From theater actor to warrior. He went to war immediately after a theater rehearsal

The story of a theater and film actor who has been fighting at war from day one

Anton Zakharchuk, a native of Kyiv, graduated from the Kyiv Institute of Circus and Variety Arts (currently an academy). Then he encountered a job posting from the Mukachevo Drama Theater, looking for an actor. He left the capital city and moved to live and work in Mukachevo, a town in Transcarpathia. So, Anton has been an actor since 2020. He has starred in movies, played roles in drama productions, and also in children's performances staged at the Mukachevo Theater. Anton currently recalls them as something very bright. He says he loves young viewers - they are special.

PROVINCIAL DOES NOT MEAN POOR

I am asking Mr. Zakharchuk if he has ever been drawn from a provincial town to the theatrical stage in Kyiv.

- No, I have always had enough work there. Before Mukachevo, I worked at the Golden Gate Theater in Kyiv. Not as an actor, but as part of the production team. And there [in Mukachevo] I had the opportunity to play on the stage - that's why I made this choice. I love the stage very much. Well, provincial theater… This does not mean poor, it's stereotyping. You have to play well, and the result will come.

THE MOST IMPORTANT ROLE

Every time he is on vacation, Anton Zakharchuk comes to the theater. Here we meet in the lobby, go into the seating area. The run of "The Milkman" is in progress. Anton Zakharchuk goes to his native theater stage, hugs everyone - the actors, the director, the technical team.

The play Milkman was staged when Zakharchuk had already gone into war, so it is a novelty for him. The soldier sits in the audience hall for some time, watching the process. Thin, with big eyes and a large earring in his left ear, he resembles a Cossack. For completeness of the image, only a smoking pipe and a wide-sleeved tunic are missing. After a while, we leave the auditorium so as not to disturb the rehearsal and continue recording the conversation. Being an observer, I have a strange feeling: my interviewee does not seem to have a main role and is not involved in the play at all, but the impression is that he is the main actor here now. Judging by the reaction of those present, it is clear that everyone feels it too.

Actually, it is easy to explain such a paradox: Anton Zakharchuk is now playing his most important role – he has been defending the country on the battlefield for the third year now, so that the actors, his former colleagues far from the frontline, can, in particular, once again drive the play before the show… Of course, no one says such things – these are the things that are usually kept quiet about. But these are also things feelings about which cannot be confused with anything.

WHEN AT THE MILITARY COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE, HE ASKED: HOW CAN I BE HELPFUL?

- Anton, you have been at war since 2022. Did you join military ranks immediately after the invasion began, or sometime later?

- From day one. From the very first day, - Zakharchuk repeats, taking a drag.

He smokes a lot. He never stops taking out cigarettes from their pack and lighting them one after the other. Back then, Anton recalls, everyone was going into the army.

- I just visited a military commissioner's office and asked how I could be helpful in this situation. There was such a natural feeling that a big trouble had happened and now I just had to help. To do my part. We had a rehearsal scheduled for February 24, 2022. Despite the circumstances, everyone came together. Needless to say, the rehearsal didn't go well, everyone was confused, no one knew what to do. That's when I realized that this meeting in the theater would end, I would go home to gather my belongings and leave right away for a military registration and enlistment office.

Anton Zakharchuk says he did so just in time before long queues began to line up, as they did only on the second day of war. People were arriving by the hundreds, the enlistment officers had difficulty dealing with that heavy influx of men.

- How did your combat career begin? Were you just immediately assigned to some unit and you went off right away?

- No, we had two more weeks of training there. I was assigned to serve with the Mukachevo Territorial Defense Forces (TRO), which were then being organized. Well, actually, all these years I have been fighting in the defense of the country, I just transferred from the Transcarpathian Brigade to Ivano-Frankivsk at some point. I joke that, in fact, I left not far away - they are neighbors. Besides, the Transcarpathian TRO is the 101st brigade, and the Ivano-Frankivsk one is the 102nd. Only one number has changed, - Anton Zakharchuk is joking.

THREE MY BROTHERS AND A SISTER ARE SERVING IN THE MILITARY

I know that Anton comes from a large family with 12 siblings. As it turns out, four of them are currently serving in the army, among them his two younger brothers and a sister, in addition to Anton himself.

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- My brother and I have been in the war from the very beginning, he is an artillery man like me too. We called him on the first day, I asked: "What are you going to do?" He says: "I'm at the military registration and enlistment office." I say: "Then I will be there too." Afterwards a sister of mine went into the army. She volunteered to serve, just like I did. She is a paramedic. And recently, another brother of mine joined the military. He is currently studying, in a specialty related to aviation.

Everyone made the decision independently, Anton Zakharchuk says. The problem is that they can't meet during vacations - everyone has them at different times.

- But when the opportunity arises, we cross paths no matter what. This happens when there is an opportunity to go away from the frontline for a day or half a day.

- Your mom, I'm sure, is very proud of you all, but I can’t imagine how she is feeling...

- Of course, she is worried. But she always supports our decisions. Our mother is the holder of two Mother Heroine medals. To reassure her, we constantly text or call her, saying, "I'm fine." We take care, we have to take care of ourselves. For her too.

THE ARMY IS A STAGE, AND EVERYONE IN IT IS AN ACTOR

I asked Anton what has as a person of theater feels about the reality of war.

- It's like a lengthy movie, only without rehearsals and breaks. No one gives you the text, and you don ‘t know the script either.

In the army, theater and film actor Zakharchuk holds the position of a mortar gunner. He is an ordinary soldier. He serves as a gunner in a team of four. Anton's call sign is appropriate – the Actor. He says that he has met lots of colleagues in the army, and the vast majority of them have the same call sign. The army is a stage, and everyone in it is an actor. We are laughing.

Besides, I'm interested to know how the army treats him, a person of a creative profession.

- We have a nice team. Everyone joined to do one job, so everyone is treated equally. It doesn’t matter whether you are an actor or a representative of some other profession. Do your job, and do it well – that’s all. By the way, when in the army, I noticed that the vast majority of actors who went to serve, and people of other creative professions have a craving for artillery. It’s hard to explain, but it’s a fact. I’ll say it in the words of a national “hero”: probably, people who are used to working with sound and special effects “like the way it burns”. After all, this is what we love, Anton Zakharchuk says, smiling.

He says it's nice to meet colleagues on the roads of war.

- It's a kind of kinship - people from your field. You speak to someone somewhere, one acquaintance is here, another one is there, someone filmed me once, I worked with that one... Once we did the same job - only in different stages, and now we are doing the same job too - only in different units.

Anton Zakharchuk is currently fighting in the Zaporizhzhia sector of the frontline.

- We provide coverage for the infantry. The infantry is providing cove rage for us. That's how it goes.

LIFE IN THE MILITARY IS LIKE AN ENDLESS "GROUNDHOG DAY"

- Considering that you have quite a long experience fighting at war, how do you calculate your strength?

- Now the service is perceived as a job. A routine. You get up in the morning, drink some coffee, scroll through the news feed in social networks, then you lace up your army boots and wait for orders. And so the days go by. It's like an endless Groundhog Day. And at the very beginning, the feelings were wholly different. It was like an elation of some kind, a feeling that you are involved in something great, that you are stopping the evil coming to your land.

He says that fatigue, both physical and mental, is really intense and persistent.

- It's a good thing that sometimes there is an opportunity to rest on the way. But it's hard - you constantly feel tensed up, on alert, because strikes with artillery and drones never stop, because assaults may begin at any time... That being said, however, explosions are almost no longer disturbing: you have got accustomed to these sounds. It’s like background noise. We have learned to distinguish between the sounds of our shells flying against the enemy and enemy shells flying against us. We and the enemies are both operating guided by the same military text-books...

Anton says that in a protracted war, in situations like ours, the one who survives is the one who doesn't expect anything. Neither bad nor good - just does his job.

- I chose this option. That's how I am living and fighting. I know that this all will continue until we stop the enemy.

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I WANT TO RETURN TO THE STAGE, BUT NOT TO PLAY MILITARY MEN

Anton Zakharchuk says that the enemy should not be feared, but should not be underestimated either.

- These are the men who came here and wish evil to me, to my family, friends, my cities, my land. They are men just like we are, but bad ones. We should not underestimate them. They wish me evil, and I must stop this evil. We in the army are a kind of living shield between our people and the enemy.

- Do you have enough strength to be this shield?

- We will fight as long as there is strength. For now, strength is there. What helps? The fact that I am waited for -- by family, friends. The knowing that there is a city to which I want to return. I want everything to remain there as it was before my departure. I really want people not to leave... These thoughts hold me up.

- Have you ever thought about what role you would like to play in the theater - when the opportunity finally arises to take off your military uniform and return to the stage?

- I want much to go on stage. Really much. My colleagues once joked saying I will play military men when I’m back in the stage again. But I don’t want to play military men. It will hurt for a very long time to come.

Tetyana Kohutych, Mukachevo

Photo via the Author and from Anton Zakharevych’s personal archive