![Artioum skateboards in front of the M. F. Sumtsov Kharkiv Historical Museum in Kharkiv, Ukraine.](./media/images/s_E5EFF44F451AD81C85A6A0A2C292DFFB462D05B3F6CF46835EDF6C9188783351_1721859391600_01-Skateboard_Ukraine_Tutenges-17.jpg)
Artioum skateboards in front of the M. F. Sumtsov Kharkiv Historical Museum in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Artioum skateboards in front of the M. F. Sumtsov Kharkiv Historical Museum in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Ukrainian skateboarders take back their streets
Photographs by Robin Tutenges
Story by Kyle Almond, CNN
Published July 27, 2024
The streets of Ukraine are scarred by war, but that isn’t stopping many young skateboarders from doing what they love to do.
For them, skating is a much-needed escape.
“It’s a way of feeling alive, even when everything around you is falling apart,” Vasilkan, a skateboarder from Odesa, told French photojournalist Robin Tutenges.
Tutenges visited Ukraine in May 2022, a few months after the Russian invasion. While other photographers focused on the war effort, he wanted to document the country’s youth and how they were coping.
He quickly formed a strong connection with some skateboarders he met.
“We grew up with exactly the same (skateboarding) culture,” Tutenges said. “We watched the same YouTube videos about US skateboarders, about French skateboarders, so we had a lot of things to talk about.”
Tutenges, 28, hadn’t skated in a while, but he started again in Ukraine. He went back in 2023 and spent time with skateboarders in the capital of Kyiv as well as in the cities of Dnipro, Izium and Kharkiv.
“Mentally, it’s hard to live here,” a teenage skateboarder named Konstantino told him. “So we skateboard to free ourselves and heal ourselves. We go out into the street every day, as if it were our medicine.”
There’s also an element of defiance there.
“By going out and still living,” Tutenges said, “even if the situation is very difficult, it’s like a way to take control of the situation. To say, ‘No, even if there is war, I will still have my youth.’ … If they don’t enjoy their life at this age, they will feel like the Russians won in some way because they took control of their youth.”
Many of these young Ukrainians had to grow up fast because of the war. Some saw their schools destroyed and their studies come to an end.
“They’ve had to take on a lot of responsibility, take care of family members, take on multiple jobs,” Tutenges said.
Most of the skateboarders he met knew nothing about war or how to fight. But they support their country 100%, he said, and try to support the war effort in other ways.
“Maybe it’s a video to talk about the situation. They use the skateboard as their weapons to (educate) the generation around Europe and the world,” Tutenges said. “It’s a good way to keep talking about Ukraine.”
Tutenges spent a few hours on the front lines with one professional skateboarder, Mitya, who joined the civil defense force on the first day of the Russian invasion. Mitya’s call sign, “Skaters,” is written on one of his bulletproof vests. On his arm is a tattoo that says “sk8 or die.”
“I had to give up skateboarding for a while,” the 22-year-old told Tutenges. “I miss it terribly.”
The war has brought much of the country together, and Tutenges said he also noticed a “huge solidarity” among the skateboarders he met. While he was in Kyiv, skateboarders there opened up their homes to some skateboarders from Odesa, which was being heavily bombed at the time.
“Before the war, skateboarders in Kyiv weren’t as close-knit as they are today,” skateboarder Sasha told him. “Everyone had their own team, their own group, and we didn’t necessarily mix.”
Now they’re united with a common purpose.
“Skateboarding is a way to take back their life and to take back their streets also: ‘This is my street. This is my neighborhood. This is my country,’ ” Tutenges said.
Through September 22, Tutenges’ photos are part of an exhibition at the Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain (Regional Contemporary Art Museum) in Sérignan, France. He made many of the images panoramic so that they would be long like a skateboard.
He said skateboarding can teach valuable lessons about resilience — something that he has seen in many of the Ukrainians he photographed.
“Skateboarding can be very tough sometimes,” he said. “You can break your legs, your ankles. You can get injured. You learn how to suffer and stand up and do it again.
“This mentality helps them go through this war. They have suffered. They lost people. They had to leave their homes. But they are still standing because of this mentality: ‘I will stand again.’ ”