beautiful Kul Sharif Mosque
located within Kazan's Kremlin/historical citadel.
located within Kazan's Kremlin/historical citadel.
UNESCO is the United Nations agency overseeing cultural heritage sites across the world. In 2019, Russia was elected to the committee for a term. At the last World Heritage Committee’s summit in 2021, the Russian Federation was selected to host the 2022 conference, in Kazan.
The Spasskaya Tower is the main entrance to Kazan's best attraction: its Kremlin. It's located on the land side, just behind the Musa Jalil monument. The whitewashed main tower, with a clock in the middle, provides entrance to the whole Kremlin via the arched pedestrian access, and inside is a fine looking Kul Sharif Mosque. A perfect choice!
But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UNESCO faced pressure from European groups to relocate the meeting scheduled for Kazan which was to run from 19-30th June. So could the location of the 2022 meeting be changed, asked members of the Committee composed of 21 member states elected from the 194 countries.
In early March, as the Russian-Ukrainian war worsened, UNESCO was already anxious about threats to cultural heritage sites across Ukraine. UNESCO has already reported the sites that have been damaged: 29 religious sites, 16 historic buildings, 4 museums and 4 monuments
So UNESCO questioned Ukrainian museum officials re safeguarding cultural property at risk. To track the threats to Ukraine’s cultural heritage, UNESCO worked with Artists at Risk, a global non-profit that aided artists in conflict zones. However what was ironic was that Ukraine called for the next World Heritage Committee meeting to be moved to Lviv in Western Ukraine. I would not risk a war zone!
Lviv is marked in green
UNESCO asked Ukrainian powers to mark cultural sites and monuments with the distinctive Blue Shield emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property. This Convention, which Russia and Ukraine both signed, was to protect cultural properties from deliberate or accidental damages during armed conflict!
Before the current war Ukraine already had 7 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including Lviv’s Historic City Centre, Kyiv’s Saint-Sophia Cathedral and Kyiv’s Pechersk Lavra Monastery. These were seen as a priority, as was Chernihiv’s historic centre which was waiting for world heritage status before the war started.
The UN agency confirmed that 53 historical sites, religious buildings and museums were damaged during the war. The agency specified the crimes: destroying a local history museum in Kyiv, bombing a Mariupol theatre and damaging a Holocaust memorial in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. The mayor of Chernihiv accused Russian forces of intensifying their bombardment of his city. For my family the most important damaged site was Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre in Kyiv, where thousands of Ukrainian Jews were exterminated by the Nazis & their Ukrainian collaborators.
Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, Yasnohorodka near Kyiv
destroyed by heavy-calibre machine gun. BBC
destroyed by heavy-calibre machine gun. BBC
Some cultural buildings will be rebuilt after the war, while others were totally destroyed. UNESCO experts will continue to verify each report and will add other sites to this list if bombing continues. Later UNESCO will meet Ukrainian cultural professionals, World Heritage Site managers and museum directors, to determine what aid is needed.
Mariupol Theatre, before and after being bombed
9News
9News
A UNESCO rep told Art Newspaper that there were no plans in place to relocate the session from Kazan. So 30+ cultural heritage academics & professionals sent a letter to UNESCO, urging them to change its deplorable plan for the World Heritage Committee. Read the UNESCO page to see that UNESCO has indeed opted to postpone the event indefinitely.
Art critic Waldemar Januszczak recently visited Ukraine to discover how the national art was being saved from Russian bombs. It started at a London meeting of 10 of Poland’s most important museum directors. Januszczak asked the Polish directors if they knew what was happening to Ukraine’s art and to Lviv’s museums. Weeks earlier, the director of the National Museum in Poznan had driven a truck to Ukraine, to help the Ukrainians by hiding their art.
When Januszczak was driven to Lviv, giant billboards constantly loomed up, emblazoned with stirring mottos: “Be ready to join the army and save Ukraine”. Lviv is a beautiful cobbled, gothic city, the architecture having a unique appeal. He visited the Lviv National Art Gallery, the largest museum in Ukraine, because many of the nation’s important art treasures had been sent there for safekeeping.
When Januszczak was driven to Lviv, giant billboards constantly loomed up, emblazoned with stirring mottos: “Be ready to join the army and save Ukraine”. Lviv is a beautiful cobbled, gothic city, the architecture having a unique appeal. He visited the Lviv National Art Gallery, the largest museum in Ukraine, because many of the nation’s important art treasures had been sent there for safekeeping.
Taking art works into secure hiding places
robbreport
The Director was annoyed that Westerners forgot that the war with the Russians started in 2014 in Crimea - the present war was just another episode. So Ukraine had plenty of time to prepare plans for ensuring the safety of its national art. Yes, many of the art treasures from Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro came to Lviv. But was there more art still waiting?
The stained glass of Lviv’s cathedral was wrapped in shiny protective sheets, as were the statues outside the church. Lviv’s magnificent opera house became a poster site for heroic imagery because, in times of war, art matters more.
The director drove Januszczak out of Lviv to a a disused monastery where the museum kept some of its art. He arrived at a crumbling building surrounded by a high wall and they marched him through many corridors jam-packed with thousands of icons and baroque church sculptures, thrown away by Soviet soldiers in Ukraine in 1939!
The Director was annoyed that Westerners forgot that the war with the Russians started in 2014 in Crimea - the present war was just another episode. So Ukraine had plenty of time to prepare plans for ensuring the safety of its national art. Yes, many of the art treasures from Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro came to Lviv. But was there more art still waiting?
The stained glass of Lviv’s cathedral was wrapped in shiny protective sheets, as were the statues outside the church. Lviv’s magnificent opera house became a poster site for heroic imagery because, in times of war, art matters more.
The director drove Januszczak out of Lviv to a a disused monastery where the museum kept some of its art. He arrived at a crumbling building surrounded by a high wall and they marched him through many corridors jam-packed with thousands of icons and baroque church sculptures, thrown away by Soviet soldiers in Ukraine in 1939!