Ukraine's biggest art museum races to save its works

Works are carefully packaged and taken to safe locations. Officials at the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv fear that an advance in Russian attacks could destroy the historic and artistic heritage. Ukraine to save historic items from destruction.

The director of the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum, Ukraine’s largest art museum, roams the halls of the building supervising the staff guarding the collections to protect the national heritage should the Russian invasion advance westward.

In a partially empty gallery, employees place carefully wrapped baroque pieces in cardboard boxes. A few meters away, a group descends the museum’s majestic main staircase carrying a gigantic work of sacred art, the 18th-century Bohorodchany iconostasis.

“Sometimes tears come because so much work has been put in here. It takes time, energy. You are doing something good, you feel satisfied. And so today, you see empty walls, it looks bitter, sad. We didn’t believe until the last minute that this could happen,” said the museum’s director general, Ihor Kozhan.

The doors of the institution, located in the city of Lviv, close to the Polish border, have been closed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. Historic sites across the country are in jeopardy as fighting continues.

Korzhan said he receives daily calls from other European cultural institutions offering help as he and his team race to preserve the museum’s works.

Future of the works is uncertain

Anna Naurobska, head of the museum’s manuscripts and rare books department, still doesn’t know where to safely store the collection of more than 12,000 items, which were packed in boxes.

“This is our story. This is our life. It’s very important for us,” said Naurobska.

She enters another room and lifts an enormous volume. Tears form in her eyes: “It’s a Russian book,” she says, putting it back on the shelf. “I’m so angry,” she declares.

Like the museum, other sites in Lviv are racing to protect works of artistic and cultural importance. The windows of the Museum of the History of Religion are almost empty. Workers set up metal containers in the yard to safely store the remaining items before placing them in the basements.

In the Latin Cathedral, the sculptures were covered with cardboard, foam and plastic in the hope of protecting them from possible shrapnel.

Amid the empty walls and shrouded statues, Kozhan laments the plight of the museum, which has survived two world wars.

“Museum has to live. People have to be there, and first of all the children. They have to learn the basics of their culture”, he is moved.

le (AP)