal, Vysotskyi got offended. He left, and this lesson didn’t even continue. Then other teachers came and started reproaching us in an admonishing conversation, telling us that we should never do it again, never copy or personate a teacher.

He had his birthday, and we thought we should probably do something, some kind of a little scene, to congratulate him. And he did not like it very much either. Generally, a birthday was some taboo for him.

If you did something wrong, he could ignore you. Or vice versa — start shouting at you. There is a difference between rigidity, strictness, discipline, and tyranny. After this teaching, I went from admiration for the theatre I had had while entering to losing any desire to be in it, and I got into some kind of a trap. I thought if I became a good artist, a prominent one, then it would be like I would popularise the studio of Vysotskyi. And if I didn’t become one, then it would turn out that he broke me. And I was lost somewhere between these two beacons.

He didn’t like the yellow colour. God forbid you come wearing something yellow. So we didn’t wear things with yellow in them. I remember having a yellow sweater, and each time I wanted to put it on, I hesitated and thought, “I get rebuked so much already, and now this sweater”.

Why did we put up with it? Because this is how the system worked — it envisaged a teacher as some God who knew what was right and would give you a good start in life. And now, we are often asked, “Why didn’t you get up? Why didn’t you say anything?” Well, today, you have an alternative: there are acting courses in Lviv and in Frankivsk, there is a possibility of a career in acting. At that time, it was believed that the strongest and best acting school was the Karpenko-Karyi [University]. And actually, there are good teachers who do teach and instill an even deeper love of acting, who give you lots of good things.

But it also happens that you might run into a tyrant like him who just takes advantage of this old Soviet school, saying that the teacher is always right. And you realize that you depend on this person, and if you don’t complete your studies, you will not be accepted anywhere.

When I was in my third year, he transferred me to the state budget place, But I was so exhausted that I didn’t want anything anymore. I was just attending those lessons to pass them, that’s it, you know. I thought that I just had to get this diploma.

Actually, while I was studying there, I didn’t realize that something was wrong. But later, when I went to Poland, I was really surprised by the difference in the approaches to the studies. One day, we watched a movie in the lesson, and the teacher asked us, “So, how is the movie? What are your opinions?” One of the groupmates said that he didn’t like it. And that was some iconic Polish movie. And the teacher said, “That is okay; you have your own opinion.”

And I was just shocked. If, during the workshop, we dared to say that we didn’t like something praised by Yurii Pylypovych, that would get you in trouble, speaking mildly.

I remember how it reflected in different things. For instance, he loved the Dynamo football club, and I said something about Karpaty. That was partially a joke, but his facial expression changed somehow. So, it was impossible to argue with him about anything. You had to be obedient, smiling, and smile constantly, even at the points where you had nothing to smile about.

We entered the university in 2007 or 2008, if I am not mistaken.

It was very hard to foresee which mood he would be in on any day. He didn’t have any typical behaviour. He could come in a very good mood, smile, joke, tell funny stories from his life, inspire students, or, without any apparent reason, he could come feeling very sad and resentful.

One day, he came sad, with a depressed expression on his face, and on entering a classroom, he looked around and said, “I can’t work in such an atmosphere. I am not coming back until you wash all the skirting boards.” And the entire term was scrubbing the skirting boards. And if I am not mistaken, it was in the building on Khreshchatyk Street, which is falling apart as it is. It is very hard to achieve ideal cleanliness in the classroom.

We never knew what he would be like on any day, in which mood he would come. Looking at this person from aside, you would see a definitely intelligent noble gentleman, always wearing a suit and a tie.

I had never been sexually harassed by him. But, of course, I saw those cases with his hands on the knees of other girls. I know that it was unpleasant for some of them.

But as for the moral pressure, I surely did feel it for all five years myself. We were constantly clutched. This is even a term in the acting profession — a clutch; this is something the teachers of acting skills usually try to fight. And the longer we studied, the more we all acquired this clutch because we were really afraid of him.

I thought about the specific things I would like to change in that studio if, for instance, I were the art manager of the course and how I could protect my students from what was happening. And I understood that the missing thing was the right of the students to speak.

That is, if I am scolded, I may not know what I have been scolded for, but I don’t have a right to ask about it. Or, for instance, when a female student feels that some touches are unpleasant for her, she doesn’t have a right to say, “Listen, I understand that maybe you meant something different, but it is unpleasant for me.”

From time to time, Yurii Pylypovych would select a favourite female student for the rehearsal day and make her sit to his right. Like, “Let’s see what they will play for us,” talking about students who prepared some extracts for the show or some sketches. During the show or discussion, there could be bursts of energy, emotional outbursts accompanied by laying hands on the girl’s knees, or tight hugs. The girl would obviously express her discomfort but couldn’t say anything openly. After all, he didn’t pinch her bottom or suggest sending him her picture.

If this is a teaching approach to female students, correct me if I am wrong! But this kissing and grabbing while hugging — it does cross the boundaries. It is dirty and disgusting, but what could we say to the course master… “Don’t hug a girl”!? Seems like there is no reason to fight, but there is, and there was. Then, in private conversations, the girls would confess that it felt disgusting and dirty and couldn’t find any way to correct it.

By the way, I recollect a case when, in front of everybody, Yurii Pylypovych was making a student memorize a proper word order in answer to the question from the exam paper, “In Stanislavsky’s opinion, there is… ” — the student was repeating this phrase several times because the teacher’s pressure clouded his thoughts and he couldn’t memorize this “correct word order”.

Previously, during my study at the university, they unofficially said at the casting, “Just not from the Poplavsky’s [University]”. And now, in the same unofficial manner, they say, “Just not from the Karpukha [the Karpenko-Karyi University]”.

I may not understand some things, and I am not the one to compose the curriculum for students, but this “polite and well-brought old man” should be not just discharged but also punished for broken fates and fear, forever rooted in human hearts. The fear of being expelled from the course, the fear of not pleasing the teacher, the fear of sitting next to the master at a lesson, the fear of going onto the stage.

A paradox! The ones, expelled from the course, went on, developed themselves, and became happier and more successful than the ones that remained.

Of course, even now, there are people worshipping Yurii Pylypovych, saying that he gives a powerful foundation, and opens a window to the world of theatre and cinema. With the complexes I acquired due to my teacher and the fears my coursemates got as bonuses to their acting skills… It would be better to attend the courses where the information is given in a shorter form without any traumatic experience. Some students had to work at their traumas for several years after graduation! Yet not everyone goes to a psychologist; some keep their “scars” forever.

In our second year of study, we went on a trip in which we had to make daily travels with our programme around Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It was 2016 or 2017. When we went there, Yurii Pylypovych beckoned me to sit next to him on that bus, while we were travelling to our destination. Our props and stage costumes were lying on us. At some point, I felt this hand starting from the knee and moving up. His hand was moving higher and higher, and I realized that he might want to touch my genitals. At that moment, I managed to push his hand off.

We came to our destination, and he came out as if nothing had happened. It was a military regiment surrounded by forest. I was looking at that forest, and at that moment, I even thought that after this, my only way out was to go and hang myself. My world was crushed; I was 17, and this was my teacher; he was like a father to me; it was something sacred. It really broke me. I didn’t know what to do and whom to tell about it.

Later, when we were going back by train, I remember his taking me to the covered platform so that everybody could pass us and he could stand close to me. He started a conversation by asking, “And what relationship do you and I have?” I replied, “Yurii Pylypovych, I view you as my father, my grandfather. You are an older person for me; you are my teacher.” And he said, “Are you sure? Think about it.”

We were going back to Kyiv, and at 5 am, there was a stop in my city of Kharkiv. My dear and near came to see me in the railway station for a minute. I remember that everyone was asleep on the train, but he came out and started shaking my father’s hand, saying what a talented actress I was and how well I acted.