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Ukrainecast

Christmas special: Ukrainian bedtime stories

Ukrainecast

BBC

News Commentary, News

4.71K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We revisit the bedtime story programme for children separated from loved ones because of the war in Ukraine.

We speak to Maryna, who is living in The Netherlands with her daughter, while her parents are still in Kyiv. They explain how important it is to hear family voices reading traditional Ukrainian stories.

Today’s episode is presented by Victoria Derbyshire and Vitaly Shevchenko. The producers were Arsenii Sokolov, Clare Williamson and Ivana Davidovic. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The series producer is Lucy Boast. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham. Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480

You can join the Ukrainecast discussion on Newscast’s Discord server here: tinyurl.com/ukrainecastdiscord

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:04.6

Hello, it's 670 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

0:10.4

And today we have a special episode for you because it's Christmas.

0:15.0

You may remember the very emotional episode we had nearly a year ago where we featured Lelabopovich of the Better Time Stories, which is a company that provides

0:27.4

bedtime stories for children. Sometimes read by their dads, serving in the front line but also by grandparents who remain in Ukraine

0:37.6

and want to be able to connect with and speak in Ukrainian to their grandchildren,

0:43.2

he could be anywhere in the world.

0:45.8

We spoke to Mum Allah and her daughter Olivia

0:50.0

about how they used the stories.

0:52.8

Every evening before sleep, Olivia

0:56.6

listened his voice and this stories.

1:01.2

Mabelle left a bit of my kotabub. It's a good effect. It's a good job, but what's more about it's about it's about

1:06.0

a minute?

1:07.0

It's a good thing for the kids to the kids' kids'

1:09.0

as a whole thing about.

1:10.0

It's a good effect, and not only for my daughter also and for me because it's give me quite safe

1:21.2

facility and I sleep better when I hear his voice.

1:26.0

Because I've been here in the past,

1:28.0

but also had a robot,

1:30.0

when we're going to sleep apier,

1:32.0

and we'll be pre-exchast with soo. Because you know, before war start he read a book for me,

1:33.0

because you know, before war start,

...

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