Kyev’s tattoo artists raise anti-war funds by drawing symbols of resistance on the skin
These tattoos are done quickly. It only takes a few minutes, the needle is inserted quickly and transfers the ink to the skin to make the war indelible. Horror instead of the best moments in life. Between one bomb and another, perhaps as soon as the sirens stop sounding, it is decided to do this too: to raise funds against the war by undergoing a tattoo that will become an indelible testimony of these terrible days. «Not only in the head, but also on the body, the memory of what we are undergoing must remain» is written in front of the tattoo artist Jam’s shop in the center of Kiev. Instead of flowers, hearts, initials of the beloved, the inscription Bucha, a bomb on the arm, two anti-tank missiles that cross on the nape of the neck.
There are other indelible signs of this war, some will say, there are people who have lost their legs or an eye under the bombs. But this tattoo is the opposite of a habit. And unfortunately the past tells that other symbols that have ended up on people’s arms are also a sign of a tragedy, not a happy event.
There are also many women who choose to have war tattooed on their bodies. Some of them opted for a very strange design, a particular form of bread that has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance because her name is unpronounceable for the Russians.
Marika’s testimony
“I wanted to capture this moment,” said Mariika, a tattoo artist who now has an anti-tank hedgehog on her leg and a Molotov cocktail on her arm.
She stayed in Kiev during the war, watching the stories she had heard as a young man become a terrifying reality. “I never thought I’d experience such a thing. My grandmother was a child of the war, but her stories seemed so far away. I didn’t think hiding in the basement from the bombs would ever happen. ‘
For several Saturdays she joined a group of tattoo artists gathered in a party district of Kiev for a day of fundraising set up in a disused nightclub. Other dance floors had been turned into temporary headquarters for volunteers who make camouflage nets, organize aid or prepare Molotov cocktails.
They have already raised more than 100,000 hryvnia ($ 2,700) for the army and plan to keep going as long as there is demand and they have the needles and ink to meet it.
Not all new designs are military-inspired. Some people want to forget about war, with cat tattoos, and others want to mark the moment without a direct reference to war.
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