A woman from Lviv who raises funds to save her country’s heritage

As international institutions gather to salvage tons of material from collections in Ukraine’s major museums, a woman in Lviv is setting up a protection network for museum professionals who have remained in the bombed-out area to protect cultural property. Olga Honchari is the director of the Museum of Terror, which commemorates the Ukrainian population during World War II. And on March 3, a few days after Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, he set up a museum crisis center that received a donation of more than 30,000 euros in almost four weeks of existence. From this amount, he tells the newspaper, they have already transferred 16,000 euros to the accounts of museum workers in nine regions besieged by the Russian army with the help of the non-governmental organization Insha Osvita.

“For the most part, this amount is not intended to cover institutional costs, but for the basic needs of the people on the museum team, who have decided to stay in the cities to continue their functions. Due to occupation, lack of communication and military operations, some regions do not receive salaries, so our project “Museum Ambulance” allows sending money with minimal bureaucracy. “More than 250 people received financial assistance from our center,” Olga Honchari explained to the newspaper.

For the time being, says the person in charge, it is crucial to support the museum teams, because in the future the reconstruction will be carried out by these very people. They coordinate the immediate and immediate assistance of museum workers to areas destroyed by the Russian invasion. They also carry food, water and medicine. The aim of their action is to save these people from the war so that they can rebuild the destroyed museums. They monitor their needs, raise funds and carry out personal humanitarian transfers. They are an alternative to the war-torn Ukrainian bureaucratic system. Everything has exploded and this group of citizens is sending money to people who need it.

Ო Mutual trust

Transparency is essential to show donors that their help is coming. But also so that those in danger trust their work. They were afraid to acknowledge what they had in the museum collections because they did not trust the purpose of collecting this information. For this reason, they are working to support the Ivano-Frankivsk Voluntary Aid Network within Ukraine, with a network of direct and close contacts in small museums.

They met with the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, which explained that they are committed to saving the objects of large national collections of libraries, archives and museums. These are goods of “cultural value” (over 50 years old) under Ukrainian law. They can not offer assistance to the small state museums under their jurisdiction.

Honchar and his people are dedicated to the local heritage. Part of your project units endanger the evacuation of the estate. These are works in artists’ studios, private collections and local art centers. Although they acknowledge that there are areas where they can no longer operate, such as Mariupol, where they have been denied assistance. They have volunteer bus drivers assisting in the evacuation of construction sites, but routes on the roads are becoming more difficult on a daily basis. This is a new world for everyone.

Aid Society

“Currently we have 15 people working in the crisis center of the museum. “They have different backgrounds: accountants, cultural managers, museologists, artists and curators from different cities and countries,” said Olga Honchar from her office. There are people in Lviv, Frankivsk, Uzhgorod, as well as Germany and Poland. They are also assisted by Ukrainian artists in other countries who run charity events. On April 2, in Amsterdam, artists Sofia Bulgakova and Nikolai Karabinovich will arrange in support of the Museum Crisis Center.

Olga Honchar’s experience at the Lviv Museum, which she heads, helped her cope with this time. “We have taken a number of measures to ensure the security of the Terror Museum area. “The main value of our collection is more than 400 oral interviews with people with repressive experiences, as well as documents and personal files,” said the specialist. On the second day of the invasion, they started to protect all the materials, pack the goods and hide them in accordance with the protection protocol. “Now we are cooperating with international funds to strengthen the security of the museum. “We have to buy packaging materials, boxes, fire extinguishers or security systems,” Honchar added.

Since March 3, when a Ukrainian museologist wrote on his Facebook page: “Let’s think about how to help the survivors in Ukraine”, they managed to take care of the museum professionals, from whom they saved and stored more than 400 items. These are regional museums from different fields such as local history, history, literature, art and memory. An art and identity that avoids large lists of World Heritage sites.