WHERE IS OLENA NAUMOVA?

Olena Naumova was kidnapped by Russian invaders around noon on 23 August. But her only son, Mykolay learned about the disappearance of his mother next day from his relatives.

Olena Naumova was kidnapped by Russian invaders around noon on 23 August. But her only son, Mykolay, who has been living abroad for a long time, learned about the disappearance of his mother only next day from his relatives. A 57-year-old resident of Kherson lived alone in a private house on Serov Street. Mykolay shared the disturbing news with the Facebook users. His request to find his mother was reposted more than 10 thousand times in 24 hours.

This is how adult Ukrainian users of social networks learned about the Kherson teacher, who has been a phenomenon of the TikTok youth network for a year now.

Olena Naumova works as a teacher-educator. And last year she created a TikTok profile to be closer to her students. At the beginning she posted short poems. Then she mastered the technology of creating playful vines that went viral. Some of them have reached 100,000 views. And all that was in Russian. Almost two months after the start of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Olena did not go online.

And on April 18, after the battles for Kherson, she posted the last vine in Russian. And since May, video jokes have been released only in Ukrainian. Until her kidnapping, the teacher ridiculed the invaders and lifted the spirits not only of her students, but of all the Ukrainian teenagers. She was kidnapped on the eve of Independence Day, on the Day of the Ukrainian flag, without which she could not imagine life in her native city. Where is Olena Naumova now? In the occupying commandant's office of Kherson they have been hiding this for 5 days. They only promise to provide some information on Monday.

The House of Olena Naumova