As we all know, there is an ongoing refugee crisis that began in Europe in late February after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Almost 5.1 million refugees have since left Ukraine (as of 20 April 2022). Approximately one-quarter of the country's total population had left their homes in Ukraine by 20 March; 90% of the refugees are women and children. According to UNICEF, by 24 March 2022, more than half of all children in Ukraine (7.5 million) had been forced to leave their homes, of whom approximately 1.8 million had left Ukraine.
[data sources: The UN Refugee Agency and Wikipedia]

Many European countries have been welcoming and offering support to refugees. The EU has granted Ukrainians who flee the war a blanket right to stay and work throughout its 27 member nations for up to three years. Refugees will also receive social welfare and access to housing, medical treatment and schools.

I strongly believe the planetarium community should be part of this humanitarian effort to help. This is why I – as the director of the Fulldome Database – reached out to fulldome producers and asked them to make Ukrainian audio tracks of their fulldome shows available for free to the whole planetarium community to allow any planetarium to easily offer programs to the refugees in the Ukrainian language.

The response has been gratifying! Below is the list of the shows whose audio tracks are available in Ukrainian:

• 3-2-1 Liftoff!
• The Universe in a Room: The Story of the Planetarium
• Beyond the Sun
• Astronaut
• Cell! Cell! Cell!
• We Are Aliens
• We Are Stars
• We Are Astronomers
• VOYAGER: the Never-Ending Journey
• Polaris, the Space Submarine and the Mystery of the Polar Night
• Lucia, the Secret of Shooting Stars
• Cocomong: A Space Adventure
• Dancing Among the Stars
• Khrumka and the Magic Rocket
• Our Violent Planet
• The Great Undersea Adventure of Barney and Beenie
• Kaluoka’hina – The Enchanted Reef
• From Earth to the Universe
• The Dark Matter Mystery - Exploring a Cosmic Secret
• The Sun, Our Living Star
• Distant Worlds – Alien Life?
• Mayan Archaeoastronomy: Observers of the Universe

We'll update the list as soon as new shows are added. If you are a producer willing to share the Ukrainian translation of your show(s), please connect with us.

The materials are made available through a repository on Google Drive we created and made freely available without needing to fill out any web form or anything else that would complicate the process. We want it to be a 'grab-and-use-it' process.

This initiative couldn’t have been made without the support of our friends at Front Pictures. Of course, the support of each of the other fulldome producers was key too – first of all, the team and management of the Kyiv Planetarium who approved and supported this initiative while their city was under attack.

The Fulldome Database is a neutral and independent organization but this doesn't mean we don't have our own opinions and ethics: we are strongly against war. Any war!