AMID the missiles and suffering of life on Ukraine’s front line, there is a nighttime venue that refuses to succumb.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, the Flash Dancers strip club remains vibrant – providing a temporary respite for the beleaguered residents.
Flash Dancers is a female-owned enterprise that welcomes guests each night, defying the 11pm curfew.
It offers exclusive, exotic entertainment to anyone who pays.
Prostitution is illegal in Ukraine, so strip clubs find themselves in legal grey area.
But the law was lightly applied before the war – and now the authorities seem to accept that momentary indulgence can be tolerated.
Valeriya Zavadskaya, the club’s co-owner, told Business Insider in 2023: “Our goal is to be a switch from what is happening.”
Her mother, a former professional Soviet dancer, opened the club a decade ago.
The dancers arrive in the afternoon to practice their routines.
By night time, they’re dressed to the nines in ornate burlesque outfits to entertain their clients.
The club is dimly lit in soft red glow as the doors swing open to welcome customers.
There are never more than 20 in a night – and sometimes no one shows up.
More than a million residents have fled Kharkiv since war broke out, meaning fewer people are looking for entertainment.
Drinks have also tripled in price since before fighting began.
While the club is a haven for both staff and punters, the signs of war are inescapable.
The windows on the three floors above the club are boarded up after an explosion in the city centre shattered every pane on the block.
And Flash Dancers is underground, so it doubles up as an air-raid shelter.
When the sirens sound, people scurry down to wait out rocket strikes in the red-leather booths surrounding the dance pole.
But despite it all – the doors of Flash Dancers remain open.
Valeriya says: “It’s something you can’t say with words, but can tell with your body.”
Her founder mother Valeriia Kseniya now has a day job too as director of a small hotel.
She told Business Insider: “For most of us in Ukraine today, it’s difficult to earn a living in just one job.”
In 2014, she heard of a city-centre strip club closing down – and recognised her opportunity to bring her love of dance to the city she called home.
With dreams of a modern-day Moulin Rouge, she hired a handful of women who could dance, and began crafting her vision.
She says: “Everyone initially thought it was a club with happy endings.
“Our position is that girls are not meat. Girls are about aesthetics, about femininity, about beauty.”
