As Ukraine sinks in war , the staff and volunteers , in the race to save the country’s heritage, use improvised cardboard and wooden boxes to store medieval items
KIEV — Lviv was considered the “cultural capital” of Ukraine. Now, the walls at the National Museum in the city are empty. Amid Russia’s military invasion of the country, employees of cultural institutions and volunteers race against time to try to save historical items preserved in the region.
Today we see how Russia is bombing residential areas and even people who are fleeing. They assured us they wouldn’t (they would) but now we can’t trust them. And we need to take care of our heritage because this is our national treasure,” the director of the National Museum in Lviv, Ihor Kozhan, told CNN.
The war has already hit a museum in Ivankiv, in the Kiev region. The site housed around 25 works by Maria Prymachenko (1908 – 1997), one of the most famous painters in the country, admired by artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall.
Lviv’s Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the museum houses the country’s most complete collection of medieval religious art, as well as rare religious manuscripts. According to CNN, there is no time to wait for material to arrive for storage. Therefore, books, paintings and other artifacts are being placed in improvised packaging.
This week, even cardboard boxes intended for transporting bananas to supermarkets were used. A thousand-year-old bible, adorned in gold, was one of the objects kept in this way.
In religious places the possible destruction also causes fear. Lviv Armenian Cathedral has stored a medieval wooden sculpture depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In the Latin Cathedral, a construction that survived the Second World War, there are huge stained glass windows covered with steel plates. All over the city, there are statues wrapped in bubble wrap.
Even fearing the worst, Lviv’s assets are apparently safer than places like Kiev and Kharkiv, which have been the target of more intense action by Russian troops. Therefore, there are plans for the city to receive — if possible and necessary — articles from other regions.
“We are ready to help in any way we can, for all the museums in the country now in danger,” Kozhan said.
