"My desire to read books saved my life," says a Ukrainian soldier, convinced that reading holds special value during wartime. Two things help him stay upbeat: sports and reading. Sports help him endure physical and emotional stress, especially when he loses comrades or feels unjustly treated. And to maintain moral resilience, to stand firm and defend his beliefs, reading is necessary.
On Taras Shevchenko's birthday, Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut found a rare edition of Kobzar among the rubble and debris of a destroyed house. The book miraculously survived and became not only a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the aggressor but also proof that Donetsk region is Ukraine.
Under fire, the librarian and her husband saved the books because the library in the village had opened just two months before the full-scale war began. It immediately became the pride of the village and the center of its cultural life. After liberation, the library was the first thing the residents asked to restore. Over a thousand saved books returned to their shelves.
"People of steel. We cry all day," on the day of the liberation of Kherson, a Ukrainian publishing house shares an incredible story about an order that came from occupation.
