A few years ago, a series of photos by the French photographer Guillaume Herbaut were widely posted on blogs and feminist news-sites on the internet.
In the photos, a group of young women pose with swords, hatchets and nunchaku in the woods of Ukraine. In some of the photos, they are wearing black T-shirts and loose karate-style pants.
In other photos, they are wearing flowing white shirts embroidered with flowers, a traditional Ukrainian outfit. The captions described these women as new Amazons, as in the mythical tribe of warrior women.
The group is run by a woman named Katerina Tarnovska. By day, she is a pre-school gym teacher, leading groups of wiggly four-year-olds in a circle around a gymnasium.
In her spare time, the 34-year-old is the leader of Asgarda, a female martial arts group that claims to be a new tribe of Amazons.
Amazons are the mythical, all-female warriors said to have fought in the Trojan War and worked alongside Alexander the Great. They’re famously said to have cut off their left breasts so they could aim their arrows more accurately.
