Russia has damaged the Kharkiv Art Museum: around 1,000 exhibits have been affected
This was reported by Channel 24, citing the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration.
Russia attacked the Kharkiv Art Museum on 14 June.
The strike caused serious damage to the roof, the attic and the top floor of the building. It took around four hours to extinguish the fire that broke out following the attack.
A decision has now been taken to preserve the museum building, which was built in 1914.
What is the status of the building?
The Kharkiv Art Museum is one of Ukraine’s most important art museums.
Its collection housed works of global, national and regional significance.
The museum’s most valuable collections were evacuated in advance back in 2022 and are now in other regions of Ukraine.
How many exhibits were damaged
According to preliminary data, around 1,000 items have been damaged.
Oleksandr Kostin, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and Tourism at the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, reported that most of them were damaged due to waterlogging.
Soviet-era graphic art suffered the most damage.
The evacuation of exhibits from the museum has already begun.
Works of art of global, national and regional significance are being removed first. Other museum items are to be evacuated at a later date.
What has been lost or damaged
The exact extent of the damage to the exhibits is to be determined by conservators.
It is known, however, that the attack damaged the frame that previously held Ilya Repin’s famous painting ‘The Zaporozhian Cossacks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan’.
The painting itself had been evacuated beforehand.
A project has already been developed in Kharkiv to provide a shelter for storing museum exhibits without having to remove them from the region.
The cost of such a facility is estimated at approximately 200 million hryvnias. The project has already been approved by experts.
The Russian strike on the Kharkiv Art Museum was yet another attack on Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
The damage to the museum building and hundreds of exhibits requires documentation, conservation, expert assessment, emergency repairs and subsequent restoration.
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