I live in a circus for the sake of animals. Trainer Daria Maichuk about the rescue of four-legged artists

"I lived in a circus for eleven months in a room without windows, as if in a bunker. I decided: I will live in a circus, because it is on the right bank of the Dnieper, and my parents' house is on the left bank. There is a war in the country, it is not known what the situation will be with the bridges. In what condition will they be? Will they remain functional and not destroyed? After all, my animals will not survive another stress. I have already taken them out of shelling."

The parents of trainer Daria Maichuk did not object to such a decision, because they themselves performed in the circus with animals for many years. They understood the daughter's warnings. And it was her parents who knew very well what she went through when she took more than 40 animals out of Kharkiv under fire.

A family of migrant circus performers from Luhansk was forced to leave their home in 2014.

"The decisive moment in my decision to move was when I saw that the Luhansk Circus was left without windows. I sat and cried. It was hysterical," says Daria Maichuk. Then her parents left for Dnipro, and Daria and her husband lived in circus hotels in the country for eight years.

A full-scale war caught Daria in Kharkiv. Then she and her husband performed in the Kharkiv Circus. They had a number as part of a show on the water. "On February 24, at five in the morning, my husband woke me up and said that the war had started. The city began to be bombed," the woman recalls.

Friends and parents of the couple insisted on evacuation. But Daria decided that she would not go anywhere without animals. Food, water, blankets and lanterns were lowered into the basement of the Kharkiv Circus for the animals, and carriers were prepared for moving. At first there were six dogs, four raccoons, a fox, five rabbits and ten pigeons. The man helped Daria arrange a temporary shelter and... volunteered for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And it was the first, but not the last, longest separation from a beloved man, which lasted two months.

Kharkiv was under massive attacks, the girl did not leave the basement of the circus, she stayed next to the frightened animals-artists. They lived like this for a month. People started bringing other animals that needed help. "They brought dogs in serious condition, brought cats, squirrels. They also had to be saved, and we did it," Daria says.

It was scary that the animals would run out of food. Stocks of fodder were running out. "In March 2022, I realized that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and we had to leave. The animals became more and more, I actually had nothing to feed them. It was very scary to leave. However, sometimes I had to go outside from the basement. I saw that there was food for cats and thought: my animals could eat it," the trainer recalls.

Anatoliy Zamaraev, an animal trainer from Skadovsk, found himself in the fire-ravaged Kharkov together with Daria. Anatoly was with a seal named Sam. They could no longer return from there to the occupied Kherson region. And it was problematic to leave Kharkiv with animals at that time. But together Daria and Anatoly managed to find people who helped to take their "Noah's Ark", which contained about 40 animals, to the Dnipro.

From April 2022, the Dnipro Circus became a new home for both the animals and Daria herself. There are no windows in her room, but it is in this room that the girl feels protected - "like in a bunker." And animals are always nearby. Her mother, Olena Maichuk, has recently been working as the chief administrator of the Dnipro State Circus. Even before the war, the woman performed here more than once with various birds, which she had trained for many years.

Already in the summer of 2022, Daria was offered to perform with animals in the subway in front of children from an internally displaced person (IDP) families. The people of Dnipro were then offered to support a charity performance by circus artists, so during it they collected funds for feeding and supporting the lives of migrant animals. Because Daria sheltered everyone whom she had taken out of Kharkov at that time, and this was a large company consisting of dogs of various breeds, a raccoon, a porcupine, and one seal, the same one that was in Kherson at that time.

"Honestly, after a month in the basement of the Kharkiv Circus, a rather stressful evacuation, I had a period when I could not allow myself to rejoice, knowing that someone was suffering in terrible conditions. But at some point I understood: when I am not in a state of mental balance, I will not be able to help. So she took care of herself. And when they told me that we would hold this performance in the subway, I immediately agreed. This is a good opportunity to help our migrant animals," Daria Maichuk recalls.

Then there was an invitation for a tour to Lviv. Darya repeated the old circus numbers several times, collected props and left for the west of the country in the company of animal artists. It turned out that it is quite difficult to perform without the support of the man with whom I have always performed together. And morally, because in the arena there was a strong sense of the lack of proper team work, and in the process of assembling the props, because all the hard work was always done by men. It was not easy for Daria to ask someone else for help.

The circus performance took place. But after these tours, her pet Raccoon, who was already 17 years old, passed away. He was already many years old... However, the loss of a special artist became a new serious moral shock for Daria.

"I decided that I will not tour anymore. I don't have a resource"

Daria decided to shift the focus of attention to a matter that helps her morally. Together with her mother, the girl conducts master classes on weaving "dream catchers". Several meetings took place in the format of an art brunch, the topic of which was the circus and dressage.

"People don't know what circus animals are like. They do not understand that there is no torture in the circus, it makes no sense for a trainer to treat an animal-artist cruelly. After all, then the animal will not trust him. "The animal will not respond to his call commands if it is hungry or offended," the woman shares.

Daria's parents, having left their own home in Luhansk back in 2014, were finally able to buy a house in Dnipro just before the large-scale invasion. "All birds live with us. My mother, Olena Maichuk, left her profession as a trainer a long time ago, but she could not part with her pupils. In the yard of the house, we built warm barns for owls, storks, chickens, ducks, and griffons. We created very good conditions for them. And we also constantly have animals that are given to us to keep, mostly rodents," says Darya.

Today, the trainer and her parents are developing a project for a small rehabilitation center for animals. They decided to arrange it just in the yard of their own house.

Recently, an invitation came from the Kyiv circus company. She is offered to perform in the capital's circus in the new season. Daria is gathering her strength and is already thinking of radically new, currently solo numbers, because her husband is still in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

And Daria recently passed her driving test. In fact, she never dreamed of driving a car, she says that she feels comfortable as a passenger, but the traumatic experience of evacuating animals from Kharkiv forced the girl to "arm herself" with a new skill. And if you suddenly have to save four-legged artists again?

 The text was prepared in cooperation with dattalion ("Dattalion" NGO)

Read this article in Ukrainian and russian.